WOTTON HUNDRED
��CAPEL
���KNIGHTS or ST. JOHN. Gules a cross argent.
��in 1862. It is now brought under one management with the endowed school.
CAPEL was, and is, for the most part, MANORS in the manor of Dorking, though it also extends into Milton Manor. Parochially it was all included in Dorking.
From a suit in 1279 it appears that in the reign of Henry III John de Elefold had granted lands in Capel to the Master of the Templars in England, and his son Thomas in that year withdrew from an attempt to recover them. 7 In 1 308, when the Templars' lands were seized, Temple Elfold was among them. 8 The land was known later as the manor of TEMPLE ELF4NDE. With the rest of the Templars' lands it passed to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, in accordance with a suggestion made by Pope John XXII. 9 The Chartu- lary of St. John of Jerusa- lem 10 describes it in 1308 as held of the Earl of Warenne, but no service was done and no ecclesiastical benefice was supported by it. There was a house, and the total value was 4 i it. 2d. a year. It remained with the Knights of St. John till the dissolution of the order, 1539, when it appears as Temple Elphaud, in Surrey."
After the Dissolution it was granted to John Williams and Antony Stringer, who conveyed almost immediately to William Cowper l> of London, who also held land at Horley and in Charlwood, Surrey.
The Cowper, or (more usu- ally) Cooper, family continued to hold for nearly two centuries. In March 1590-1 John Cow- per, serjeant-at-law, the son of William Cowper, died, seised of a capital messuage in Capel called Temple Elephant. 13 In the next year John's brother Richard, who had the reversion of the estate after the death of John's widow Julian, who survived Richard," also died, leaving Richard his son and heir, who was then aged eigh- teen. 15 The younger Richard, afterwards knighted, 16 married, first, Elizabeth Young, to whose father Richard the elder had mortgaged Temple Elfold, and secondly, Elizabeth daughter of Sir Thomas Gresham. He died seised in 1 625."
His son Richard Cowper or Cooper settled Temple Elfold on Barbara Miller his wife, on his marriage in 1646. She died without issue the same year, and Richard resettled the estate on his second wife Sarah
���COWPIR of Temple Eltande. Argent a bend engrailed between two lions sable "with three roundels argent on the bend.
���BROADWOOD of Capel. Ermine two pales vairy or and gules and a chief vert -with a ring between two Jir trees torn up by the roots or therein.
��Knightley, in 1 647. His son and heir by her, John, settled it on his marriage with Elizabeth Lewin in 1 67 1. 18 Their son John sold it to Ezra Gill of Eashing in I7z8. 19 Ezra Gill settled the manor, manor-house, and park of 1 44 acres, on 1 6 April 1729, in anticipation of his marriage with Mary Woods, 20 who died 1767, when the estate passed to her son Wil- liam Gill. He died in 1815, and was succeeded by his bro- ther Henry Streeter Gill, who died in 1 8 1 8." His daughter married J. H. Frankland, who assumed the name of Gill. They sold Temple Elfold in
1833 to Mr. James Tschudi Broadwood of Lyne Capel, whose great-grandson is the present owner.
The reputed manor of HENFOLD in Capel appears first in the reign of Henry VIII. In 1511 and 1512 the manor of Aglondes More and Hen- fold, in East Betchworth, Buckland, and Capel, was conveyed by Robert Gaynsford to Sir Henry Wyatt.** This was Sir Henry Wyatt, father to Sir Thomas Wyatt the poet, who in 1 540 conveyed it to Robert Young." Robert died seised of it in 1 548, leaving his grandson John, then nine years old, to succeed him. 84 John died in 1629, leaving a son and heir William," who succeeded him. Henfold, however, was probably not a real manor. In 1776 in a court roll of the manor of West Betchworth, and again in 1823, Henfold is mentioned as in the manor, being broken up into several holdings. The name Aglondes More has disappeared. The house called Henfold, in Capel, is the seat of Mrs. Farnell Watson, and is in the manor of West Betchworth. 116
The church of St. John the Baptist CHURCHES (until the early part of the 1 6th cen- tury dedicated in honour of St. Law- rence) stands on the west of the main road that runs north and south through the village, and opposite to the road that forks off to the east in the direction of Temple Elfold. It is on somewhat elevated ground, although the surrounding country is flat, and commands pretty and extensive views of wooded and pastoral scenery. The churchyard, bounded on the east and south by a stone wall, is entered through a modern lych-gate, and also by a stone stile, ancient at least in idea. A great slab near it bears the ripple-marks which are often met with in this locality. The path to the south door is of stone flags. There is a fine old yew, and also a number of cypresses, and among the gravestones are many of the 1 7th and l8th centuries.
Until its enlargement in 1865 the church presented
��"' Anize R. no. 879, m. 14.
8 Dugdale, Man. vi (2), 833.
9 J. Delaville le Roulx, Doc. concernant les Tcm fliers, p. 50, no. xxxviii.
10 Cotton MS. Nero, E. vi, fol. 141.
11 Exch. Mini. Accts. 31 & 32 Hen. VIII, no. 114, Midd.
" L.andP. Hen. VIII, riii (i), g. 346 (3), and g. 226 (79.)
18 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), ccxxviii, 64.
14 Deed of 1601 in possession of the late Rev. T. R. O'Fflahertie of Capel. Richard
��the elder had mortgaged his reversion and Richard the younger reclaimed it.
14 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), cczxxiii, 104..
16 The name ' Lady Cooper," no doubt Elizabeth Gresham, is scratched with a diamond upon an existing window at Temple Elfold.
>' Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), ccccxix, 30.
18 Deeds copied by the late Rev. T. R. O'Fflahertie of Capel.
19 Deeds quoted by Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surr. iii, 597.
137
��90 Deed communicated by Mr. Percy Woods, C.B.
" V.C.H. Surr. ii, 61 1 ; Feet of F. Surr. Trin. 55 Geo. III.
Feet of F. Surr. Trin. 3 Hen. VIII ; East. 4 & 5 Hen. VIII.
" Ibid. Trin. 32 Hen. VIII.
M Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), Ixxxvii, 64.
16 Ibid, cccclxxv, 97.
48 Rolls copied by the Rev. T. R. O'Ffla- hertie of Capel.
18
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