FARNHAM HUNDRED 



Preston to Farnham Church 1713.' There is a 

 silver flagon, the date of which is obliterated, but 

 probably of 171 2. "» 



There are a great many sixteenth, seventeenth 

 and eighteenth century monuments in the church. 

 In the north chapel is a black incised slab to Andrew 

 Windsor 1620, and numerous seventeenth and 

 eighteenth century monuments of the Vernon 

 family, who lived in Vernon House, Farnham. 

 Some Vernon monuments are also in the chancel. 

 In the south chapel is a brass to Benedict Jay and 

 Elizabeth his wife, with the figures of six children. 

 He lived at Waverley, and died in 1586 ; also there 

 V) a brass to Sibbila Birde, who died in 1 597, with 

 figures of five children. There is a monument by 

 Westmacott to Sir Nelson Rycroft, who died in 

 1827. The eight bells bear the following inscrip- 

 tions : 1st, R. Phelps, London, fecit 1723, Deus 

 laudetur in cymbalis bene sonantibus ; 2nd, R. 

 Phelps fecit 1723, Deus benedicat fundatoribus 

 meis ; 3rd, Richard Phelps made me 1723 ; 4th, 

 Richard Phelps made me 1723 ; 5 th, T. Mears 

 of London fecit 1820 ; 6th, R. Phelps Londini 

 fecit 1735 ; 7th, R. Phelps Londini fecit 1723 ; 

 8th, T. Mears of London fecit 1830. The last 

 two have also the names of the Vicars, James Ford 

 and Henry Warren, and of the churchwardens. 

 The registers date from 1539, but the earlier part 

 has been rewritten. 



THE CHURCH OF ST. JAMES, in the 

 London road, was built in 1876, and is a chapel of 

 ease to the parish church. It is a lofty building 



FARNHAM 



faced with the iron sandstone of the district, with 

 hewn stone coigns. It consists of a chancel, nave, 

 and south aisle, separated from the nave by five 

 pointed arches, and a short south transept. There 

 is a handsome marble and alabaster font, of old 

 form copied from some early fonts in the neigh- 

 bourhood, a cube resting on a round pillar with 

 four corner shafts. 



There is a Roman Catholic chapel of St. Polycarp 

 in Park Lane, and there are Congregational, Wes- 

 leyan, Primitive Methodist, Baptist and Reformed 

 Church of England chapels. 



There existed a Chantry in Farnham ; no doubt 

 the chapel at tlie north-west angle of the church 

 was the chantry chapel, of uncertain date of foun- 

 dation. Edward VI. granted to John White of 

 London, grocer, and Stephen Kyrton, merchant 

 of the Staple of Calais,i8o the late chantry called 

 Farnham Chantry, and property in Farnham, 

 Rundal, Wrecclesham and Compton (West Comp- 

 ton), and 4^. a year rent of a messuage in Godal- 

 ming. The grant reserved the bells and lead, 

 whereby it is clear that there was a chantry chapel, 

 not merely the service at an altar in the church.'si 

 This building was preserved to form the school. It 

 is probably not the same as the chantry of Farnham 

 Castle, founded in 1 351, for that was differently en- 

 dowed with a rent from Southwark, and three acres 

 of land, a messuage and eight marks of rent in Farn- 

 ham. 'S' The former chantry, it would appear, 

 provided the building, the latter, perhaps, the 

 endowment of the school. 



FARNHAM CASTLE 



The nucleus of the castle is a great motte or 

 earthen mound enclosed on the north and east by 

 a bank virith inner and outer ditches, which from 

 their levels must always have been dry. To the 

 west and south the steep fall of the ground made 

 any earthwork defences unnecessary. There is no 

 mention of a castle here in Domesday, but the 

 earthworks must belong to the days of Bishop 

 Walkelin (1070-98) or his immediate successors. 



The oldest masonry to be seen is the work of 

 Bishop Henry of Blois, 1129-1171. He built a 

 shell keep round the motte, following its rather 

 irregular outline, with an entrance tower to the 

 soudi-east, and added on the south side a large 

 triangular block of building enclosing a courtyard, 

 the northern apex of the triangle being formed by 

 the motte. The outer walls of this block are 

 massive, but the whole building is rather of a 

 domestic than military character, strong enough to 

 resist an attack, but not primarily a fortress. It is 

 probable that a masonry wall was at this time (if 

 not earlier) built to enclose the whole area of the 



castle, but whether any part of the existing wall is 

 as old as the twelfth century it is impossible to say. 

 It has been breached and rebuilt and patched at so 

 many times that it has lost any decisive character, 

 but parts of it are at any rate as old as the fifteenth 

 century. There is some evidence from old plans that 

 the area of the castle was divided into inner and 

 outer courts by walls running east and west at a 

 point a little south of the keep ; the foundations 

 are in the ground still, and have been cut by 

 drainage works. 



Bishop Henry's keep, though, as has been said, 

 following the irregular outline of the motte, is of 

 fairly symmetrical design, being a polygon of 

 23 sides, every fourth side projecting to form, in 

 four cases, broad and shallow buttresses,' and in a 

 fifth the gateway tower. The sixth projection de- 

 manded by this scheme would have coincided with 

 the junction with the keep of the west wing of the 

 triangular block of building, and may have been 

 omitted for that reason. As will be seen from 

 the plan, this arrangement leaves three sides of 



'™ Manning and Bray {Hiit. of 

 Surr. Hi. ij8) say that Mr. Thomas 

 Preston gave a silver flagon and a silver 

 salver for the use of the Communion. 



180 See in manor of Pitfoid. 

 >8i Pat. 2 Edw. VI. pt. 6, m. 6 and 7. 

 '92 Pat. 25 Edvir. III. pt. 3, m. 1 1 ; 

 Pat, 35 Edw. III. pt. 2, m. 19 and 21. 



599 



1 From Buck's view it appears that 

 these buttresses were carried up, at 

 some date, to form small towers or tur- 

 rets above the wall. 



