REIGATE HUNDRED
��REIGATE
��Brighton line was opened with stations at Battle Bridge and Hooley, the former now disused, the latter a goods siding, north of Earlswood station. In 1 842 the South Eastern line to Dover, which had obtained running powers over the Brighton line as far as a point north of Hooley Station, was carried from what then became Redhill Junction to Dover. Earlswood station was opened at a later date. The districts of Reigate parish called Woodhatch, and Linkfield, the latter including the hamlets of Linkfield Street and Wiggey, and Mead Vale and Earlswood, were those which were immediately affected by the line, and population soon increased in them. In 1 844 there being about 1,200 people in Linkfield and Woodhatch, the ecclesiastical parish of St. John the Evangelist was formed. In 1867 St. Matthew's ecclesiastical parish was formed out of the northern part of St. John's, and the ecclesiastical parish of Holy Trinity was formed in 1907 out of St. Matthew's. The population served by these three churches is nearly 20,000.
The Roman Catholic church, St. Joseph's, was consecrated in 1898, in place of one built in 1860.
St. Paul's Presbyterian Church of England was built in 1902.
The Congregational chapel in Chapel Road was built in 1862 ; the Baptist chapel in London Road in 1864. There are other Baptist chapels in Station Road, Hatchlands Road, and Mead Vale ; two Wes- leyan, and three Primitive Methodist chapels ; and meeting-places for the Plymouth Brethren and Salva- tion Army.
The Reformatory of the Philanthropic Society for Reformation of Juvenile Offenders, founded in St. George's Fields, Southwark, in 1788, and incor- porated in 1 806, was removed to a site at Earlswood in 1849. It consists of five separate houses, each holding sixty boys.
The Royal Asylum of St. Anne, established in Aldersgate in 1702, for the support and education of children of both sexes, was removed in 188410 build- ings close to Redhill Station, which were opened by King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales.
The Earlswood Asylum, the national home for the feeble-minded, was founded on Earlswood Common in 1847. The buildings were opened by the Prince Consort. It was considerably enlarged in 1870 and 1877, and sitered from 1903 to 1906. It accommo- dates 600 patients.
Reigate Union Workhouse is also on Earlswood Common.
On Earlswood Common there is a station on the Brighton line, which serves the southern part of Redhill and the numerous houses springing up towards Horley parish.
Redhill has a Market Hall, built in 1 860 and enlarged in 1891 and 1903. It gives accommodation to the post office, the county court, and several locieties. There is a market every alternate Wednes- day. The Market Field, with a house exclusively for the purpose of a market, is at the back of the Hall.
The Colman Institute was presented to Redhill
��by Sir Jeremiah Colman, bart., of Gatton Park, in 1904. In it the Literary Institution, founded in 1884, now meets. It is in the London Road, and is of red brick and terra cotta.
The County Council Technical Institute is on Redstone Hill.
The top of Redhill Common was taken by the War Office in 1862 for the erection of a fort. This design was never carried out, and in 1884 the Reigate Corporation acquired it for a public park. The Board of Conservators, appointed under the provisions of a private Act, have planted some of the ground, and acquired and improved the sheet of water on Earls- wood Common as a bathing and skating pond.
St. John's (national) school was built in 1846, enlarged 1861 and 1884.
St. Matthew's (national) Boys' School, built in 1872, was enlarged in 1884 ; Girls' and Infants', started in 1866, was rebuilt in 1884.
St. Joseph's (Roman Catholic) School, built in 1 868, was rebuilt in 1902.
The Wesleyan School, Cromwell Road, was opened in 1867.
Frenches Road (Church) School was built in 1903.
St. John's (Infants) School is at Mead Vale. There is also at Battle Bridge a (Church) mixed school.
Reigate was for many centuries a
BOROUGH mesne borough entirely under the
power of the successive lords of the
manor. Apparently the burgesses had no charter
until 1863."
The borough was evidently of little importance before that date. Its extent was inconsiderable as compared with that of the whole parish, and although it con- tained the more thickly-inhabited district round the castle, it is noteworthy that it excluded the old parish church." The Domesday name of the manor, Cherchefelle, suggests that the church was the centre of the original settlement, and that the borough grew up under the walls of the castle, where it is closely clustered. There were only ninety separate tene- ments in it in 1622. Beyond its limits the rest of the parish, known as the ' foreign,' was divided into the ' boroughs ' or tithings of Santon, Linkfield, Wood- hatch, Hooley, and Colley. 30 In 1832 the parish boundary was adopted for parliamentary purposes."
Previous to 1863 the privileges of the burgesses of Reigate beyond that of the parliamentary franchise were very limited. They had no court of their own but attended the court leet of the lord," in which their officers were elected. 3 * The court leet at Michaelmas elected a bailiff, constables, two for the borough, one for the ' foreign,' six headboroughs, a fish-taster, a flesh-taster, a searcher of leather, a sealer of leather, and two ale-conners. 34 They had no com- mon lands until their purchase of Redhill Common from the Crown in 1867," but in 1678-9 they were granted the tolls of a monthly market and yearly fair. 3 * The burgesses were chiefly distinguished from the other tenants of the manor, the majority of whom were copyhold tenants, 17 by the rents which
��K The charter hat been printed.
29 A plan of the old borough and parish appears in the Boundary Rep. of the Com- mission on Parliamentary Representation, Par I. Papers, 1831-2, xl, 35. The area of the borough was only 65 acres, while that of the parish was 5,41; acres.
��80 Ct. R. (Land. Rev.), bdle. 70, no. 2 et seq.
81 Part. Papers, 1831-2, xl, 35.
w Rep. of Com. an Pubt. Rec. 1837, App.
P- 477-
" Ct. R. (Land Rev.), bdle. 70, not.
2-12.
M Reigate Ct R.
233
��** Ret. of Boroughs possessing dm. Lands, Purl. Papert, 1870, lv, 24.
18 See below.
7 Ref. of Cam. on Publ. Rec. 1837^.477. It it of note also that the garden of each burgage tenement paid a certain fixed tithe (Bach. Dep. Hit n & 12 Will. Ill, 7).
30
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