BLACKHEATH HUNDRED
��Novembris Anno dffl Millmo CCCC xl ' cuiO ai5 ppiciet' de* ame :
There is also a small brass on the north wall, framed into a tablet, commemorating Henry Wicks, a servant of Queen Elizabeth, King James, and King Charles (1657) ; and monuments to Elizabeth Merrye, 1652, Edith Duncombe, daughter of John Carrill, late of Tangley, 1628 (south wall), and others to the Dun- combe, Risbridger, and other local families of the iyth and i8th centuries. These are all of good design, according to their periods, and of rich mate- rials ; alabaster and black and white marble being employed, and the heraldry coloured and gilt.
Of the new church all that need be said is that it is in brick, and modelled upon the church of Than, near Caen, in Normandy, that it is transeptal, with an apsidal chapel, added by the late Duke of Northum- berland, and has a tower at the north-west angle. There is much stained glass, including a memorial window to Mr. Drummond, painted by Lady Gage ; and the font, probably of early 12th-century date, was removed here from the old church.
The registers date from 1559.
The plate includes a silver cup, paten cover, flagon, and silver alms-bason, of 1714, the last-named in-
��ALFOLD
scribed : ' The gift of Heneage, Lord Guernsey [Master of the Jewell House] to the Parish of Albury the place of his birth, 1714..'
The bells, brought from the old church, are six in number, and, with the exception of the treble, which was added in 1841, they date from 1695, and bear the name of William Eldridge.
Albury Church is mentioned in
JDrOffSON the Domesday Survey of the manor.
The advowson was and is vested in
the lord of Albury Manor. The living was valued
at 12 in 1291," and at 18 in 1535."
The charities are numerous ; in CHARITIES addition to the usual Smith's Charity, an annuity of l izs., charged on land, was left by Alice Foisted in I 586 for distribution among the poor ; the interest on 400 was left by William Risbridger in 1754 to put poor children to school, to be given in bread, and to provide a sermon, with a gratuity for the poor who listened to it. The Duncombe Charity, for the poor generally, was left in 1705 and 1712 by Olive daughter of John Child of Guildford and widow of Henry Duncombe of Weston, Albury, who died 1688. This was invested in land and produces 200 a year. 56
��ALFOLD
��Alfaude (xiii cent.) ; Aldfbld, Awfold (xvii cent.).
Alfold is a rural parish on the borders of Surrey and Sussex, bounded on the north by Hascombe and Cranleigh, on the east by Cranleigh, on the south by Rudgwick, Wisborough Green, and Kirdford (all in Sussex), on the west by Dunsfold. It measures roughly 2} miles north to south, a little over a mile east to west. It now contains 2,974 acres. The parish formerly extended into Sussex, and inclosed an outlying piece of Albury. In 1880 the Albury part was added to Alfold, 1 and in 1884 the Sussex por- tion was transferred to parishes in the county.* About 150 acres, with ten to fifteen inhabitants only, were added to Sussex, and about 50 acres taken from Albury. The soil is Wealden clay, and grows nothing much except forest trees and oats. There are no wastes in the parish, and the roadside grass is not above 20 acres in all. A great part of the parish is wooded, and it was all formerly in the Wealden Forest ; 917 acres are tithe-free, as ' woodland in the Weald of Surrey and Sussex.' *
In Sydney Wood were glass-houses, of which the only relic is the name Glass House Fields. A glass- house is marked in Speed's map. Aubrey (i7th cen- tury) saw the graves of French glass-makers in the churchyard, but the industry was extinct in his time, so the French were not refugees after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, as stated by Brayley. Char- coal was extensively burnt in the parish for gun- powder works in Dunsfold, Cranleigh, and Sussex.
A road from Guildford to Arundel, made in 1809,' traverses the village. Before this time there was no made road in the parish, and fifty years ago there
��was no other. The disused Wey and Arun Canai passes through the parish.
Alfold Park, which belonged to the manor of Shalford, contained 300 acres. It had ceased to be a park when Speed's map was made, and was not mentioned among twenty-one Surrey parks of the compass of a mile in the proceedings under the Act for the Increase of Horses. 5 It is unknown when it was disparked. The house is, though partly mod- ernized, a good specimen of an old timbered house, formerly with a hall with a louvre over, the chimney being a Tudor addition. There are the remains of a moat round it. The house is now known as Alfold Park Farm. There are also the remains of a moat at Wildwood Farm. The parish was rich in timbered farms and cottages, some of them being now altered, some pulled down.
A Baptist chapel was erected in 1883, and an ele- mentary school in 1876. Sydney Manor is the resi- dence of Mr. George Wyatt, Sachel Court of Mr. Thomas Wharrie.
In the lane leading up to the church, and close to the churchyard gate, the village stocks are still pre- served ; a shed-roof has lately been erected over them.
Besides the ancient tile-hung cottages grouped round this lane, a notable example of the half-timber house, originally built by a substantial yeoman in the early years of the l6th century, remains in Alfold House at the entrance to the village. This was originally constructed entirely from the founda- tion of timber framework, filled with wattle and daub. In plan it was of J-shape with hall (about 23ft. by 1 9 ft.) between offices and living rooms.
��M Popt Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 208. " falor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 29.
- Return to Part. 1786 and present
information.
��1 By Loc. Govt. Bd. Order 10920, 2 Dec.
s Loc. Govt. Bd. Order 16533, 2 4 Mar -
77
��8 Cf. f.C.H.Surr. ii, 613. 4 Stat. 49 Geo. Ill, cap. 12. 6 27 Hen. VIII, cap. 6.
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