COPTHORNE HUNDRED
��pic Games. Greater crowds than ever used to attend now flock to Epsom races, for the population within reach is larger, and the means of access by railway much facilitated. But probably the almost national importance of the Derby reached its height in the last generation. It was while Lord Palmerston and Lord Derby were political leaders that the House of Commons regularly adjourned for the Derby day. The fashion outlived Lord Palmerston, but it ceased under Mr. Gladstone's rule, and not even in joke can London now be said to be empty on the Derby day.
As a result of the races, rather than that of the old watering-place life, Epsom is an extension of London into Surrey. The county is now permeated by Londoners, but up to about thirty years ago the speech of the country was different north and south of a line drawn about Epsom. An exact demarcation, of course, could not be made.
Epsom Common Fields, which were on the slopes of the chalk in front of the present Medical College, between it and the town, were among the last to survive in Surrey. They were inclosed by an Award of 4 September 1869, under an Act of 1865.' A certain amount of inclosure on the lower part of the downs and on Epsom Common has been made, prob- ably from the watering-place era onwards, by private purchase and arrangements.
Woodcote House is the residence of the Rev. E. W. Northey, J.P. ; Woodcote Grove, of Mr. A. W. Aston, J.P. ; Hookfield, of Mr. B. Braithwaite, J.P. ; The Wells, of Mrs. Jamieson. This last is a new house on the site of the old well-house. Pit Place is the seat of Mr. W. E. Bagshaw. The lions at the entrance and some interior work are said to be from Nonsuch. It was the scene of the well-known story of Lord Lyttelton's apparition.
The Roman Catholic Church (St. Joseph's), Heath- cote Road, was built in 1857.
The Congregational church, in Church Street, has taken the place of a Presbyterian chapel, where a congregation met, it is said, from James's Indulgence in 1688, and certainly in 1725." No trace is found of it after 1772. In 1815 the old chapel, which had been closed, was bought and fitted up for a Con- gregational church. In 1825 it was rebuilt.* It was again rebuilt in 1904, in red brick with stone dressings, in a quasi-Decorated style. It has chancel, nave, aisles, and tower with a small spire. The first stone was laid by Mr. Evan Spicer. There are also chapels of the Wesleyans and Baptists, and a Baptist congregation meets in the Gymnasium Hall.
Epsom College, incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1855, and by a new Act in 1895, is a first-class public school, with fifty foundation scholarships open to the orphans of medical men, and taking the sons of medical men at a slight reduction. There are five leaving scholarships to the universities, and ten to the hospitals. The buildings are of red brick and Caen stone in 1 6th-century style, fitted with chapel, labora- tories, gymnasium, swimming-bath, and all the
���accessories of a school. They occupy a fine site on the downs east of the town.
A National School was built in 1828, but a school had been carried on certainly since before 1725.
The present elementary schools are Hook Road (boys), built in 1 840 as a mixed school in place of the one above, enlarged in 1886 and 1896; Lad- brooke Road (girls), built in 1871, recently enlarged ; West Hill (infants), built in 1844, enlarged in 1872 ; Hawthorne Place (infants), built in 1893 ; Haw- thorne Place (junior), built in 1904, a temporary iron building. The schools are under a committee of trustees of charities and elected managers. They are endowed, by the original bequest of Mr. John Brayne in 1693, with land in Fetcham, for teaching poor children to read and write, and binding them as apprentices ; by bequest of Mr. David White (see also Ewell) in 1725, with a freehold estate ; by bequest of Mrs. Elizabeth Northey, in 1764, with 100 for books ; by Mr. Thyar Pitt, with .225 ; by Mrs. J. Elmslie, with 105 by gift, 1851, and one-fourteenth part of 1,236 I J/. id. by will in 1858, both sums to the infants' school.
In 727 Frithwald, subregulus of MANORS Surrey, and Bishop Erkenwald, are said to have granted to their newly founded abbey of Chertsey twenty mansas of land in Epsom : '* this was confirmed by King Edgar in 967," and in the Domesday Survey EPSOM is mentioned among the possessions of Chertsey Ab- bey." Henry I granted the abbot leave to keep dogs on all his land inside the forest and outside, to catch foxes, hares, pheasants, and cats, and to inclose his park there and have all the deer he could catch, also to have all the wood he needed from the king's forests." In the reign of Ed- ward I the abbot's right to free warren in Epsom was called in question, and it was found that only in his park he had the right ; " this was con- firmed later (1285)." In 1291 the abbot resumed the possession of 9 acres of land (part of the demesne land of the abbey) which he, or a predecessor, had granted to Hugh dela Lane." In 1323-4 the abbot brought a suit against John de la Lane, bailiff of the queen, for distraining him by 1,500 sheep, for his default in not appearing when impleaded in the queen's court of Banstead, and driving them as far as Banstead,. where for lack of nourishment some of them died ; the abbot was adjudged i in compensation. 17
Grants of land in Epsom were made to the abbot in 1338 by Peter atte Mulle and Richard de Horton. 18 In 1535 the rents of the manor were valued at zo 121. 5^." and the perquisites of the court amounted to 1 lot. \d. ; two years later the manor was surrendered to the king. 10
���CHERTSEY ABBEY. Party or and argent St. Paul's rword argent its hi!t or crusted with St. Peter't keyi gula and azure.
��1 Blue Bk. Incl. Atvardi.
8 Bishop Willii'i Visitation, Farnham Castle MS.
9 Waddingston, Hist, of Congregational- ism in Surr. 203.
10 Birch, Cart. Sax. i, 64. But see under Chertiey for the authenticity of the earliest charters.
��11 Ibid, iii, 469. V.C.H. Surr. i, jo8<. u Cart. Antiq. D, 141. 14 Plac.de Quo IVarr. (Rec. Com.), 744*. 14 Cat, Chart. R. 1157-1300, p. 305. lg Inq. a.q.d. 19 Edw. I, xv, 10 ; Cat. Pat. 1281-92, p. 482.
273
��'" Abbrev. Plat. (Rec. Com.), 346, See Banstead.
18 Col. Pat. 1338-40, pp. 45, 47 Abbrev. Rot. Orig. (Rec. Com.), ii, 1 29.
19 Valor Reel. (Rec. Com.), ii, 56.
90 Feet of F. Div. Co. Trin. 19 Hen. VIII.
35
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