Cobham is a community steeped in history. Or, perhaps more accurately, three communities Church Cobham, Street Cobham and Downside which is how Cobham began. It was once described as 'a creature of the Mole' and the river has given the place its reason for being as well as providing the rural atmosphere which can still be found, despite the town's proximity to London. Cobham, today, is a lively, thriving place which still has much to show of its particularly interesting past.
This new book traces the whole of that past, from the Iron-Age settlement on Leigh Hill down to the Roman era, when the bathhouse at Chatley Farm was built. By the time of Domesday Book, Cobham had moved to its present position and recent research seems to indicate that a planned village was laid out there in the 12th century by the Abbot of Chertsey. It grew, through the centuries, each of which has left its mark, from Cobham Mill, one of the few working water mills in Surrey, to the glorious gardens of Painshill Park and the working semaphore tower on Chatley Heath. As a reminder of the dramatic events of the 17th century, Cobham is part of the Surrey Digger Trail ... the Diggers were political activists with a surprisingly modern manifesto!
Since he wrote 'The Book of Cobham' in 1982, the author has been the leading local historian in the Cobham area. This new book is his ninth to be published and it provides a full and comprehensive account of the town’s history, over more than two millennia. In an engaging style and very fully illustrated with many pictures never previously printed, it will have very wide appeal in the area, and beyond, and will stand as the definitive account of Cobham for many years to come.
Contents:
List of Illustrations
Introduction
1. Early Days
2. The Romans
3. Saxons and Normans
4. Church and Manor
5. The End of Old Order
6. The Tudors
7. The Seventeenth Century
8. The Age of Improvement
9. The Nineteenth Century
10. The Twentieth Century
Select Bibliography and Further Reading
Index
