Cobham (St. Andrew)

COBHAM (St. Andrew), a parish, in the union of Epsom, Second division of the hundred of Elmbridge, W. division of Surrey, 10 miles (N. E.) from Guildford, and 20 (S. W.) from London; containing 1617 inhabitants. It comprises 5193a. 1r. 37p., of which about 2460 acres are arable, 1217 meadow, and nearly 800 wood; and is bounded by the river Mole, which is crossed by a bridge on the road from Portsmouth to London. This river was anciently called the Emley, and gave name to the hundred, properly Emley-Bridge; it abounds with pike, trout, perch, and other fish, and its banks are adorned with several elegant villas. The village near the church is called Church-Cobham, and about half a mile from it, on the Portsmouth road, is Street-Cobham, where is a post-office. A fair is held on the 11th of December. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £9. 17. 11.; net income, £162; patrons, the family of Simpkinson: there are three acres of glebe. The church has a handsome Norman arch at the principal south entrance; its walls are built with gravel cemented into a hard mass, at least a yard in thickness, and cased with plaster: on taking down the north wall for the enlargement of the church, in 1826, its foundation was discovered to be scarcely, if at all, lower than the level of the floor inside. There is a saline chalybeate spring near the brook which separates the parish on the north from Esher; and a little to the west of Cobham is a barrow, near which a considerable number of Roman coins of the Lower Empire was ploughed up in 1772.