BLACKHEATH HUNDRED
��SHERE
��There are five bells of 1789, and one of 1866, all by the firm of Warner. When the six were complete they each bore a part of the verse :
' Thy glory Lord we will resound j to all the listening nations round | and with our tongues | our voices raise | to Thee O God | in songs of praise.'
Before 1789, four, dated 16 13, by Robert Eldridge, bore the verse :
' Lord plead my cause against my foes | Confound their force and might | Fight on my part against my foes | That seek with me to fight."
In the Edwardian inventory eight bells and a ' sawnce ' bell are mentioned.
The registers begin in 1564, but there are no
marriages till 1581. There is a gap between 1651 and
1653, and the marriages are lost from 1754 to 1782.
The church is mentioned in the
dDrOWSON Domesday Survey. 78 In 12 24 it was
stated that the king's ancestors had
always presented to Shalford and its chapelries, but
��that Ralph de Fay, lord of Shalford, last presented in the time of the war."
It was granted with the rectory to the Hospital of St. Mary Without Bishopsgate in 1304-5. After the Dissolution it passed into the possession of various persons. 80 Towards the close of the 1 7th century the Crown presented and continues to do so. 61
There seems to have been a chapel attached to the manor of Shalford Bradestan, for in 1374-5 Ellen, mother of Sir Robert Bradestan, held in dower the chancel of the chapel there. 8 '
Smith's Charity is distributed as CHARITIES in other Surrey parishes. Many small rents and payments were due to the church. 81
In 1715 Dr. Shortrudge, Sir Francis Vincent, and others settled the residue of the profits on estates in Hertfordshire on the vicars of Shalford, Great Book- ham, Etfingham, and Letherhead, on condition of their reading prayers in church on Wednesdays and Fridays, and preaching appropriate sermons on 30 Jan- uary and on Good Friday. (See Great Bookham.)
��SHERE
��Essira (xi cent.) ; Sire, Schyre (xiii cent.) ; Shire and Shyre (xiv cent.); Shire (xv cent.); Shire and Shiere (xviii cent.) ; Shere (xix cent.).
The parish of Shere is midway between Guildford and Dorking. The village is 6 miles east of the former, and 6 miles west of the latter. The parish is bounded on the north by East Clandon and West Horsley, on the east by Abinger, on the south by Ewhurst and Cranleigh, on the west by Albury. It is about 4^ miles from north to south, and from 2 to l\ miles from east to west, and contains 6,400 acres of land and 12 of water. The Tilling- bourne stream runs from east to west through the northern part of it. The soil exhibits the usual characteristics of a parish south of the Chalk. The northern part is Chalk, on the downs, and the parish extends southward over the Upper Greensand and Gault, and the Lower Greensand, which forms the largest portion ; but it does not quite reach the Atherfield and Wealden Clays. Ewhurst and Cran- leigh on the Clay, parishes of a later date, 1 were no doubt partly in the original parish of Shere. There is an ancient and picturesque mill at Shere, and in the hamlet of Gomshall a tannery and a brewery. Iron was once worked in Shere. 1 The parish is now, however, essentially agricultural, the land in the valley between the chalk downs and the sand hills being fertile. The only special industry is the raising of watercresses in ponds fed from the Tillingbourne. Great quantities of this are grown, and sometimes sent away to great distances. The downs to the north are mostly open grass, or wooded, and rise to 600 or 700 ft. above the sea, while to the south are great expanses of open heather and firwoods on the sand- hills, Hurtwood Common, and parts of Holmbury and Ewhurst Hills, at an elevation of more than 700 ft. in their highest points. Part of Albury Park is in
��the parish. The road from Guildford to Dorking goes through the northern part of the parish ; the Redhill and Reading branch of the South Eastern Railway runs nearly parallel to it. Gomshall and Shere station was opened in 1 849. In Gomshall is a Congregational chapel, founded in 1825.
No important discoveries of prehistoric remains seem to have been made in the parish. Neolithic flint implements, however, occur near Holmbury Hill, but five parishes were formerly so closely inter- mixed here that it is difficult to assign the discoveries to any one.
Shere has often been called one of the most beau- tiful villages in England ; certainly few can surpass it in Surrey for a combination of those qualities that go to make up the ideal village. It lies in the valley of the Tillingbourne, immediately beneath the Albury Downs, sheltered from the north by the hills, and bounded on the west by the beautiful domain of Albury Park. Happily the presence of the Duke of Northumberland's seat at Albury Park, and the wise action of other local landowners, have operated to keep the speculating builder at arm's length, and such additions as have been made to the old village in recent years have not seriously detracted from its charm. Shere is, therefore, the haunt of painters, many of them residents in and around, and samples of their handiwork may be inspected in the ancient Black Horse Inn, the building itself being partly of 1 6th-century date, with a great open fireplace under an arched beam, and other ancient features. In front of this inn are two old elms, and the view looking past them to the church, with its tall timber spire and lych-gate, is far-famed.
Aubrey mentions ' the extraordinary good parsonage house,' which still remains at the western end of the village, near the stream, although no longer used as
��. Surr. i, 3194.
" 9 Maitland, Bractons Note Bk. 913. Ralph was lord of Bramley, with land in Shalford.
80 Winton Epis. Reg. quoted by Manning and Bray, op. cit. ii, 107. Amongst the
��patrons was George Austen, who died seised of the advowson, and whose son John presented to the church in 1621; Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), ccucvii, 90 ; Feet of F. Suir. Mich. 20 Jas. I. 81 Inst. Bks. (P.R.O.).
Ill
��81 Chan. Inq. p.m. 48 Edw. Ill, Add. no. 42.
" Churchwardens' Bks. quoted by Man- ning and Bray, Hist, of Surr. ii, 103.
1 In V.C.H. Surr. ii, 8, 9.
'Ibid. 270.
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