Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for MERSTHAM

MERSTHAM, a village and a parish in Reigate district, Surrey. The village stands on the London and Brighton railway, 3 miles NE of Reigate; contains some curious old cottages; and has a station with telegraph on the railway, and a post office under Red Hill. The parish comprises 2,535 acres. Real property, £3,771. Pop., 846. Houses, 173. The property is divided among a few. The manor was given in 1018, by Ethelstan, son of Ethelred II., to Christchurch, Canterbury; and remained with it till the dissolution. Merstham House is the seat of Lord Hytton, made a peer in 1866. A peculiar kind of stone has been quarried in the parish from a very early period; was once esteemed of so much importance as to be kept under the control of the Crown; was used in the erection of Henry VIII. 's chapel at Westminster, and of some parts of Windsor Castle; is a greyish green arenaceous limestone, lying under a grey calcareous marl; is soft at removal from the quarry, but acquires hardness by exposure; resists heat so remarkably as to be characterized as fire-stone; and is now used chiefly for hearths and furnaces. Chalk rock abounds; is calcined to be used as lime; and was formerly worked on a large scale. A tram railway, for the conveyance of the chalk, was constructed so early as 1805; belongs now to the London and Brigh ton company; and is still, in some parts, in working order. A tunnel of the London and Brighton railway, 1,82o yards long, occurs imdiately N of the village. The parish was traversed by the ancient Pilgrim's road to Canter net. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Winchester. Valne, £615.* Patron, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The church stands on a knoll, among fine old trees, at the E end of the village; includes some early English portions, but is mainly later English; shows the palm-leaf, the mark of the early crusade, among the decorations of its chancelarch; and contains a curious double piscina of decorated character, a square Norman font, four brasses from 1 472, and some handsome monuments to the Jolliffe family. A spring, similar to the Kentish nailbournes, breaks out in wet seasons in a pool at the foot of the church-knoll; and very deep wells, one of them 210 feet deep, occur in varions parts. The parish shares in the charities of Reigate.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village and a parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Merstham AP/CP       Reigate RegD/PLU       Surrey AncC
Place: Merstham

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