Mitcham (St. Peter and St. Paul)
The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £10; net income, £456; patron, William Simpson, Esq., in right of his lady, a lineal descendant of Archbishop Cranmer, and owner of the manor of Mitcham; impropriator, D. Watney, Esq. The church, an ancient structure of flint and stone, which had become greatly dilapidated, was taken down in 1822, and handsomely rebuilt in the later English style, with the exception of the tower. There are places of worship for Independents and Wesleyans. A Sunday school, established in 1788, has an endowment of £62. 12. per annum; and a national school, supported by subscription, was enlarged in 1839, from a portion of the funds. The almshouses on the Green, for twelve widows or unmarried women, were founded in 1829, by Miss Tate, who endowed them with an estate producing to each of the inmates £7. 16. per annum. Among the eminent characters who formerly resided at Mitcham, were, Archbishop Cranmer, whose mansion is still remaining; Sir Julius Cæsar, who entertained Queen Elizabeth in his house for one day at an expense of more than £700; Sir Walter Raleigh, whose ancient mansion on the Green, which, previously to his expedition to Guiana, he sold for £2500, was taken down in 1833; Dr. Donne; Lord Chancellor Loughborough; and the late Peter Waldo, Esq., the last of the Waldenses, known by his treatise on the Liturgy of the Church of England, and whose mansion, part of which was erected in the reign of Edward II., is still remaining, with some carvings of the time of Elizabeth, and others by Grinlin Gibbons, in excellent preservation.
Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.