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This pamphlet was published by the Nature Conservancy Council: And this by English Nature: PDF of contents below: reference to fires at Thursley SSSI on pages 10 and 11 From Nature Conservation Review Volume 2, 19 77 From Nature Line, Spring 1992

With thanks to Sean Edwards and Jill Fry. Also includes Excavation of Two Mounds on Thursley Common in 1959 Hydon's Ball section and simplified list of strata: 5 Sandstone 6 Large Paludina 7 Sandstone h1e Weald Clay h2a Atherfield Clay h2b Hythe Beds h2c Sandgate Beds These 3D models were made by Sean Edwards in the 1960's and built on a 2' x 1' plywood base, with polystyrene contour layers cut with a craft knife, the steps filled with plaster of Paris, smoothed by hand and painted with acrylic paint. Unfortunately only black and white photographs now exist and the models, borrowed by the 'Fight the Red Route' A3 group, have never re-appeard. The circular pin-head on the Puttenham (Sandgate) beds marks the position of the Three Horseshoes. This article was written in July 1981 by Jill Fry, BSc, as a result of the Esso Pipeline installation across Thursley Common: Soil Profiles Exposed in pipeline Trench July 1981 The article is reproduced in full in the PDF below. Unfortunately the annotated slides no longer exist. PDF of contents is below:

This article was sent to the History of Thursley Society by Francis Haveron of the Surrey Industrial History Group on 18th August 1996. It mentions Silk Mill Cottage, Hammer Pond, Pudmore Pond, Ockley Common and other familiar locations. For further reading on the Wealden Iron industry, we are grateful to David Streeter for these comments, "The Wealden iron industry is extremely well-researched.  The classic work is Ernest Straker's Wealden Iron (1931) which Francis Haveron refers to but the current standard work is Henry Cleere's The Iron Industry of the Weald (1985). It includes several references to Thursley including an establishment date of1608 which accords with the lease date of 1610 quoted in the article as 'lately erected and built'.  However, by far the best recent general account of the industry is Jeremy Hodginson's  The Wealden Iron Industry (2008). It's a less academic book than Cleere, designed to appeal to the  general reader as well as the archaeological minded." When did the Wealden Iron industry final stop in Surrey?  Straker, in his classic book “Wealden Iron” (1931), states that although Ashburnham Forge in Sussex worked till 1820, The last Surrey site seems to be that of Thursley which was working in 1767.  Most writers follow Straker in quoting Thursley as the one but usually say it closed down round about 1800.  A number of leases and legal documents in the Percy Woods Collection* in Godalming library tell us more about the change of ownership of the site in the early 19th C and explain the perhaps surprising name of the house at the site – “Silkmill Cottage”. (SU 918408).   The following is a summary from Straker of the known early history of the Thursley furnace and forge.   “It commences in a lease on May 14th, 1610 as ‘lately erected and built”, probably the last to be set up in Surrey.  There is a mortgage of December 17th 1617 and a deed of March 19th 1623 in which Sir George More of Losely demises the mill to Henry Bell of Milford and in 1641 a suit in Chancery largely concerned with fishing rights in the ponds.  In 1666 the works were leased for two years, at £10 per annum, to Willian Yalden of Blackdown, a considerable ironmaster, with a very detailed inventory which shows there was a furnace as well as a forge.   Roque’s map of Surrey 1762 shows the Portsmouth Road as running between the two large ponds with awkward bends.  Apparently when the road was straightened, it was taken across another pond, not now in existence.”   Deed 129 of the Percy Woods Collection is dated September 24th 1812 and in it Mary Webb of Milford house leased to Robert Brettell Bale, rather surprisingly described as a mathematical instrument maker of the Poultry in the City of London, “the Forge lately converted into and used as a Mill for the manufactory of Crape plus the four ponds plus the Upper Hammers or Hammer Alehouse”.  The words ‘lately converted’ might well be significant though they do not give us the date when the iron working ceased.  Of some minor interest is another concession in the least to Bale – the right to cut ‘thirty two thousand of peat from the Pudmore, being part of the Waste or Common Lands within the Manor of Witley.”  Pudmore Pond is on Ockley Common at approximately SU 907416.   In 1918 Bale gave up his lease which was reassigned to Archibald, John and Hugh Herron, described as merchants, of Mitre Court, Milk Street, Cheapside.  When that lease’s term of years expired in 1824, Philip Barker Webb leased for 21 years to John and Hugh Herron, “Warren Lodge that building previously called the Forge but now converted int a Mill or Mills for the Manufactory of crapes … together with the four ponds called the Upper Hammer Pond, The Foul Pond, the Lower Hammer Pond and the New Pond”.  One wonders whether the ‘Foul’ meant polluted or inhabited especially by birds.  Could it refer to what is now called ‘Forked Pond’?   Straker’s reference to the straightening of the Turnpike Road affecting the Thursley site is illuminated by another agreement, No 132 of the Percy Woods Collection, dated April 16th 1828 between the Trustees of the Turnpike from Kingston to Sheetbridge near Petersfield and John Herron, “Silk manufacturer of Thursley”, to buy land called Pen Mead so that the road could go from the foot of Rodborough to the public house at the end of Road Lane.  Pen Mead Copse is marked on my 2 1/2” OS map as lying south of the A3 at SU919401, and it was probably here that the road went across the pond which Straker mentions.  The Trustees also agreed to take down the existing pub call the Half Moon which , rather oddly, was in the occupation of Mrs Frances Moon and rebuild it by the new road, together with stabling for 14 horses.  They also agreed to dig a well and instal a pump, fuelhouse and privy.  No doubt many people still remember the Half Moon beside the road at Thursley which ironically was demolished a few years ago for the widening of the Portsmouth Road, though the actual site of the pub has not been built upon.  I wonder if the well is still there?  Certainly “Silkmill Cottage” still occupies a key site between the Hammer Ponds and enshrines the memory of the Herrons who fished in these waters.  Some Questions still remain, however. Why choose Thursley as a place to make crape and how was it made? Why such a remote location for silk making, an exotic fabric which presumably was imported from the East?  Even though the main road from Portsmouth to London ran beside the mill, it still seems an odd location.   But what was the ’crape’ referred to in the deed of 1812? The American Fabrics Encyclopedia of Textiles (1972)defines it as “a lightweight fabric of silk, rayon, cotton, wool, synthetic or a combination of fibers.  Characterised by a wrinkling surface obtained either by us of 1) hard twist yarns, 2) chemical treatment, 3) weave, 4) embossing.”  The Handbook; of Textile Fibres by J Gordon Cllo (1963, Merrow Publishing Co., Watford) defies crape as yards with a very high twist, as many as 30 – 70 to the inch.  “They are used for crepe fabrics and chiffon and for knitting into hosiery.”  The first definition, therefore, points the search in the direction of the hosiery trade, a speciality of the Godalming area during the late 118th and 19th centuries.  There is a yet third possibility – “the process of crowding a sheet of paper in a roll by means of a doctor”.  A doctor, you will be relieved to hear , is a “thin plane or scraper of wood, metal or other hard substance placed along the entire length of a roll or cylinder to keep it free from paper, pulp, size, etc., and thus maintain a smooth, clean surface.” (‘The Dictionary of Paper’, American Pulp and Paper Association, 1965).  This aspect of the manufacture of crepe puts the usage of Thursley Mill within the context of the paper industry of the Surry and Hants areas.  Thursley Mill in its early 19th century phase could be seen as an interesting half-way house bridging two local industries, the hosiery trade and the making of paper.   Francis Haveron Surrey Industrial History Group 18th August 1996   The Percy Woods Collection: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/dd74bcc6-72ce-4521-a92b-0337f84e322c https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealden_iron_industry From the WEALDEN IRON RESEARCH GROUPDATABASE: http://www.wirgdata.org/searchsites2.cgi?siteid=664 This website provides more information on the Wealden Iron Industry beyond Thursley: http://www.hammerpond.org.uk/index.htm The Wealdon Iron Industry: https://www.wealdeniron.org.uk/history/ The Historical Metallurgy Society: 15th Annual Conference - The Weald-Sussex 1979 The full contents are in the pdf below:

Only photographs of this event plus Mr Lowe, Thursley Taxi Driver

Heath View, now known as "Acorns", in the early 1900s. The stamp on the postcard is dated 1905 or 1908. It is situated on the Old Portsmouth Road. The Edwards family lived there. Jim Edwards was the local rate collector for the parish and collected the rates on his bicycle. The parish extended right over to Haslemere so he pedalled quite far! Jim's brother, Freddy , was quite a local character. He lived at Cosford Mill with his sister and before the first World War worked in the City for a German bank. During the war he didn't have a job because of the hostilities and he never worked again. Cosford Mill was condemned and he moved into a shed at Heath View but went to the mill during the day. He then bought a piece of woodland near Horn Cottage and it was alsways known as Freddy's property. Another lodger at Heath View was Louis Pecskai who was by origin and birth, a Hungarian. He had been born in Fiume when it was part of Austro-Hungary but he looked more like an Italian. Mary Bennett remembers him as a much jollier Napoleon. By nationality he was passionately British and insisted on serving in the Home Guard. Louis Pecskai had been a child prodigy as a youth, Court Violinist to Queen Margarite of Italy, and he remained a violinsit of very high standing, with honorary fellowships of both Trinity College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music, at each of which he had taught and had some reputation in London Chamber Music. He suddenly married a pupil called Bertha who was young enough to be his daughter and they built themselves, first Truxford and then Racks Close (now Cotton House). When pupils fell off during the Second World War, and his own health started to fail, the Pecskais left Racks Close and moved to Smallbrook Farm, lent to him by Sir Bruce Thomas, and there he died in 1944. Two postcards published in the 1920s From Wikipedia: Luigi Pecskai ( Fiume Veneto , July 21 , 1880 - Thursley , February 24 , 1944 ), also known as Louis Pécskai , was an Italian violinist of Hungarian origin.     In the Royal Academy of Budapest, he studied with teachers Baldini and Jenő Hubay . He made his debut in Fiume as an infant in 1886, and then appeared successively in London, Rome, Florence, Ancona, Turin, Budapest, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Venice, Milan, Padua, Graz, and in the principal towns of Italy, Hungary , Switzerland and England, the country in which he was going to die.

This photograph, inspired by the school photographs of his youth, was Peter Anderson's idea (he lived in Brook Cottage, opposite the road to Smallbrook, at the time) and 2000 was the perfect time.

Thursley Horticultural Society has long been of importance in the village. According to records in the 1923 Parish Magazine, it was formed after a very successful Flower Show to “carry on the good work”. Various local dignitaries stood for election, and votes were counted while a musical programme, in the hands of Mr Lionel Rapley, played. The results of the election were that General Sir Joscelyn Wodehouse became President. The Treasurer was Mr J.H. Belcher and Secretary Mr H. Swallow. The committee comprised of Miss Lutyens, Mrs Blogg, Rev L.C. Wilkinson, Messrs Blogg, F. Fosberry. Hoare, T.Karn, L. Rapley. Robertson and H. Sharland. Many names that we recognise today! The Society went from strength to strength and played a central part in village life – with social events, fetes and farming as well as two or three shows a year shows being at the core. Between the wars and up until the 1950s there are records of long lunches, afternoon teas and evening dances following shows beginning at 5 o’clock! Events such as chicken plucking and tug of war were common place. Interestingly, the shows for a long while had different classes for those who in the village who had a gardener and those who did not – a social comment in itself. As travel, and the reasons to travel, were quite different from today, social life in Thursley was punctuated by the various events organised by the committee, as recorded in our minute books and through photographs and newspaper articles. Highlights over recent years have been the two Gardeners Question Time programmes made very successfully in the village hall by the BBC. Talks and visits have become and important part of the calendar, and the plant sales which were also in the village hall. Open Gardens in 2022 and 2023 have proved a huge success and shown what wonderful gardens, and gardeners, we have in Thursley. Recent years have seen the Society’s numbers fall and then rise again. There is a lot of support in the village for the Thursley Horticultural Society now, though we still look for committee members to reach the numbers of the 1923 committee! In 2023, the Society celebrated its centerary with the publication of this booklet which can be obtained by the Society: Contact Thursley Horticultural Society through email: thursleyhortsoc@hotmail.co.uk or find our Facebook page. The following contemporary photographs are courtesy Valérie Ferris (VF), Andrew Kaplanovsky (AK) and Sean Edwards (SE): Plant sale in 2019 (VF) Autumn Show 2019 (AK) Autumn Show 2022 (AK) Spring Show 2023 (VF) Spring Show 2023 (AK) Celebrating 100 years of the Society at Lower House The following photographs of the 100 years event are by Sean Edwards: Open Garden, June 2023 Spring Show, 13th April, 2024 Mrs Nicky Cornell receiving the Marshall-Hall Plate from President Patricia Coles Autumn Show, September 2024 Photographs from Patricia Clake, Adam Gardner and Tim Walsh

Thursley History Society recently made a small contribution to the fund established to save the Rural Life Living Museum. Just over £150,000 was raised and the museum has been saved from closure. https://rural-life.org.uk/ This is the beginning of a notification from the Rural Life Living Museum: From Wikipedia:

Tony Kelly, of Bedford Farm, gave a talk in the village hall in October 2024 about his extraordinary feat. The text and the ppt below are condensations of his talk which was appreciated by the packed audience. From Thursley Village Facebook page: Climbing Mount Everest, 8848m, in 2003 The highest point on Earth. A summary of Tony Kelly’s story   The presentation will cover the lead up to the climb and our summit bids. I’ll also touch on some history of the mountain, as in 2024 its 100yrs since the famous 1924 Mallory and Irvine Expedition (and the mystery of did they summit or not). Their route was on the North side of Mount Everest and we are attempting the same North side route from Tibet. We are attempting the north route because its technically much harder than the south and consequently climbed much less. Back then around 1200 people had summited Mount Everest but only approx. 200 of them from the North side. It's worth dwelling on George Mallory and Sandy Irvine briefly. Mallory’s body was eventually found on the North Face in 1999 with torso bruising indicating a serious fall whilst roped. The remains of his mid layer jumper were still visible supplied by W Paine, 72 High Street, Godalming. Yes, he was a local. Originally from the north west but settled in Godalming as a teacher at Charterhouse and married Ruth, a Godalming girl. Sandy Irvine’s remains were only found in September this year, 2024, on the north face directly below but much further down than Mallory’s body indicating they were almost certainly roped together when they fell. I will also bring to the talk a section of telegraph wire, used for Advanced Base Camp communications in 1924, that I found on the East Rongbuk glacier in 2000. I was with Graham Hoyland at the time (he was on our 2000 expedition) who had been responsible for the search that found George Mallory in 1999. Graham was the great great grandson of Howard Somervell who was on the 1924 expedition with Mallory and Irvine. So where did it all begin for me? After hiking in the UK through my 20’s I got introduced to rock climbing and quickly progressed to rock, ice and mountaineering in the Alps. After 10 years of multiple annual trips to the Alps, I was looking for a bigger challenge and met the internationally renowned expedition leader, Russell Brice, in a bar in Chamonix. My friend and mountain guide, Mark Seaton, was able to reassure Russell I was technically more than competent to join him but we didn’t know how my body would react to extreme altitude. In 1999 I went with Russell Brice to Cho Oyu, the 6th highest mountain in the world at 8,188m to find out if I was ok at altitude. As a test it went well. The weather was brutal. In the end we didn’t make a summit attempt because of extreme snow conditions but I was the only member of the expedition, westerner or sherpa, to reach the expeditions high point of 7,900m and I did it solo. Mt Everest was on! I had mentioned, summit bids, plural. In 2000 we took an expedition to Mount Everest to climb the North side from Tibet. After 2 months on the mountain we made 2 attempts on the summit. The first one was aborted at 7900 metres due to atrocious weather conditions and massive snow loading. That first attempt had high attrition and resulted in 6 of the 7 climbing members pulling the plug. Consequently, on the 2nd attempt, it was only myself, 3 professional mountain guides and 3 sherpa’s that made the attempt. At camp 2, 7500m, our tents got avalanched overnight and buried. It became a matter of survival, avoiding carbon dioxide asphyxiation overnight by punching holes through the snow and ice over the tents and the following day using a quite dangerous technique to deliberately trigger avalanches to clear the massive snow load in front of us to be able to down climb. To cap it off in our exhausted state when we pulled off the mountain a melt water lake had broken out of the East Rongbuk Glacier and we had to build a raft out of barrels and wood to ferry the 20 expedition members and 10 tonnes of equipment out! I’m reminded of the definition of an Adventure: “an undertaking with an uncertain outcome”! So the 2003 Expedition was “Unfinished Business”. We returned to Kathmandu, Nepal, in late March and after assembling some 11 tonnes of equipment and “shopping” in the local markets for 2 months plus of provisions for 17 team members we made our way via Lhasa, Tibet to Mount Everest basecamp at 5200m and set about the expedition proper. High altitude climbing is a combination of technical competence, mountaineering experience and a “head game”. It’s a marathon not a sprint. You’re going to spend months in daily calorie deficit, physically and mentally stressed by the environment and the challenge. -50 deg C and 150mph winds are regular features. You’ll spend a lot of time climbing at 10/10ths of your ability and experience but to be successful you will have to spend some time at 11/10ths or worse and make the judgement call on when to take those risks and how long to stay exposed. Tenacity, stamina and will power will count for a lot. On arrival at basecamp team members blood oxygen levels of mid 70% were not unusual. That would be an A&E visit back home at sea level. Acclimatisation to get the blood oxy levels into the 90%’s takes weeks as you teach your body to produce more red blood cells to cope with the ¼ of sea level oxygen availability we’ll have to deal with higher up the mountain. Acclimatisation starts in base camp knocking off 6000m peaks to warm up and then moving up the glacier to work on the mountain. The route will take a month and half of preparation work putting in fixed rope and installing and provisioning four high camps. We’ll be going up and down visiting and revisiting these camps. This will mean we will effectively climb the height of Mount Everest several times in the process before we even consider a summit attempt. The north side route is not only technically more difficult than the south side by it is much longer. Its 22km from Basecamp to Advanced Basecamp. From ABC we must establish camp 1 at 7050m, camp 2 7500m, camp 3 7900m and camp 4 at 8300m and fully stock them. That includes lugging oxygen bottles (about 6kg each) up which we will use (3 each) from camp 3 7900m onwards. The climbing is a mix of technical ice climbing and massive snow slopes, rock sections of scrambling and massively technical vertical rock climbing at 8600m on the 2nd Step (this is the crux of the climb). Having got the infrastructure of the route set up we had to retreat to base camp because of a massive storm. It wiped out a significant portion of our camps on the mountain ripping tents stocked with personal kit, food and oxygen off the mountain and depositing it on the glacier below. When we went back up to ABC we had to find the debris on the glacier and icewall, extract it from crevasses, uncover the snow buried ropes, rebuild the camps and route. (when l say “we” went back to recover things it was actually only 2 of the 7 client climbers (Trynt and myself) together with sherpas). We then set about a summit attempt in late May. Two of the seven climbers pulled out sick. The rest of us pushed on. Five climbers with sherpa partners and a mountain guide. Herman, the guide, was focused on Zedi, Matt and Gernot. Sue and Chung were sick. Myself and my sherpa partner, Dorje, were operating pretty much independently. It’s typically a six-day push, four days up and two off. Leaving camp 4, 8300m, at circa 10pm/11pm to climb through the night. Intending to reach the three steps on the north east ridge by dawn. But we experienced some delays en route due to some slower expeditions blocking the route in front of us. It wasn’t busy like photo’s you may have seen of the south side but this was 2003, the 50th anniversary of the 1953 success, there were a few more climbers than normal and its the nature of the route on the north that is much more constraining. I got further delayed by having to rescue a climbing colleague (Zedi) who made a massive error and found himself hanging on the rope at the 2nd Step, 8600m, swinging over the north face of Mount Everest with a mile of fresh air between his legs. It cost me, and Dorje my sherpa partner, a lot of excess oxygen usage fighting to save him. We got him back in and back enroute. It took Dorje and I a while to sort ourselves out and get going again. The others, including Zedi, who I had rescued, were ahead and summited, albeit late (having breached the turnaround time limit we had all agreed to). I calculated I was about to run out of oxygen probably on top and that would risk death. I made an incredibly difficult decision to turn back 48metres from the top which would have taken another 1.5hrs! I radioed Russell to advise and we turned back. On descent I did actually run out of oxygen around 8500m but we still had to get down so Dorje and I pressed on without. We also had to help rescue (again) the same guy I had recovered on the way up because now he had gone snow blind and couldn’t see to down climb. The climb was incredible but a massive blow to turn back so close. After getting back to Advanced Base Camp and feeling pretty low the next morning Russell came to my tent with a mug of yak milk tea and a large shot of whisky and told me to shut up and say nothing. He said everyone else is leaving, there’s a narrow weather window opening and I think you have it in you to go back! Basically he convinced me to attempt what no climber (professional or amateur) other than a small number of sherpa’s had ever attempted on Mount Everest and that was to climb the mountain twice in one season and I was going to try twice in two weeks! So nine days after returning to Advanced Base Camp Sue and Chung, my colleagues who had been sick on the first attempt and myself together with our sherpa climbing partners mounted what was to be my second attempt this season and my fourth summit attempt on Mount Everest. The weather was going to be challenging. We didn’t have the requisite four days up and two off. We had to wait out a storm in Camp 2 and then pushing very hard from camp 2 we missed out camp 3 by a continuous climbing push stopping very briefly at camp 4 (not for rest, food and sleep as normal) we picked up water and oxygen and continued climbing into a 33-hour continuous aggressive push right through the night to summit early in the morning, for me at 7:03am, May 31st. It had been amazing as every other expedition except ours had left the mountain so Sue, Chung and myself had the entire mountain to ourselves. This is unheard of and although we had climbed through a storm the summit day was blue sky with the curvature of the earths horizon visible for a 100miles. There were tears. Which immediately froze! Getting up is of course only half way. Getting off is essential and almost as hard as going up. In my case very hard having only nine days prior albeit but for 48metres been on the summit. It becomes a massive head game. Your body is screaming for rest telling you its done in and there’s nothing not even fumes left in the tank. You want to stop. But if you stop and rest there is a very high chance you’ll slip into dozing followed by hypoxia and then hypothermia and death. So keep moving. I made it back to camp 1 at 7050m and rested for the night before descent to ABC the following day. 2003 was the 50th anniversary of the 1953 successful first summit by Hilary and Tensing via the South side Route and associated with that anniversary the Nepali Mountaineering Association were at the 2003 Kendal Mountain Film Festival awarding medals for significant achievement on Mount Everest. I was on stage in the company of Chris Bonington and Doug Scott (1st brit), Stephen Venables (1st brit no Oxy) and others including Mike Westmacott and George Band members of the 1953 expedition. I was awarded a Gold Medal with the citation from the NMA president: “an outstanding rescue, wise turn around at 48m, subsequent success after only nine days and in aggressive style, extraordinary & exemplary mountaineering”

This article written by Jackie Rickenberg was published in the Parish Magazine in October 2021 (see also separate entry for The Hindhead Murder 1786 - 1986 . The Unknown Sailor was an anonymous seafarer murdered in the Devil’s Punchbowl in September 1786, and buried in Thursley’s churchyard. His murderers were hanged in chains on Gibbet Hill, Hindhead the following year. In his book Who was the Sailor murdered at Hindhead 1786 (2000), Peter Moorey argues the case that the Unknown Sailor's identity was Edward Hardman, born in 1752 in Lambeth , London, although this has not been confirmed. The story goes thus: The sailor was visiting the Red Lion Inn at Thursley , as he was walking back from London to join his ship at Portsmouth on 24 September 1786. There, he met three other seafarers, James Marshall, Michael Casey and Edward Lonegon. He generously paid for their drinks and food and was last seen leaving for Hindhead Hill with them. The three seafarers murdered and robbed him and stripped him of his clothes. The three then made their way down the London to Portsmouth road (now the A3 ) and were arrested a few hours later trying to sell the murdered sailor's clothes at the Sun Inn in Rake . The Hampshire Chronicle, dated 2 October 1786, reads: Sunday last a shocking murder was committed by three sailors, on one of their companions, a seaman also, between Godalming and Hindhead. They nearly severed his head from his body, stripped him quite naked, and threw him into a valley, where he was providentially discovered, soon after the perpetration of the horrid crime, by some countrymen corning over Hind Head, who immediately gave the alarm, when the desperadoes were instantly pursued, and overtaken at the house of Mr. Adams, The Sun, at Rake. They were properly secured, and are since lodged in gaol, to take their trials at the next assizes for the county of Surrey. Six months later they were tried at Kingston assizes (the precursor of Crown Courts) and two days after that, on Saturday 7 April 1787, they were hanged in chains on a triple gibbet close to the scene of the crime in Hindhead. The blacksmith who made the chains and gibbet was Richard Court who is buried in Thursley churchyard and his headstone bears the inscription: ‘My Sledge and Hammer lie reclin’d, My Bellows too have lost their wind; My Fire is out, and Forge decay’s, And in the Dust my Vice is laid.’ The sailor was buried in our churchyard and the gravestone was paid for by the residents of the village. It reads: In memory of A generous but unfortunate Sailor Who was barbarously murder'd on Hindhead On September 24th 1786 By three Villains After he had liberally treated them And promised them his farther assistance On the road to Portsmouth. The Sailor's Stone at Gibbet Hill (in The Punchbowl) was erected by James Stillwell of nearby Cosford Mill soon after the murder. It was sited on the Old Coaching Road from London to Portsmouth close to the site of the murder. The inscription on the front of the stone reads: ERECTED In detestation of a barbarous Murder Committed here on an unknown Sailor On Sep, 24th 1786 By Edwd. Lonegon, Mich. Casey & Jas. Marshall Who were all taken the same day And hung in Chains near this place Whoso sheddeth Man's Blood by Man shall his Blood be shed: Genesis Chap 9 Ver 6 In 1851 Sir William Erle paid for the erection of a granite Celtic cross on Gibbet Hill on the site of the scaffold. He did this to dispel the fears and superstitions of local people and to raise their spirits. The cross has four Latin inscriptions around its base. They read: POST TENEBRAS LUX IN OBITU PAX IN LUCE SPES POST OBITUM SALUS which translate to "Light after darkness. Peace in passing away. Hope in light. Salvation after death." All monuments are standing to this day. St Michael and All Angels churchyard The murder of the unknown sailor has always attracted press coverage: Extract from The Daily Universal Register, 4 October As well as monographs and other literature: From the Francis Frith Collection:

The Ruins, now known as The Well House, with Mrs Fosberry, standing outside about 1914-1918. Frank and Elizabeth Keen lived at The Ruins from about 1920 to 1936. Their eldest son, Frank, when married lived in an annexe at The Ruins and their five children were born there. They included Alfred (Cocker) and Don who remained in the village. Frank and Elizabeth's eldest daughter, Nellie, married Bert Williams and continued to live with her father, their two children, David and Mary (Rapley) were also born at The Ruins. In about 1936 the house which had belonged to the Rushbrooke Estate was sold to a Mr Frost.

This article written by Jackie Rickenberg was published in the Parish Magazine in February 2023. See also Vicars of Thursley. Revd Mathews with a parishioner It is with a heavy heart I heard this week of the untimely passing of Peter Muir, until recently, the vicar of St Michael’s and All Angels, Thursley. Peter had been an enthusiastic supporter of Thursley History Society and even in this last year or so since retiring to Cyprus, with his indomitable wife Angela, he maintained close links with us. On a personal note, Peter married my husband and me, some years back and I have very fond memories of his wisdom and guidance during this time. Rest in Peace Peter. I’m sure Peter’s almost four decades of living in Yew Cottage in the village, will be chronicled for posterity, but until then it reminded me of the memoir of Ken Mathews, a previous vicar of Thursley, which was compiled by John Fforde in 1996. “The Rev. Arthur Kenneth Mathews OBE, DSC, was of the generation that had only just completed its preparations for a career and taken up its first appointments when the Second World War intervened. Then came the naval life, best described by extracts from the obituary in the Daily Telegraph of 4th January 1993. Rev Kenneth Mathews was one of the Royal Navy’s most distinguished wartime chaplains. He joined the RNVR in 1939 and spent the rest of the war on the County Class cruiser Norfolk, a busy ship on the Northern patrol and then in the South Atlantic. “It would be impossible”, the captain of Norfolk later wrote, “to exaggerate Ken Mathew’s influence on Norfolk. His value in the ship was certainly greater than that of any other officer. He made her the happiest ship I have ever known. He was loved by every man on board, and it is largely his influence that has kept the Norfolk spirit alive ever since”. “ He had an admirable naval record, resulting in him being appointed OBE in 1942 and then DSC soon after, so becoming one of the few service chaplains to be twice decorated. After an influential career in the Church, he chose to return to the work of parish priest in which his pastoral gifts had free rein. And so, Ken and his wife, Betsy, came to Thursley in 1968. In the Parish Magazine for February 1993, thirty years ago exactly, Michael O’Brien and Robert Crawfurd record the following memories: “We remember him as Vicar of Thursley from 1968 until his retirement in 1976. For Thursley they were eight splendid years. Ken quickly made his mark on our community as a man of outstanding personality. He loved and understood people: understood their eccentricities, their joys, their sorrows. Just as in the Navy, he had won the hearts and minds of the men in his care as Chaplain on board HMS Norfolk so, in the less hazardous days of his peacetime ministries, the same magic was quickly evident to his parishioners. His desire to draw a community together, in the same way as earlier he had drawn his ship’s company together, resulted in the foundation in 1972 of our annual Harvest Supper in the Village Hall – an event that quickly proved popular with everyone and had continued, until recent events, without a break ever since. A series of winter lectures in the hall started under his direction and he also encouraged the formation of the Thursley Over 60’s club. He came to us from Peebles, in the Scottish Borders, where walking in the country is a popular recreation. He immediately reinstituted the Rogation Walk around the entire parish, including Bowl Head Green, blessing the farms along the way. He outwalked most of his new parishioners by completing the whole seventeen miles himself, and then presiding at Rogation Evensong in the Church. He always encouraged the young to come on their ponies if they wished, and always had a large following. Walking his dog in the village he was a popular friend to meet. Ken’s ministry in Thursley was marked by his untiring efforts to help all in need, to which end he would go to almost any lengths and be quite unsparing himself. Both he and Betsy were lovers of classical music and supported enthusiastically any musical events in the parish. When he left us, we all felt the loss of a truly Godly priest and valued friend. In 1976 they retired to a house in a valley near Burford, to the restoration of which they had given much thought. The Tallat, Westwell, became a place of pilgrimage for their many friends. Betsy died in 1981. In 1987 Ken married Diana Goschen and they lived happily at The Tallat until Ken’s peaceful death in his 87th year in December 1992”. The Institution of The Reverend Arthur Kenneth Mathews: The pdf of the Order of Service shows a heavily annotated version: Undated obituary from The Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Mathews