up the Thames. Surrey thus appears to have received among its settlers some Goths of the same Northern stock as those who settled in Kent. From Kent to Surrey migration was easy. A great forest area separated these parts of Southern England during the period of the settlement, but there were two natural routes by which people from Kent could reach even the western parts of Surrey—viz., by the Thames and along the ridge of the chalk downs which extended from east to west, and, being incapable of growing trees, must always have afforded an open route.
The Æscings is one of the names by which the early Kentish settlers were known, and a place called Æscing, now Eashing, part of Godalming, is mentioned in King Alfred’s will. On the boundary of Hampshire and Surrey, to which the ancient limit of Godalming extended, there is a hill still called Kent’s hill. The name Godalming appears to have been derived from the descendants of one or more Goths, its old form being Godelming, and the old popular form being Godliman or Godlimen.
There are two remarkable entries in Domesday Book that point directly to an ancient connection of some of the settlements in Surrey with Kent. Under Waletone, now Wallington, we are told that its woods were in Kent; and under Meretone, now Merton, we are told that two solins of land in Kent belonged to this manor, as the men of the hundred testified.[1] We can trace Kentish place-names here and there through Surrey.
The survival of the custom under which the eldest daughter inherited the father’s property in default of sons at Chertsey, Beaumond, Farnham, Worplesdon, and Pirbright, shows that the west of Surrey must have received some settlers who were neither Goths, Frisians, Wends, nor of any mixed race which clung to the custom of inheritance by the youngest son. The Goths and Frisians had not this eldest daughter custom. Saxons
- ↑ Dom. Bk., p. 30 a.
