BLACKHEATH HUNDRED
��SHERE
��siastical parish, made up from portions of Shere, Ockley, Abinger, Ewhurst, Cranleigh, and Ockham, 28 September 1878. The schools (Church of England) were built in 1860 and enlarged in 1900. There is a Congregational chapel.
This neighbourhood was formerly one of the wildest in Surrey. Sheep-stealers, smugglers, and poachers found a refuge in these remote hills. Some of the cottages have, still existing, very large cellars (excavated easily in the sandy hill), which are far too large for any honest purpose, and were no doubt made for storing smuggled goods till they could be conveniently taken on to London. Of late years the picturesque neighbourhood has attracted many visitors, who have built large houses. Joldwyns is the seat of Sir William Paget Bowman, bart., Holmbury of Mr. W. Joynson Hicks, Holmdale of Mr. Barlow Webb, Aldermoor of Mr. H. T. Willis, R.A., Hurt- wood Cottage of Mr. Frank Walton, R.I., A.R.A. These houses are all included in the modern extension of Abinger, but belong to this district, the church of which is in Shere.
Peaslake is a hamlet of Shere, lying at the bend of the valley between Holmbury and Ewhurst Hills, which shared formerly the inaccessibility of Felday and its wild character. It has been more recently brought into the circle of civilization, and a road from Ewhurst, practicable for wheels, has been brought into it since district councils were instituted. It was formerly accessible from the north, but was on the edge of the accessible country with no real road beyond. A Working Men's Institute was erected in 1891 by the Misses Spottiswoode of Drydown, in many other ways benefactors to the neighbourhood. Of late years several new houses have been built. Peas- lake School was founded by Lord Ashcombe, Mr. Justice Bray, the Misses Spottiswoode, and others in 1870.
At Shere the principal residents, besides those already named, are : at Burrows Lea, Sir Herbert Barnard ; at Ridgeway, Lady Arthur Russell ; at Hurstcote, Mr. Somerset Beaumont ; at Shere Lodge, Miss Locke King ; at Hazel Hatch, The Hon. Emily Lawless; and at Burrows Cross, Mr. Benjamin W. Leader, R.A.
The parish hall was built by subscription to com- memorate the Diamond Jubilee of 1 897.
It is not right to dismiss the parish of Shere with- out mentioning that it was the birthplace, ultimate home, and deathplace of William Bray, the county historian, who was born here 1736, and died 1832. He completed and supplemented the already volumin- ous labours of Manning, and if slips and omissions do occur in their work it is difficult to over-estimate their industry and care, and their general accuracy is wonderful, considering especially the absence of those catalogues, indexes, and printed calendars which aid the modern topographer and genealogist.
There are four manors in the parish
MANORS of Shere or Shiere, viz., Shiere Vachery, 4
Shiere Ebor, Gomshall Netley, and
��WARENNE, Earl of Surrey. Cheeky or and azure.
��Towerhill. The two former are moieties of the original
manor of SHIERE, which, under Edward the Confessor,
had belonged to his queen, Edith. She held it till her
death, when William I appropriated it, together with
all her lands. 6 In 1086 the king held it in demesne,
but William Rufus granted it to
William de Warenne when he
endowed him with the earldom
of Surrey.' The overlordship
continued with the successive
Earls of Surrey, of whom the
manor was held as of Reigate
Castle. 8
The actual tenant early in the 1 3th century was Roger de Clare.' In 1 2434 he con- veyed the manor to John son of Geoffrey, a younger son of Geoffrey Fitz Peter, Earl of
Essex, in return for a life-rent paid at Shere Church. 10 In 1246 John de Gatesden, who had apparently acquired this rent at the same time as the manor of Lasham," remitted it to John son of Geoffrey." The manor, having passed from John to his son and grandsons," was divided into moieties at the death of Richard son of John. 14 The one moiety, Shiere Vachery, was assigned to his sister Joan Butler ; the other, afterwards known as Shiere Eboracum or Ebor, to his nephew Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster. 15
SHIERE VACHERT descended at Joan Butler's death to her son Edmund Butler, 1 * who was succeeded by his son James, first Earl of Ormond, and his wife Elea- nor. 17 Their son James, Earl of Ormond, inherited Shiere, which descended from him to his son James. 18 The latter's son, the 'White Earl,' 19 granted it to his son James, 50 whom Henry VI created Earl of Wiltshire in 1449 in reward for his fidelity to the interests of the house of Lancaster. He succeeded his father as azure. Earl of Ormond, and was be- headed after Towton in 1461. Shiere, being thus forfeited to the king, was granted by him to John, Lord Audley in 1467," in tail male. Nevertheless, John, brother of the late earl, was restored as Earl of Ormond, although apparently not to his estates. He died in 1478. His brother Thomas, also attainted after Towton, was restored in blood by the first Parliament of Henry VII, and in 1486 granted the manor to Sir Reginald Bray, kt., reserving to himself the right of easement when staying within the lordship of Shiere."
Sir Reginald Bray, statesman of the reign of Henry VII, was Lord Treasurer of England, director of the king's great building operations at St. George's
���BUTLER, Earl of Or- mond. Or a chief indented
��* So called since it included the hamlet of Vachery in Cranleigh.
- f.C.H. Surr. \, 279, 29811.
' Ibid, i, 340. Hi original Surrey endowment consisted of the lands of Queen Edith.
8 Chan. Inq. p.m. 4 Edw. I, no. 47 ; 31 Edw. I, no. 32 ; 6 Ric. II, no. 15 ; 31 Hen. VI, no. II.
- Tula de Ne-uill (Rec. Com.), 2 20, 2 2 1 b.
��10 Feet of F. Div. Co. 28 Hen. Ill, 199.
11 See Lasham in Odiham Hundred (V.C.H. Hant, iv).
ls Feet of F. Div. Co. 30 Hen. Ill, 62.
18 For an account of John son of Geof- frey and his descendants, see East Shal- ford.
14 Chan. Inq. p.m. 25 Edw. I, no. 504.
15 Fine R. 27 Edw. I, m. I.
"3
��Chan. Inq. p.m. 31 Edw. I, no. 32 ; Inq. a.q.d. civ, 7.
"Chan. Inq. p.m. i Edw. Ill (ut nos.), no. 8 ; Feet of F. Div. Co. 3 Edw. 111,51.
18 Chan. Inq. p.m. 6 Ric. II, no. 15.
Ibid. 7 Hen. V, no. 49.
Ibid. 31 Hen. VI, no. 1 1.
Pat. 7 Edw. IV, pt. i, m. 6.
M Anct. D. (P.R.O.), C, 3273.
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