A HISTORY OF SURREY
��stands. Manning says that it was 'lately an iron mill.' l It would be interesting to know whether it used ironstone from the Bagshot Sands or depended upon water carriage for ore from the weald. The present industries, apart from agriculture, are Mr. Newland's Rosewater and Essential Oil Distillery, and a brewery carried on by the Friary, Holroyds, and Healy's Breweries Company.
Neolithic flints occur on the slopes near St. George's Hill and Cobham Common.
Byfleet Park was one of the parks in the Surrey bailiwick of Windsor Forest which Norden surveyed for James I in 1607.'
A person once of some note was rector of Byfleet from 1752 to 1756 Stephen Duck, a Wiltshire labourer, who attracted the notice of Queen Caroline by his poems and was made by her a beefeater and keeper of her library, at Richmond. He learned Latin and was ordained. His poems are of no great merit, but one of the earliest, ' The Thresher's Labour,' dealing with his real experiences, shows that he might have been as good as Blomfield and better than Clare if the fashion of the age had allowed him to continue to write naturally. He drowned himself in a fit of melancholy in the Thames.
An Inclosure Award was made in 1811 * for 780 acres, including common fields of Byfleet Manor.
There are Wesleyan and Congregational chapels in the parish. The Village Hall was built in 1898 in commemoration of the Diamond Jubilee, and a public recreation ground was presented by Mr. H. F. Locke King on the same occasion.
Of the principal houses, Byfleet Manor belongs to Mrs. Rutson, St. George's Hill is the residence of Lady Louisa Egerton, Petersham Place of Mr. W. B. Owen. A number of small residential houses have lately been built in the parish. The present rectory was built by the Rev. Charles Sumner, rector, in 1834.
The School (national) was built in 1857 and en- larged in 1860 and in 1899. A school had been built in 1840, but was replaced by the present one.
BTFLEET is not in the original grant MANORS to Chertsey Abbey in the alleged founda- tion charter of 673, but is included and confirmed in the later charter of Frithwald, attributed to 727,' which, however, includes land granted at various times before the Norman Conquest, and must be looked upon merely as an assertion by the monks of their claims, perhaps preparatory to the Domesday Survey. (See Chertsey.) In 967 the grant was again confirmed by King Edgar as ' v mansas." 5 At the time of the Domesday Survey Byfleet was held of the abbey as 2^ hides by Ulwin, who had also held it in King Edward's time, when it was assessed for 8 hides. 6 It continued in the possession of the Abbot and convent of Chertsey,
��and in the I 3th century was held of them, as half a knight's fee, by Geoffrey de Lucy, who died in 1284 leaving as heir his son Geoffrey. 7 The latter en- feoffed Henry de Ley bourne of the manor in 1297,* and Leybourne remained in possession until after 1 305.* It is not clear how the manor became Crown property, but it was certainly in the king's hands in 13I2. 10 The overlordship continued to be vested in the abbey for some time after the manor became the king's property. A rental of 1319 speaks of it as being held ' in chief of the Abbot of Chertsey' by the service of half a knight's fee and 1 5/. rent to the abbot for the vill of Weybridge and 1 3/. 4</. rent for the vill of Bisley ; the surveyors add that before the manor came to the king its lord did suit at the abbot's hundred court of Godley, and that all free tenants and fifteen customary tenants came to the view of frankpledge there." A return of the feudal aids in the hundred of Godley in 1428 also refers to half a knight's fee in Byfleet which 'Edward, formerly Prince of Wales, used to hold of the Abbot of Chertsey.' " It is probable, however, that this overlordship, held by the abbey over the king or the Prince of Wales, soon became merely nominal. The courts of Byfleet were held by the king, and no further mention of Byfleet occurs in the records or court rolls of the abbey."
Edward II appears to have stayed frequently at Byfleet, many of his ordinances being dated from here. 14 A grant to Piers Gaveston in 1308 of free warren in his demesne lands at Byfleet " suggests that he had been previously granted the manor also, probably as part of the lands belonging to the earldom of Cornwall. Edward III assigned Byfleet to his mother Isabella as part of her dower in 1327." She surrendered it shortly afterwards," and in 1330 the king granted it to his brother John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall, to be held by knight's service ; at his death it reverted to the Crown." In 1337, when the king's eldest son received the title of Duke of Cornwall, the manor and park of By- fleet were among the lands granted to him," to hold to him and his heirs, as parcel of the duchy of Cornwall. 80 The Black Prince held the manor until his death," when it passed to his son.
Richard II, as lord of the manor of Byfleet, granted it in 1389 to the Earl of Northumberland for two years," and in 1391 to John, Bishop of Salisbury, for ten years ' for his easement and abode whenever he chooses to go thither.' " The bishop died in 1395, but two years before his death the manor was granted to William, Duke of Guelders, son of the Duke of Juliers,
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��1 Manning and Bray, Hiit. of Surr. iii, 181.
- The plan of it is in Harl. MSS. 3749.
- Under an Act of 40 Geo. III.
Birch, Cart. Sax. i, 64.
Ibid, iii, 469.
V.C.H, Surr. i, 288, 310*.
Testa tie Nevill (Rec. Com.), 22oi j Chan. Inq. p.m. 12 Edw. I, no. 1 6.
Pat. 2; Edw. I, pt. ii, m. 10.
Chan. Inq. p.m. 28 Edw. I, no. 148 ; 33 Edw. I, no, 14,
��10 Col. fat. 1307-13, p. 487.
11 Rentals and Surv. (P.R.O.), bdle. 623.
12 Feud. Aids, 1284-1431, vi, 123.
18 Exch. K.R. Misc. Bks. 25 ; Cott. MS. Vitell. A. xiii ; Lansd. MS. 434 ; Ct. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 204, no. 10, 37, 38; 212, no. 19, &c.
" Cal. Clou, 1307-13, pp. 48, 49 ; Cat. Pat. 1307-13 ; Cal. Close, 1313-18, &c.
15 Chart. R. I Edw. II, m. 6, no. 7.
18 Cal. Pat. 1327-30, p. 69.
- ' Ibid. 1330-4, p. 184.
400
��18 Chart. R. 4 Edw. Ill, m. 7, no. 2 f Cal. Pat. 1330-4, p. 52. Gaveston had also been Earl of Cornwall ; it looks as if the manor went with the earldom.
"Chart. R. n Edw. Ill, m. 28, no. 60.
Cal. Pat. 1429-36, P- 443 i HSM', p. 58.
"Ibid. 1338-40; 1 340-3 ; 1343-51 ibid. 1377-81 ; Cal. Close, 1343-6.
M Cal. Pat. 1388-92, p. 90.
88 Ibid. p. 467.
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