Ockley (St. Margaret)

OCKLEY (St. Margaret), a parish, in the union of Dorking, First division of the hundred of Wotton, W. division of Surrey, 7½ miles (S. by W.) from Dorking; containing 748 inhabitants. The parish is pleasantly situated on the road from Dorking to Bognor, and comprises 4132 acres, of which 30 are common or waste. A pleasure-fair is held on Ockley Green. The south side of Leith Hill is in the parish; it commands extensive views, to the south and west, of the Weald of Surrey and Sussex. The living is a rectory, valued in the king's books at £16. 5. 2½., and in the gift of Clare Hall, Cambridge: the tithes have been commuted for £539, and the glebe comprises 130 acres, with a house. The church is chiefly in the early English style. Elizabeth Evershed in 1721 bequeathed £100, which were laid out in land now producing £10. 10. per annum to a parochial school; and Miss Elizabeth Scott in 1838 left about £700 for the purpose of sinking a well, and of erecting schoolrooms. On Holmbury Hill are vestiges of a Roman encampment; and a battle is stated to have taken place on Ockley Green, in 851, between the Saxons and the Danes, which terminated in the defeat of the former, with great slaughter.