Where the Power lay in Leigh – 1850 – 1914

Talk given to the Leigh Residents’ Association
by Harriet Hall on 23 January 2008


Millennium map of Leigh

The basis of this talk lies in an essay I wrote as part of my masters degree course in local history.  Having cheerfully agreed that it might make a good subject for this evening, I began to think about the people in the village who knew infinitely more than I did.  I was already deeply indebted to Caryl Brain for much of the contents of the essay, her research, being wide and, as you can see, her collection of photographs and documents extensive.  She has assisted me further and this talk therefore should be seen as a joint effort and Caryl will, I hope, contribute to the evening.  I am also grateful to Mary Day who under the aegis of Jean Shelley and also with Caryl’s extensive involvement has been hugely involved in getting the booklet on the old houses of Leigh together and published and who has put up her display of what she calls ‘Shellwoodiana’.  Mary’s knowledge of the early history of the village is formidable and I hope she will augment my impressionistic skip through that period.  There are a few slightly damaged copies of the booklet on sale tonight and we hope more will soon be available.  A further debt of gratitude is owed to Peter and Brenda Baker who have lent me a tremendously useful collection of documents which I have been hanging on to for a disgracefully long time.  I should also say that my ever-loving, having got me into this, has taken charge of the technicalities and greatly eased my path.  We are both grateful to the wide range of people who have provided photographs used tonight.

Some time ago when I expressed an interest in writing a history of Leigh, an ambition I still cherish and hope, with help, to bring off, Lionel Harvey who had looked into to doing just that, pointed out that nothing had ever happened in the village and that a certain amount of invention would be needed to make it interesting.  This is largely true, but there are aspects of Leigh that illustrate the social development of Wealden settlements which will I hope be of interest even if they lack dramatic revelations.  People will be familiar with the outline history that appears in the Parish Magazine with its varied spellings of Leigh and the explanation that the name means a clearing in the woods, but I thought that I would give a brief outline of the early records to put the later period in context.   It would seem likely that the village development in fact entailed a series of clearings over the years in which the farms and houses detailed in the booklet were built.  The village does not appear in the Domesday book, but mention of Shellwood appears soon after it and in 1156 it was part of the manor of Ewell and seems to have been passed round as a sort of good (or bad) conduct prize between king, church and baron.  There never seems to have been a resident lord of the manor living in Shellwood and Leigh Place, the other sizeable house in the village, was only locally owned for a comparatively brief period in the 15^th century by the Ardernes whose memorials can be seen in the Church.  When they died out, it, too, appears to have gone through distant and different hands.  The early details of the changing ownership of both estates which would have included the surrounding farms are, I suspect, illustrative of what happened to small parishes carved out of the heavily wooded clay of the Weald.
Leigh church before 1828 and ...     

  after restoration.

In his history of Surrey, Peter Brandon gives tantalising glimpses of the early Leigh.  Again, there appears to be a pattern of small Wealden parishes Leigh, among them, being attached as ‘outliers’ to bigger parishes in the north of the County, Leigh being an outlier of Banstead.  Brandon writes that by the 1080s most of the Weald had been colonised, but with a sparse population.  Leigh next appears in his book as part of the rapid expansion of church building during the 11^th and 12 centuries, mostly wood being used in the original construction.  In the game of pass the parcel that seems to have been played with these settlements, at some point Leigh stopped being an ‘outlier’ and became a ‘Grange’, subject to the powerful Waverley Abbey  which flourished near Farnham from the 12^th to the 16^th centuries before falling victim to Henry Vlll.  One can only imagine that villagers in their farmed clearings got on with their lives while the two bigger houses and the church were passed around different ecclesiastical and manorial overlords. There is evidence of iron-workings and timber obviously remained important with 7 loads of ‘hewn timber’ being supplied for the re-building of Merton College’s Thorncroft Manor and of a further 6 oak trees being given as a present to the Warden and Fellows of the college.  That manor was near Leatherhead – more evidence of the reach of powerful medieval institutions.  Newdigate and Charlwood would have been part of this supply train – the villages seem to have been closely linked.

Later development in Leigh can be tracked through the booklet and the Victoria County History of Surrey though we know there was an incursion of London culture in the shape of Ben Jonson’s renting of Swaynes Farm during the 17^th century.   Where Leigh’s history has become particularly interesting for me though is the point at which the village became part of what Brandon calls ‘The Land of Heart’s Desire’.   He writes: ‘to the Victorian businessman’s mind, Surrey was paradisal, the land of his dreams, a great beckoning landscape of verdant charm to which he irresistibly surrendered’.  From the second half of the 18^th century roads began opening up the hitherto comparatively inaccessible landscape, to the displeasure of William Cobbett on his rural rides, and obviously the coming of the railways in the 1840s made it even easier to inhabit this paradise.  According to Brandon, in Abinger and Holmbury St Mary ‘new mansions were owned by the heads respectively of the Castle Shipping Line, Doulton’s Lambeth and Wedgewood potteries, Stephen’s inks, Guinness, Brooke Bond Tea and accountants Price Waterhouse.  There were also a sprinkling of judges and variously professional families.

The Leigh that was to a degree, part of this movement had probably been a self-supporting community for most of its existence and during the second half of the 19^th century this is documented by the census. There was the windmill at Shellwood, and therefore a bakery which lasted beyond the demise of the windmill until comparatively recent times, a variety of other shops, the two pubs of course, a blacksmith, post office, 3 dressmakers and, later, a policeman.  Labouring was however, the largest source of employment given the nature of the community.  Details of the census are among Caryl’s display.  The village was far from affluent however and the Christmas letter of 1871 written by the Reverend J. Aston Whitlock and which I have shamelessly poached from Caryl, demonstrates this.  This Whitlock succeeded his father as vicar and his letter is a treat – full of agitated under linings as, when addressing the congregation, ‘let me affectionately urge upon you the duty of being in time’ so that the service can be begun ‘all together’.  He writes of shoe and clothing clubs, the latter run by Mrs Dendy of Leigh Place, and of Penny Savings Banks connected to the Sunday School.

Mr Whitlock also writes of the school and the existence of this illustrates the beginnings of more personal patronage in the village though it came in part, not from an upstart business person, but from the Duke of Norfolk who bought Shellwood manor and the lands around it about 1800.  Given the already extensive holdings of the family, it was likely to have been for the shooting and John Motion told me of a Howard boast that they could travel from Arundel to Leigh without leaving their own land.  In spite of being an absentee landlord however, in 1845 the duke gave the land for the village school which was then funded by donations from national bodies and a number of private individuals – including £20 from the dowager Queen Adelaide and £50 from a mysterious Mrs Taylor who lived in Dorset.  This was for primary level children up to the age of twelve, but was not compulsory.  The 1870 Education Act did enshrine the principal of primary schooling for all, but as Mr Whitlock illustrates, attendance could be patchy.  He laments the fact that children ‘failed’ their exams saying that this could be ‘remedied by the parents’ and he urged them ‘to keep their children at the school more regularly’.  He tempers this however, by noting: ‘how tempting it is to withdraw the children as soon as they can earn a trifle; for every penny earned helps to pay the rent’.  The employment of children as young as six and the importance of their contribution to family incomes is well documented.

The Mrs Dendy mentioned as running the clothing club was more evidence of a resident involvement of the gentry.  Leigh Place, which had fallen into partial ruin by the beginning of the 19^th century, was rescued it would seem, by Richard Caffyn Dendy and rebuilt in its present elegant shape. A newspaper cutting owned by John Motion and dated 1811, describes the removal of two wings of the house – possibly following a fire, and the finding in the moat, of some early coins.  These included a Philip and Mary shilling which would have dated from 1554-58 and therefore have been quite rare.  One is currently listed for sale at £575. The house is also thought to contain a priest’s hole.  By the second half of the century, Stephen Dendy, presumably a son of Richard, began to feature as a church warden and, in 1857, as a chair of the Vestry meetings. Before Parish Councils were formed as part of local government reforms in 1895 these meetings managed the village and the records of these exist from 1845 to 1878.  Sadly there is no record of what might have happened to the missing notes.  The early records would be a goldmine.  These meetings took place in the school, the vestry room or, quite frequently, the Plough and were concerned with setting the poor rate – generally one or two shillings in the pound, managing the poor, appointing way wardens, a parish clerk and letting allotments.  No change in this last then.  The names appearing are familiar to Leigh in other settings: Lucas, Knight, Weller, Pescud and Parsons.  The vicar was always included.  What are now Lavender and Honeysuckle cottages were the workhouses, Brook Cottages were almshouses.

Brook Cottages      

The minutes of these meetings also chart the moving in of the rich in search of health-giving Surrey air.  In 1857 it is recorded that Mr Freshfield’s house be ‘eased to the rates at £250 per annum’, a member of the vestry being detailed to call on Mr Freshfield and tell him so.  This was of course Mynthurst and James Freshfield a rich lawyer managing a firm that is now internationally famous, fell very much into Brandon’s categories.  His memorial from the Church sums up a full rich life though given all these activities, and dying as he did in 1864, he can’t have had much time to enjoy his smart new house.  He would probably have been disappointed that none of his sons fancied living at Mynthurst and, as far, as anyone can tell, the house was let for a time.  Frederick Somes, a ‘merchant’, was one tenant who managed to find his way onto the vestry committee as well as becoming a churchwarden.  He complained about the accounts.  He appears to have been followed at Mynthurst by a James Wilson and his family – he having made money as a successful Liverpool corn merchant.  In May 1875 there is an entry in the Vestry minutes instructing the Vestry Clerk to ‘write to James Wilson Esq, Conveying the thanks of the meeting and neighbourhood for his munificent gift of a well on the village green’. 

It was around this time, 1874 in fact, that another entry in the vestry minutes asks that Mr Edward Charrington be informed that his new house has been rated, like Mynthurst, at £250 pa. On the basis of the retail price index, this works out at something over £15,000 in current values which has startled me.  I had assumed that the Charringtons, brewers based in Mile End, were, like the other businessmen, newcomers to Surrey, but Mary Day has found evidence that they had been in the area since the 17^th century, at Horley and Bures Manor.  It was possibly Edward Charrington’s wife Geogiana who inspired the creation of the house – one side Victorian and the other in the style of a Swiss chalet. 
Burys Court (front)  Burys Court (back)

The pair had a large family and was much involved in village affairs, but it would be interesting to know more about what must have been a tragic year for them when three of their adult sons died.  As can be seen from the plaque in the Church, they all died at different times in the year 1894.  It was apparently in memory of her husband that Mrs Charrington paid for the enlargement of the Church reversing the thirty year old stone restoration with a new wooden belfry.  There are copies of a splendid description of the re-opening of the Church in May 1890 taken from the Sussex County Advertiser.  This picture of the Burys Court gardeners shows perhaps why the Charrington gardens did well in the early flower shows.  As, it should be said, did the Mynthurst gardens.

The other business family with strong links to Leigh were the Watneys – coal Watneys I am assured – not brewers.  Sir John Watney was a distinguished man, clerk to the Mercers Company which would have given him much power in the London business world and someone who was regularly reported in the Times as appearing at business and smart social functions.  Daniel Watney was a very grand estate agent, being according to his Times obituary, ‘one of the earliest members of the Surveyors’ Institute and Chairman of the old Auction Mart company in Tokenhouse-yard'.  He also appears to have been an expert witness in cases of land-appropriation.  The Watneys actually lived in Reigate, but interestingly, they both married daughters of Stephen Dendy.  The Dendy family also suffered tragic losses of sons as can be seen from this plaque, so the two daughters inherited Leigh Place which, from what I can ascertain, was owned and managed by Daniel with a tenant being put in the house.  One of Sir John’s fingers was in the pie of the Southwark diocese so he had a hand in the affairs of Leigh Church.

While the Mynthurst tenants were influential in the village to a partial degree, in 1892, the house was put on the market – one can only suppose by Freshfield heirs since there are no traces at present, of an earlier sale.  It was in the hands of Daniel Watney’s company which produced a lyrical description of the environs of the estate which can be seen as part of the display.  The piece outlining the approach on foot across the fields from Reigate has to be read to be believed.  The village description includes the ‘little church of Leigh – simple, neat sequestered’ with, as fitting complements and ‘representative in their perfect harmony of the religious, moral intellectual, and social life of rustic little Leigh are the parsonage, the school, the post office, and the Plough, all nestling together in mutual respect and dependent prosperity’.  How right Brandon was!  The estate included 14 farms spread over the best part of 2000 acres as well as a number of cottages in the village and some shooting rights.  This picture of a charabanc outing appears in the sale details and perhaps took place under the Wilson aegis.  Mynthurst was sold at auction in a number of lots most of which seemed to have been snapped up by Henry Bell.  He had made his money in South American railways as well as the shipping of refrigerated meat, liked stalking in Scotland for which he would rent an estate during the appropriate season, and was a highly successful breeder of cattle.  Thus, tracking his career in the Times, you jump from board meetings to agricultural shows.  He was a widower with a son and daughter, and given his commitments, he played a large and generous part in the village, among other things, building the Padmore’s house for as a residence for a village nurse.  The Centenary Year Brochure of the Leigh Cricket Club describes Bell as ‘persuading the powers that be’ to allow the cricket to be played on the recreation ground rather than a field behind the plough and as providing ‘the luxury of a two-roomed pavilion and a horse to pull the horse-drawn mower’.  Bell, it says, played for the village along with his estate workers and was renowned for his leg breaks.  

The Charringtons, Watneys and Bell, who was knighted in 1909 - for what services one wonders – were therefore considerable sources of power and influence in the village.  Interestingly though, they none of them sat on the newly formed Parish Council where the names in the early years were those of farmers and artisans like George Flint the blacksmith.  The names – Parsons, Pescud, keepers of shops and the post office, were similar to those sitting on the Vestry Committee with again, the inclusion of the current vicar.  Where the power does seem to have been wielded, was in the school management committee.  Thus in 1879 the members included John Watney, Edward Charrington and James Wilson and, as always, the vicar.  In November of that year they grumbled that the children had made little progress and told the teacher that they ‘would not be satisfied with her management until the faults complained of had been remedied'.  In 1891 Ernest and Arthur Charrington among others, complained that the school was very untidy and a bad example to others.  Headmasters came and went with the committee always after getting a married couple preferably with a daughter who would supervise the younger children unpaid.  Caryl’s researches into the school log books found, among other things, details of a Mr Reynolds whose long residence in India was felt to make him unsuitable for the position of headmaster of Leigh.  The log books also chart the visits by the grander ladies to the school to teach embroidery and listen to the reading.

During the first part of the 20^th century, Henry Bell, Daniel Watney and various Charringtons were added to the committee, Henry Bell kindly paid for ‘spectacles for some of the children with defective sight',  and weaknesses in the school premises came to the fore.  There were particular problems with the earth closets and the head teacher was instructed to tell one of the boys to empty the closets and urinals for a small weekly remuneration.  The local education authority became increasingly vociferous about the state of the place and the need for a new school, but the committee fought hard to maintain the status quo.  Bell, unable to attend a meeting, wrote to Sir John Watney that ‘it would be little less than a public scandal that buildings like Leigh school should be thrown idle because after serving their generation they did not come up to some fancy standard and that he was sure that any child that entered these schools entered into better rooms than the ones they had left at home’.  He further promised half an acre of land for a playground, the absence of this being one of the complaints against the premises.  A Major Mostyn, agent of the Duke of Norfolk stated that the duke ‘was entirely in favour of voluntary schools and would do all in his power to maintain Leigh school as such' while the rest of the committee felt that the school was ‘quite adequate’ and that with 115 children on the books, it was ‘sufficient for the parish’.  Their efforts were in vain, the local authority, backed by the more stringent education Act of 1902, won and a new school was built.  In 1913, the duke conceded that the old school building could be used as a social club for the ‘poorer classes of the parish of Leigh’ as long as it was not used for political meetings.

The opening of the new school and the death of Geogiana Charrington in 1911 would appear to be symbolic of the decline of the power being directly wielded in the village by these newly rich families.  Leigh Place came on the market in 1910 and, mysteriously, again in 1911.  Henry Bell remained a major employer in the village, but it is interesting that large numbers of the employed of the village qualified for annual donations from Henry Smith’s charity, the criteria of which is in the display, mostly of a few shillings – never more than a pound.  This suggests that for all the generosity of the powerful inhabitants, life in Leigh remained tough for the majority of the villagers.  Still, the hats on the members of the Mother’s Union look stylish, and the flower show mostly flourished.  After the first war, fleets of bicycles were seen travelling between Mynthurst and the village and when Henry Bell died in 1931 he left generous legacies to his staff.  The story of Leigh following the two wars will have to wait for another day, but it can be said that many of the houses built by Brandon’s newly rich were split up allowing the rather less affluent among us to have a share of the Land of Heart’s Desire. 

 

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