Page 14 - ‘A Blaker Family History’ The family history of Joseph Blaker (1916-2007; ‘Joe’)

© The Blaker Society
© The Blaker Society

St. Bartholomew’s Church, Burstow, Surrey

Cowfold
Reason for Interest
Several Blakers were christened, married or were buried in Cowfold:
• George Blaker (1569-1617) married Elizabeth Living ( -
1615) in St. Peter’s Church: 28 May 1604
• Richard Blaker (1611-1672) was christened there.

Location
Cowfold is a village and civil parish, 13.5km south east of Horsham, between
Billingshurst and Haywards Heath in West Sussex.

History
The village owes its name to Saxon settlers, who made enclosures for their cattle,
one such enclosure becoming know as ‘Cowfold’. In the 11th and 12th centuries
the land within Cowfold seems to have been used for woodland pasture. A large
proportion of the parish was woodland or orchard, and remained so up to 1733.
The scattered settlement of Cowfold parish may represent the gradual and
progressive establishment of outlying farms on what had been woodland
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pastures belonging to manors. By the early 14 century, farmsteads were widely
scattered through the parish.

The parish lies predominantly over Weald clay, which in turn overlies Upper
Tunbridge Wells Sand except along a tongue of land running from the north-east
corner almost to the centre; there are two patches of gravel in the south-east
quarter, and five narrow bands of Horsham Stone running east-west. There were
brickworks in 1875 and 1909 in the north part, just east of the Horsham road, at
a site marked in 1984 by Brick kiln Cottages, and brickfields southwest of the
church at the centre of the parish in 1896 and 1909. In about 1890, stone was
quarried at High Hurst, and at three places in the north-east quarter, and there
were gravel pits towards the north-east corner and a sandpit near the south-
west corner.

The oldest building in Cowfold is St. Peter's Church, built in the 13th Century, at
the centre of the parish. The church is built of rubble and coursed ashlar, and has
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a chancel with south chapel, nave with south aisle and north porch, and a 15
century west tower. The font dates to 1482, and is octagonal with geometrical
designs on both the stem and bowl. The surviving churchwardens’ accounts
contain a payment of 5s to a mason ‘for the makyng of the fonte’ in 1481/82.
Beneath a carpet in the nave is an effigy in brass for Thomas Nelond (d. c. 1430),
prior of Lewes. This brass is the largest and most elaborate in Sussex and the
most notable feature of Cowfold church.

St. Peter’s Church, Cowfold: 1884 Painting