Leatherhead, United Kingdom

From the mid-9th century, Leatherhead was the centre of a royal vill, which encompassed Ashtead, Fetcham and Bookham. The first known reference to the settlement is in the will of Alfred the Great in 880, in which land at Leodridan was bequeathed to his son, Edward the Elder. By the 10th century, there was a minster church in Leatherhead, and the town was administered as part of the Copthorne Hundred.

The medieval history of Leatherhead is complex, since the parish was divided into a number of manors. The town appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Leret and was held by Osbern de Ow as a mesne lord to William I. Its Domesday assets were one church, belonging to Ewell, and 40 acres (160,000 m2) of land. It was valued at an annual income of £1. To the south was the manor of Thorncroft, which was held by Richard son of Gilbert as tenant-in-chief. To the north was the manor of Pachesham, subdivided into two parts, each of which was held by a mesne lord to the tenant-in-chief, Bishop Odo of Bayeux. Finally there are sporadic mentions in surviving documents of a manor called "Minchin", which may have belonged to Kilburn Priory in Middlesex.

For the majority of its history, Thorncroft Manor appears to have remained as a single, intact entity, with the exception of the subinfeudation of Bocketts Farm, which took place before 1300. In 1086, the manor was held by Richard fitz Gilbert and it passed through his family (the Clares) to his granddaughter, Margaret de Clare, who married into the de Montfitchet family of Essex. Her great-grandson, Richard de Montfichet, sold the manor to John de Cheresbure in around 1190 and it was next purchased by Philip Basset and his second wife, Ela, Countess of Warwick in around 1255. In 1266, they granted Thorncroft (which provided an income of £20 per year) to Walter de Merton, who used it to endow the college in Oxford that he had founded in 1264. Merton College remained the lords of the manor until 1904 and the continuity of ownership ensured that an almost complete set of manorial rolls from 1278 onwards has been preserved. In 1497, Richard FitzJames, the Warden of the College, authorised the expenditure of £37 for a new manor house, which was used until the Georgian era.

In contrast, the manor of Pachesham became fragmented as the Middle Ages progressed. By the time of the Domesday Book, it was already divided into two parts, the smaller of which was later referred to as "Pachenesham Parva". No written record of either part of the manor survives from the subsequent 200 years, but in 1286 land belongong to Pachesham was recorded as passing to Eustace de Hacche. De Haache rebuilt the manor house in around 1293, which he enclosed with a moat. Excavations of the manor house site (now known as The Mounts) in the mid-20th century provided evidence of several medieval buildings, including a hall, a chapel and a probable stable block. The value of the manor appears to have declined in the mid-14th century and, in 1386, it was let to William Wimbledon for an annual sum of £20. In 1393, one year after a serious fire had destroyed much of Leatherhead, Wimbledon defaulted on the rent and was accused of dismantling several of the manor buildings. From the start of the 15th century, the land was divided between twelve lessees and the manor then disappears from the historical record.

Surviving records of Pachenesham Parva from around 1330 suggest that it covered an area of 46 ha (114 acres) on the east bank of the River Mole, to the north west of the town centre. The manor appears to have remained intact through the Middle Ages and land was added to the estate as the remainder of Pachesham was broken up. By the early 17th century, the area was known as Randalls Farm and, in 1805, the associated land totalled 182 ha (450 acres).

Reforms during the Tudor period replaced the day-to-day administration of towns such as Leatherhead in the hands of the vestry of the parish church. The vestry was charged with appointing a parish constable, maintaining a lock-up and organising a basic fire service. Until 1834, it also administered poor relief and was responsible for building a workhouse on Kingston Road in 1808.