Chaldon History Group

8th May 2020 is the 75th anniversary of VE Day, the end of the Second World War in Europe and to mark this occasion the Chaldon Village Council asked Liz Bonsall to write a piece about Chaldon in 1945, with its celebrations and the decisions on war memorials, for the newsletter, Chaldon Matters. The piece is reproduced here. Further information compiled by Liz Bonsall is on the page Chaldon in World War 2; where you will find the Chaldon Village Roll of Honour and extracts from Chaldon Association minutes of meetings 1938-1953 referring to wartime and memorial plans.

Chaldon in 1945

VE (Victory in Europe) Day was the name given to 8^th May 1945 when the Allies celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany formally recognising the end of the Second World War in Europe.  It meant an end to nearly six years of a war that had lost the lives of millions.  The war against Japan did not end until August 1945.

The news of Germany’s surrender was not surprising. It had been anticipated for some time and people were on standby to start celebrating.  The news came on the evening of 7^th May and a national holiday was immediately declared for the following day.

In Chaldon local celebrations were fairly low key. Canon Crawford had written a Victory note in the Church News to tell parishioners how Thanksgiving would be offered.  He said “On the day itself the Children will have a Service when the School is dismissed: and for the older folk there will be special Services at 11am and 8pm when all will, we hope, want to come and our Church should be full.”

On 19^th April 1945 the Chaldon Association had called a Public Meeting which was ‘crowded to capacity’ and gave evidence of “an earnest desire for a local memorial to mark our grateful appreciation of those who have risked and accomplished so much for us, and whom we look forward to welcome home.”

On the 6^th June 1945 a Victory party was held for the children of Chaldon. It was held in a field in Chaldon Common Road and the children were entertained to tea of fancy cakes, jellies, blancmanges and ice-cream. Over a hundred children attended and enjoyed a firework display in the evening.

Ideas for memorials were discussed and argued over by a War Memorial Committee and culminated in the stained glass window at the Church, dedicated 16^th November 1947, a memorial clock on the north face of the Village Hall unveiled 29^th January 1949, a Book of Remembrance dedicated at the Church later that year and two brass plaques commemorating the fallen fixed inside the Village Hall.

On 23^rd January 1946 Chaldon WI attended a Victory Party in the Guards Depot Methodist Church Hall where games and competitions were interspersed with dancing and fancy dress.

In June 1946 Victory Celebrations in Chaldon were marked by a Fete on the field next to the Village Hall.  The weather on the day was dreadful and “it rained all day”. However, the children continued with their races and the evening concerts were well attended.  Chaldon Village Fete continues to this day.

If you would like to know more about Chaldon in WW2 see the page, Chaldon in World War 2 here.

If you have any stories or photographs to share please contact Liz at lizbonsall@aol.com.

Garden finds from Chaldon CourtSaturday 18th January 2pm to 4pm

Chaldon Village Hall, Rook Lane, Chaldon

LOOK WHAT I FOUND!
The Portable Antiquities Scheme and finds from Surrey: a talk by Simon Maslin, followed by identification of finds.

The Portable Antiquities Scheme is run by the British Museum and National Museum Wales to encourage the recording of archaeological objects found by members of the public. Every year many thousands of such finds are made, many by metal detector users, but also by people whilst out walking, gardening or going about their daily work. Dr Simon Maslin, County Finds Liaison Officer for Surrey, explained the work of the scheme and showed images and told the stories of some of the archaeological objects found locally.

After the talk, Simon Maslin looked at finds from Chaldon, brought by those attending the talk.

The Portable Antiquities Scheme generally only records objects which are more than 300 years old and of archaeological interest, so in terms of garden finds, anything 18th-20th century in date or of geological origin (i.e. fossils) do not need to be recorded but Simon Maslin was very happy to tell us what they were and talk to us about them.

Peter Connelly of East Surrey Museum brought some of the famous finds from Chaldon in a display cabinet.

Two talks have been confirmed for January and March next year:

Saturday 18th January (2pm to 4pm) in Chaldon Village Hall

A talk by Simon Maslin, Portable Antiquities Officer, Surrey County Council, about his work and the Portable Antiquities Scheme, he will then help to identify any finds that you bring along.

Saturday 14th March (2pm to 4pm) in Chaldon Church

A talk by Ian Brown on the Roane family of Tollsworth and their (probable) connection to John Roan, founder of Roan Grammar School for Boys, Greenwich, and that branch of the family.

Saturday 9th November, 2pm – 4pm: Chaldon Church
The talk by Ted Howard covered details of the life of Henry Smith, a remarkable man, and of the many projects he supported before and after his death, including the modern role of the Charity in Chaldon.
Henry Smith was born to a poor family in Wandsworth in 1549 and died in 1628 at the age of 79 yrs. He was apprenticed to the Salter’s Company which produced and sold salt, rose to a senior position and became very wealthy. Henry bought many properties, including Knole House, Sevenoaks (leasing it back to the Sackville family), and he owned a very profitable iron business in the Weald. He was a great philanthropist and set up many charitable Trusts for the relief of poverty. These were particularly generous to the parishes in Surrey.

The original rules for the use of the money included:-
1. The provision of clothing and blankets for poor, elderly or infirm parishioners.
2. Financial help for the education of poor children or the support of apprentices over 15 years of age.
3. The provision of food for the poor on Sundays.
The rules have now been modernised and three Parish Trustees authorised by the Charity Commission are responsible for the distribution of the annual grants in Chaldon. The Henry Smith Charity is now one of the largest charitable funds in the UK and gives grants of approximately 27 million pounds per year. Henry would surely have been very gratified with the results of his philanthropy.

A joint event with the Friends of Chaldon Church, to whom the proceeds were given, to support the preservation of the ancient church building. 

A walk round the boundaries of the Village/ Parish of Chaldon.

Beating the Bounds – Chaldon History Group & Friends of Chaldon Church supported by Chaldon Village Council and Caterham Festival.

This took place on Saturday 25th May 2019. Once again we had arranged to establish our territory with Caterham Hill Parishioners as we met with them on our boundary at Green Lane.

The walk started from Chaldon Church with a rest at the Harrow at around 1pm for lunch and finished at the church for tea.

See the Beating the Bounds page  here for a brief history of the custom in Chaldon, and press cuttings from the past.

Following our Water theme:

PONDS IN CHALDON

Over twenty of us had a wonderful walk, through fields and woods, on footpaths and quiet roads, round the village to find the sites of most of the 25 ponds that existed in Chaldon 150 years ago (on a map from 1868).

On the way there was a real sense of history and place, with fields and meadows, a wealth of wild flowers, butterflies, spectacular views, and evidence of life in the past.

Some sites had no signs at all that a pond had ever been there. Others were dry because it was summer and dry weather, but are known to have water in at other times of year. We saw farm ponds, the roadside pond in Rook Lane for those journeying through the village, the pond hidden in a deep quarried dip south of Tollsworth, and where a pond had been next to an isolated cottage or small house on the North Down’s Way (opposite the trig. point). The only signs of either cottage or pond now being pieces of pottery, china, glass and quarry tiles from a floor, found in the soil in the edge of the field. We peeped through bushes and peered down holes to see any sign The ‘real’ water filled ponds were found on Spring Bottom Lane, where the spring still provides a natural flow of clean water, once the water source for many in Chaldon. One member of the household had to walk down the hill, fill their buckets and carry them back up the hill on a yoke over their shoulders.

There was a lunch stop at the Harrow pub, and the walk ended with tea and cakes in the grass bowl at Chaldon Court that was once a pond.

£134 was given to the Friends of Chaldon Church from the £5 fees for the walk and the sale of teas and cakes.

Our visit this spring to the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) was planned for Wednesday 10th April but has been postponed. We organised aa new date, 25th September but did not manage to fill enough places, so have had to cancel this visit.

The visit was planned as a group tour in the morning and to see selected maps and documents relating to Chaldon village and the church. There was the choice of staying on to undertake any personal research.

If any one is interested in making their own visit, the LMA is in Clerkenwell, half a mile from Farringdon Tube / British Rail. There are direct trains from Coulsdon South.

The archives holds original documents relating to Chaldon including a 1781 survey and map of the churchyard, some Church Faculty papers such as the levelling of the Tomlin family vault, the original Hassell painting of Chaldon Workhouse (Baker’s/Beggars’ Lodge) and the Burial Registers for the former Caterham Asylum.

The LMA has a vast library, original archive documents, computers to access digitised records including many wills of Chaldon people dating back to the 16th Century. Records include Chaldon Church records from the dioceses of Rochester, Winchester and Southwark and records from St Lawrence’s Hospital, whose lands and burial ground encroached on Chaldon.

The Archive is open until 7.30pm on a Wednesday so there is plenty of time to order documents of personal interest or explore the huge library. To explore what is available go to http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lma

The website explains about registration for your History Card, lockers, lunch etc.

The second Spring Talk 2019 was on Saturday 30th March in Chaldon Village Hall.

Water in Chaldon: springs, water carts, ponds and pipes
Looking at the history of water provision in the village; how water was carried up White Hill from the springs at the bottom, where the twenty five ponds were in the village, including the important one funded by the LeGrew family, and the historical development of the local water company.
It was presented by Liz Bonsall with material from Gwyneth Fookes who had surveyed and photographed ponds in the whole of Tandridge District in 1996.

Water had been a difficulty for Chaldon, as it is sat on top of a chalk hill and ponds, natural and man made, were apt to dry up in droughts. Before piped water, Chaldon was farms and a few cottages, and the only new houses built were those able to dig deep enough wells to provide an adequate supply of water, or it had to be brought in by water cart.

The talk included maps of the Parish and photographs of the remains of some of the forgotten ponds. The farms in the village each had two ponds, for people and animals, and the pond on Rook Lane was probably a travellers pond, where horses drank (the period equivalent of cars filling up with petrol at a petrol station). A watercolour drawing by Hassell from 1823 of Chaldon Workhouse / Beggars Lodge on Chaldon Common shows a pond in front of it, evidence for which is also clear from an early map.

Some houses in Chaldon had wells or underground water storage tanks filled by rainwater from the roof. Piped water eventually came to the village from the Caterham Spring Water Company founded by George Drew, a solicitor from London who owned much land in Caterham, at the time when the coming of the railway meant that new houses were being built in the valley. He spotted the business opportunity this gave for providing water to the new community. The first Caterham Waterworks were on Stanstead Road, shown in an engraving from 1862.

Nearly forty people attended the talk and display of maps provided by Liz to browse afterwards. The proceeds (after costs) were given to the Friends of Chaldon Church, for the upkeep and repair of the historic church building.

Saturday 23rd February 2019

Gleanings from the Estate Records, and the stories they tell

by Madeline Hutchins
The west of Chaldon parish (Tollsworth and Chaldon Court farms) has been owned by the Jolliffe family / Lord Hylton since 1788, and for a long period of time they owned much more of the parish, including Rook Farm and Chaldon Common.

Madeline looked first at what can be learnt from the Sales Particulars of 1788, and the Estate map (from 1768) attached to them. Then using material from the accounts books of the Hylton / Merstham Estates held in the Somerset Archives, Madeline explored details from the records that told stories of housing, sanitation, farming and woodland management in Chaldon in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In 1877 the Estate earned a considerable amount of money from the sale of bark. The accounts include:

Samuel Barrow & Bro. for bark

350 bags of bark £140 3s 10d

194 ditto £83 6s 4d

The bark was used in the process of tanning leather. Samuel Barrow & Brother ran tanneries in London and Horsham.

The accounts for 1901 showed the architect’s fee and the amount paid to R Whitaker to build the new cottage for the gamekeeper at Chaldon (now Keepers Cottage on Doctors Lane).

In 1902, the Merstham Estate accounts show £5 income from Mrs Ellen Harris for Furzebank. Ann Lardeur, who lives in Furzebank, 22 The Heath, off Chaldon Common Road, kindly showed Madeline the collection of deeds and documents she has on the house. From these it became clear that the Merstham Estate made a 99 year lease with Mrs Ellen Harris, wife of a builder, for the land, with a rental of £5 in the first year, then £9 a year. Mr Harris built the house Furzebank and later built three more on the plot of land.

33 people attended the talk which generated a string of questions at the end.