After a short break, we are back this month with a look at Lingfield.
While researching a subject for this column, I searched the museum’s database for ‘November’ – and discovered we have a drawing of a memorial brass from the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Lingfield, commemorating Lady Eleanor Culpeper, who departed her life on 5 November 1420.
Lady Culpeper was born in Warwickshire in about 1383, and married Sir Reginald de Cobham of Starborough Castle, Surrey. Sir Reginald was the grandson of the first Baron Starborough, who fought alongside the Black Prince at the Battle of Crecy in 1346 and became marshall of the Prince’s army at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. Sir Reginald and Eleanor had five children, two sons and three daughters.
After Lady Eleanor Culpeper’s death in 1422, Sir Reginald married Anne Bardolph, a widow and heiress. In 1431, Sir Reginald obtained the advowson (or effective control) over his local Church of St Peter and St Paul, and founded a chantry college of secular priests. He had the church largely rebuilt in perpendicular style (the finest remaining example of this style of architecture in Surrey) and converted to a collegiate church, with his college built at the west end. His college had a ground floor of stone, with an upper story of brick and timber.
The buildings were arranged around a small square cloister, and included a fine hall and parlour. The college was originally set up with six chaplains (with one serving as the master of the college), and four clerks to look after the 13 chantry students who were to be paupers. The purpose of the chantry priests was to pray for the souls of the departed (the benefactor and his ancestors and descendants) to atone for their sins in purgatory.
Sir Reginald endowed the college with lands providing income, and also gave the sum of £80 to provide the college with books and vestments (around £75,000 today!). Sir Reginald died in 1446, with his second wife Anne dying seven years later in 1453 – their beautiful stone and alabaster tomb is in pride of place, in front of the church altar. As well as this tomb, the church also has the finest collection of brasses in Surrey, as well as several other fine Cobham tombs, and some notable carved wooden misericords.
The college that Sir Reginald founded lasted just over one hundred years, until dissolved as part of the Reformation in 1544. The college buildings and assets were given to Sir Thomas Cawarden, King Henry VIII’s Lord of Revels. The collegiate church reverted to become the parish church of Lingfield, and the college became a private residence for many years, before being demolished in the early 18th Century and partially replaced by the present house known as ‘The College’.
Visit East Surrey Museum for more local history – and read more from Tandridge Past here.
