“Hic iacet Johēsi Elmebrygge, armiger, qui obiit biij die
ffebruarij; Aº Dn̅i Mºccccºlxxij, et Isabella uxor eius
quae fuit filia Nichī Jamys quondā Maioris et
Alderman̅ London: quae obiit bijº die Septembris
Aº Dn̅i Mºccccºlxxijº et Annae uxor ei: quae
fuit filia Johēs Prophete Gentilman quae obiit ...
Aº Dn̅i Mºcccº ... quorū animabus
ppicietur Deus.”
The date of the second wife’s death has never been inserted, showing that the brass was engraved and set during her lifetime, as in so many other examples of monumental brasses throughout the country. The figure of John Elmebrygge is wanting, it having been at some time torn from its matrix, but above his figure’s indent remains a label inscribed Sancta Trinitas, and from the mouths of the remaining figures issue labels inscribed Unus Deus—Miserere nobis. Beneath is a group of seven daughters; the group of four sons is long since lost.
A transitional Norman font of grey Sussex marble remains at the western end of the church, and on an altar-tomb in the southern chapel are the poor remains of an ancient stone figure of the fifteenth century, presumably the effigy of a merchant civilian, as he is represented wearing the gypcière. It is hacked out of almost all significance at the hands of some iconoclasts; their chisel-marks are even now distinct and bear witness against the Puritan rage that defaced and buried it face downwards, the reverse side of the stone forming part of the chapel pavement until 1861, when it was discovered during the restoration of the church.
Before that restoration this was an interior of Georgian high pews. Among them the “squire’s parlour” was pre-eminent, with its fireplace, its well-carpeted floor, its chairs and tables: a snuggery wherein that good man snored unobserved, or partook critically of his snuff during the parson’s discreet discourse. But now the parlour is gone, and the squire must slumber, if he can, with the other sinners.
GATTON
In Merstham village, just beyond the “Feathers” inn, stood Merstham toll-gate, followed by that of Gatton, at Gatton Point, a mile distant, where the old route through Reigate goes off to the right, and the new—the seven miles between Gatton Point and Povey Cross, through Redhill—continues, straight as an arrow, ahead. The way is bordered on the right hand by Gatton Park, a spot the country folk rightly describe as an “old arnshunt place.” The history of Gatton, in truth, goes back to immemorial times, and has no beginning: for where history thins out and becomes a mere scatter of disjointed scraps purporting to be facts, tradition carries back the tale into a very fog of legend and conjecture. It was “Gatone” when the Domesday survey was made: the Saxon “Geat-ton,” the town in the “gate,” passage, or road through the North Downs, just as Reigate is the Saxon “Rige-geat,” the road over the ridge. The “ton” or town in the place-name does not necessarily mean what we moderns would understand by the word, and here doubtless indicated an enclosed, hedged, or walled-in tract of land redeemed and cultivated out of the then encompassing wilderness of the Downs.
Who first broke the land of Gatton to the plough? History and tradition are silent. No voice speaks out of the grave of the centuries. But both Reigate and Gatton are older than Anglo-Saxon times, for a Roman way, itself following the course of an even earlier savage trail, came up out of the stodgy clay of Holmesdale, over the chalky hills, to Streatham and London. It was a branch of the road leading from Portus Adurni—the present Old Shoreham, on the river Adur—and doubtless, in the long centuries of Romano-British civilisation, it was bordered here and there by settlements and villas. Prominent among them was Gatton. There can scarcely be a doubt of it, for, although Roman relics are not found here now, Camden, writing in the time of Henry the Eighth, tells of “Roman Coynes digged forth of the Ground.” It was ever a desirable site, for here unfailing springs well out of the chalk and give an abounding fertility, while another road—the ancient Pilgrims’ Way—running west and east, crossed the other highway, and thus gave ready communication on every side.
Gatton has, within the historic period, never been more than a manorial park, but an unexplained something, like the echo of a vanished greatness, has caused strangely unmerited honours to be granted it. Who shall say what induced Henry the Sixth in 1451 to make this mere country park a Parliamentary borough, returning two members? There must have been some adequate reason or excuse, even if only the one of its ancient renown; for there must always be an apology of sorts for corruption; no job is jobbed without at least some shadowy semblance of legality. But no one will ever pluck out the heart of its mystery.
THE ROTTEN BOROUGH
A Parliamentary borough Gatton remained until 1832, when the first Reform Act swept away the representation of it, together with that of many another “rotten borough.” Rightly had Cobbett termed it “a very rascally spot of earth,” for certainly from 1541, when Sir Roger Copley owned the property and was the sole elector of the place, the election was a scandalous farce, and never at any time did the “burgesses” exceed twenty. They were always tenants of the lord of the manor and the mere marionettes that danced to his will.