Lingfield, Surrey

Description
Lingfield, a village and a parish in Surrey. The village stands on a head-stream of the river Medway, 4 miles N of East Grinstead, and has a station on the L.B. & S.C.R., 2f> miles from London, and a post, money order, and telegraph office. Acreage of the civil parish, 9239; population, 3204; of the ecclesiastical, 2008. Starborough Castle, 2 1/2 miles E of the village, was built in the time of Edward III., was a seat of the Cobhams, was garrisoned by the Parliamentarian forces in the Civil Wars of Charles L, was subsequently demolished, and is represented now by only the moat and some-traces of the foundations. A modern house, bearing the castle's name, is a private residence. There is an ancient cross, which goes by the name of St Peter's Cross, standing on what was formerly the village green. A chalybeate spring is on Lingtield Common. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Rochester; net value, £150 with residence. The church is chiefly Later English, includes earlier portions, consists of nave, aisles, and chancel, with tower and spire, and contains eleven stalls, an ancient oak lectern, a Later English altar-tomb, and a number of brasses and other monuments of the Cobhams, the Howards, and others. A college for a provost, chaplains, and clerks of the Carthusian older was founded at the W end of the churchyard in 1431 by Reginald Lord Cobham, had endowments which at the-dissolution were valued at upwards of £79, continued to be in a perfect state in the time of Aubrey, but was taken down-to give place to a farmhouse in the time of George I. There are two Baptist chapels and a mission church. St John's, Dormans Land, is an ecclesiastical parish, formed in 1885 out of Lingfield. The church is a stone building in the Gothic style. The living is a curacy; net value, £180. Patron, the Bishop of Rochester.