Chilworth, Surrey
| Chilworth | |
| Surrey | |
|---|---|
 Houses in Chilworth | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ021471 |
| Location: | 51°12’51"N, 0°32’18"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 1,928 |
| Post town: | Guildford |
| Postcode: | GU4 |
| Dialling code: | 01483 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Guildford |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Guildford |
Chilworth is a village in Surrey, to the south-east of Guildford, on both sides of the Tillingbourne between outcrops of the Greensand Ridge, including St Martha's Hill.
The village has three churches, two pre-secondary education schools, an independent pub-restaurant and a railway station.
Footpaths lead through fields and woodlands along the ranges of hills.
Since 2011, a community of Benedictine monks has inhabited a hilltop monastery near Chilworth; St Augustine's Abbey. The abbey was designed by Frederick Walters and founded as a Franciscan friary in 1892.[1]
Contents
Churches
- Church of England:[2]
- St Martha-on-the-Hill
- St Thomas
- Chilworth Free Church[3]
Geography
The village occupies both sides of the Tillingbourne between those areas of the Greensand Ridge to the south such as Tangley Hill and a steep knoll St Martha's Hill with has St Martha's Church and rest of the North Downs Way to the north. The North Downs are immediately north, east and west of that knoll.
Footpaths lead through fields and long-established hillside woodlands along the ranges of hills.
History
The Manor of Chilworth appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Celeorde. It was held by Odo of Bayeux the Bishop of Bayeux. Its Domesday assets were: 1 mill worth 7s, 3 ploughs. It rendered £3 10s 0d.
The settlement has a rich industrial past. At various times in history it has been the location of a wire mill, paper mill and gunpowder factory.[4] The wireworks was built in 1603[5] by Thomas Steere and others, who seduced workmen from the Tintern wireworks of the Company of Mineral and Battery Works. This infringed the latter company's patent and enabled it to have the wireworks suppressed in 1606.[6]
Chilworth Gunpowder works was established in 1625 by the East India Company and finally closed in 1920. It was worked by a number of private companies, and became an important supplier of gunpowder to the Government. A significant number of buildings belonging to the gunpowder factory can still be found. The buildings and area are now partially looked after by Guildford Borough Council and English Heritage. The gunpowder works are listed as a scheduled monument.[7].
Before the railway was built, Chilworth was a hamlet of a few cottages around the bridge over the Tillingbourne on the direct lane to Guildford via Tyting, where the main entrance to the gunpowder works was located.[8] The second nucleus of settlement was the railway station, with its pub. A third nucleus was around a post office on the A248 in Shalford CP, which was known as "Shalford Hamlet" until around the Second World War.[9]
Benedictine monks occupy a monastery towards the outskirts of Chilworth in Saint Augustine's Abbey, which was for over a century a Franciscan order friary, designed by Frederick Walters, founded in 1892.[10]
Chilworth Manor
- Main article: Chilworth Manor, Surrey
Chilworth Manor is a large, Grade II listed house between the main village and St Martha's Hill to the north. It was part of the patrimony granted to Newark Priory when this monastery was founded in the late 12th century,[11] and was administered as a monastic manor until the abbey was destroyed by King Henry VIII. By 1580 the property was owned by one William Morgan. William's son, John was knighted at Cadiz in 1596. In 1725 the widowed Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, became the owner. She added the Marlborough Wing and developed a tiered garden excavated in the sloping hillside and still known as the "Duchess's Garden".
Chilworth Manor has recently been extensively restored and refurbished by new owners, following the death of its previous occupant, Lady Heald.[12]
Amenities
Chilworth has three churches; two schools, Chilworth Infant School and Tillingbourne Junior School; a gastro-pub, The Percy Arms and Chilworth railway station.
In sports, the village has a recreation ground with a park that has a sports pavilion used for football.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Chilworth, Surrey) |
References
- ↑ St Augustine's Abbey, Chilworth
- ↑ Parish of Chilworth
- ↑ Chilworth Free Church
- ↑ Gunpowder Mills
- ↑ K R Fairclough and Glenys Crocker – Chilworth gunpowder mills in the period of the Dutch Wars
- ↑ M. B. Donald, Elizabethan Monopolies: the history of the Company of Mineral and Battery Works from 1565 to 1604 (Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh 1961), 136–7.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1018507: Chilworth gunpowder works
- ↑ Ordnance Survey, 1st edn.
- ↑ Ordnance Survey 1945 edn.
- ↑ English heritage review of diocesan churches
- ↑ A History of the County of Surrey - Volume 3 p : {{{2}}} (Victoria County History)
- ↑ National Heritage List 1188708: Chilworth Manor
