A HISTORY OF SURREY
��light windows in deep external reveals, and the belfry windows are square-headed with two uncusped lights. There is a plain brick parapet.
The church contains little of interest beyond a small altar table with 17th-century carving, and carved legs, partly gilt in modern times, and a good I yth-century pulpit with a fine hexagonal canopy which has a panelled soffit. The font is of I jth-century date and has an octagonal bowl with quatrefbiled panels inclosing flowers, an octagonal panelled stem and a moulded base. On the chancel floor is a brass tablet to Thomas Brend of West Molesey, 1 598, the father of eighteen children, four sons and six daughters by Margery his first wife, ob. I 564, and four sons and four daughters by Mercy his second wife, ob. 1 597.
Above are two shields, the first bearing a cheveron between three dexter hands, and the second the same impaling a cheveron with three rings thereon between three standing hinds.
There is also a slab without any date to ' Francesca Thorowgood.'
The bells are two in number, the treble by T. Mears, 1832, and the tenor by William Carter, 1614.
The plate comprises a cup of 1 800, a paten without date-letter, but c. 1680, a flagon of 1 782, and a pretty two-handled porringer of about the same date, a secu- lar piece of plate given in 1686 by Francis Brend.
The registers date from 1720.
The church stands at cross-roads on the straggling street which forms West Molesey. It is about half a mile south of the river, this ground being occupied on the west and north-west by the reservoirs of the Lambeth Water Works. On the south are flat open fields with hedgerows.
East Molesey was formerly a ADVOWSON chapelry to Kingston. Gilbert Nor- man, Sheriff of Surrey, is stated by Dugdale, on the authority of Leland, to have added to the endowment of Merton Priory, about the year 1 1 30, the church of Kingston with the chapelry of East Molesey. 8 * The church, which is in the deanery of Ewell, is not mentioned in the Taxatio of 1291. In 1387 the Bishop of Winchester commissioned the Dean of Ewell to cite the Prior and con vent of Merton and the vicar of Kingston to appear and answer for dilapidations in the chancel of East Molesey. 84 The rectory was granted in 1613 to Francis Morrice and others, with tithes of hay, &C. 86 In 1619 an annual rent of I o 31. 4^. reserved from the rectory was granted to Laurence Whitaker. 86
Early in 1 769 the living was constituted a perpetual curacy, independent of Kingston, and East Molesey became a distinct parish. The patrons and impropria- tors are the Provost and Fellows of King's College, Cambridge, who in 1786 purchased the advowson from George Harding. This purchase was subject to the deduction of the next presentation, which had been previously granted to Mrs. Legh of Kingston, and afterwards sold by her to William Attwick, who pre- sented in 1797." The living is valued at 157.
There was a church on the Domesday holding of Odard at Molesey, the orgin of West Molesey Church ;
��but the church is not mentioned in the Taxatio of 1291, and was a chapel of ease to Walton on Thames, the impropriators of which, St. Mary's Chantry, York, paid 6 1 3/. 4^. to a curate. 88
Queen Elizabeth in 1583 granted the chapel of West Molesey to Theophilus Adams and Robert Adams and the heirs of Theophilus. 89
It subsequently passed with Walton on Thames, the impropriator of which appointed. The endowment was increased in 1843, when the chancel was rebuilt and West Molesey was constituted a separate parish, with the advowson in the hands of the Rev. H. Binney. The patron was recently Lady Barrow, now Mrs. Forster. Smith's Charity is distributed CHARITIES IN as in other Surrey parishes. EAST MOLESET From 1710, but how much further back is unknown, the parish held 18 or 19 acres of land called Hale, Hale Platts, and the Platts, for the repairs of the church and the relief of the poor. In 1789 these were leased to Thomas Sutton, lessee of the manor, for ninety-nine years. In 1815, after the Inclosure Act (see West Molesey), the lessee claimed the fee simple as owner under the Inclosure Award of these lands as ancient waste of the, manor. A Chancery suit ensued in 1818, decided in 1823 in favour of the parish." In 1728 the will of William Hatton of East Molesey (made in 1703) became operative, by which he left premises in Mark Lane on trust to pay 20 a year to the minister of East Molesey, provided that he was established with the consent of the inhabitants, and for ' 6 ruggs ' a year to the poor of East and West Molesey, Thames Ditton, and King- ston ' wanting bed-clothes.' He also left his house and another in East Molesey for the poor. In 1771 Mr. John Grindell left twenty loaves annually, and in 1780 Mr. Thomas Willett left money producing 3 101. annually for the poor. In 1786 the churchwardens returned that 5 IO/. was received annually for coals for the poor, out of the rent of a house in Horse Shoe Court, London, donor unknown ; and that there were three almshouses, donor unknown. In 1730 Mr. Thomas Kempe of Laleham left io/. a year for the young men ' to ring the bells and make merry ' on 6 August in memory of himself.
The schools (National) for boys were built in 1858 and enlarged in 1891 ; those for girls and infants, originally mixed, in 1855.
Smith's Charity is distributed CHARITIES IN here as elsewhere. WESTMOLESET Mr. Joseph Palmer early in the I gth century built a gallery in the church, the two front pews in which were leased for the poor at 2 each. He also gave 500 3% consols for the poor in potatoes, coals, and bread, for coals for the church stove, and one guinea to the parish clerk.
In 1783 the parish provided six houses as alms- houses, returned in 1786 to Parliament as an existing charity, but now not known.
The school was built in 1887 by a School Boari elected in 1879.
��"Dugdale, Mm. Angl. (ed. 1848), vi, 425 ; y.C.H. Surr. ii, 95.
84 Winton Epii. Reg. Wykeham, ii, fol. 82 d.
��86 Pat. 1 1 Ja. I, pt. viii.
86 Pat. 17 Jas. I, pt. iii.
87 Brayley, Hist, of Surr. ii, 302.
88 Chantry Cert.
��89 Par, 25 Eliz. pt. iv.
90 Further Rep. of Com. for Inj. ir.to Charities, 618-19.
��456
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