Bletchingly

 

Bletchingly

The name relates to Saxon woodland clearances..  A picturesque quiet village with red- brick and tiled cottages beside the wide street and a Good example of middle row.  It is an old-fashioned village with picturesque houses and a very wide street.  It was once a market town of some importance, returning two members to Parliament. Its broad main street, sloping down towards the east, contains several interesting houses. it was a parliamentary borough until 1832, when one of its members was Lord Palmerston.

Castle Square

Odstock, plantsman's garden maintained by owners and developed for all-year interest. Special interest in grasses and climbers, 76 at last count. Japanese features; dahlias. No-dig, low-maintenance vegetable garden.

Castle Street

Castle remains in the grounds of Castle Hill.  Once the strongest in Surrey.  The lines of the outer and inner moat are still visible, but which was demolished after the battle of Lewes on 14 May 1264.  It was afterwards restored, but at what period it fell into permanent decay is unknown.  Excavations carried out here have exposed a part of the wall and the foundation stone of one of the towers. William the Conqueror gave the manor to his kinsman Richard de Clare, the first of a family that became the most powerful in England in the early Middle Ages. In 1264, during his war with the barons, whom the De Clares supported, the castle was captured and largely demolished by King John, and, though again rebuilt, it never recovered its importance. It passed through the hands of the Earls of Stafford and the Earls and Dukes of Buckingham, and when the third duke was beheaded by Henry VIII in 1521, it was taken by the king, who later granted it to his divorced queen, Anne of Cleves. Later it came to the Howards of Effingham, whose heiress, the beautiful Lady Elizabeth, married Lord Peterborough. Their Royalist son, unable to meet the fine of £10,000 imposed on him by Parliament, sold it to Sir Robert Clayton. The castle hill commands a fine view-over the Weald to the South Downs

School was bombed. Cellar exposed large blocks of stone

Church Lane

Orchard Croft was the Godstone Union Workhouse. 184- utilitarian brick.

Church Walk

St.Mary’s Church. Howard of Effingham owned it. Massive Norman tower as big as a castle keep, and contains brasses and other memorials as well as the huge marble tomb of Sir Robert Clayton and his wife.  ‘Large and noble, one of the finest in the county’. Some other amazing monuments.  Hermit’s cell. Impressive but a lot of restoration. Reredos with Bishop Wilberforce among the apostles.  It is said that Bletchingley once had seven churches, of which the surviving edifice is that of St. Mary. A large and noble church, one of the finest in the county. It is mainly of the 15th century, though the tower was built about 1090 and heightened about 1160. The south nave arcade and south aisle were rebuilt about 1460 and at the same time was added the porch, which has a parvise or priest's room over it. The north aisle was added in 1856, when the church was extensively restored. The font dates from the 15th century. The fine Jacobean pulpit, dated 1630, was ejected at a restoration in 1870 and not brought back until 1935. It has a contemporary hour-glass stand, and behind the back may be seen a niche that probably held a figure of the Virgin. In the short north transept are 15- 16th-century brasses and a wall-monument to Sir William Bensley (d. 1809), a director of the East India Company, by John Bacon the younger. The chancel arch and the south arcade of the chancel date from the alterations of 1460; the blind arcade on the north side contains three Early English lancets (about 1250) and a round-headed window of Norman origin. On the south side of the chancel is the table-tomb of Sir Thomas Cawarden (d. 1559), 'keeper of the tents and master of the revels' to Henry VIII, and steward for Anne of Cleves when she lived at Blechingley. An ardent reformer under Edward VI he found it convenient to change his religion under Mary Tudor. The south chapel, built about 1230 but altered about 1460, is remarkable for the large monument, by Richard Crutcher, to Sir Robert Clayton (d. 1707) and his wife, a master- piece of 18th-century sculpture. Clayton was Lord Mayor of London m 1679-80 and is represented in his robes of office; the monument was erected by himself in his own lifetime, but the laudatory inscription has been ascribed to his nephew and heir. Clayton was pilloried, apparently unjustly, by Dryden. Not only the adult figures on the monument, but that of an infant daughter who had died many years earlier, are worth close inspection. The enclosing wrought-iron railings are of the same period. In the south wall of the chapel are a lancet window and another curious window near the ground, possibly once opening to a hermit's cell.

Row of picturesque old cottages.

High Street

Glenfield. Late 18^th joke porch. Capitals twice as big as they should be.

Whyte Hart – plain Tudor front 1800 and 16^th frame. The 'White Hart' claims establishment in 1388. A good deal of the interior is Elizabethan despite the modern front.  From 1733 until 1831 the election of Bletchingley's two M.P.'s  (it had returned two since 1295) took place at the inn.  Lord Palmerston was one of the two put out by the Reform Act of 1832. the most notable building in the town..

War memorial - In the old Market Hall is a stone column erected to the memory of the men of the parish who fell in the Great War.

Little Common Lane

William IV

Tilgates Air-Raid Shelter There is a subterranean air-raid shelter in the garden. Steps lead down to it between concrete walls.

Middle Row

Selmes 19^th butcher’s shop.

Outwood Lane

Toxic tip

Sandhills. 1893 advance Tudor

Navvy Camp The canteen for the railway navvies was attached to the house opposite Kennels Farm in Outwood Lane. Although work on the tunnel resulted in the assembly of the largest body of men working on railways in the south east of England in 1840-1842 it is believed that they were largely locally recruited. The 1841 census reveals that Irish nawies would have been in the minority.