CHEAM, a parish in Epsom district, Surrey; on the Epsom railway, under Banstead downs, 5 ¼ miles WSW of Croydon. It has a station on the railway; and a post-office under Sutton, London S. Acres, 1,894. Real property, £6,348. Pep., 1,156. Houses, 232. The property is subdivided. The manor was given by Athelstane to Christ Church, Canterbury; and passed, at the dissolution, to the Lumleys. Cheam House is the seat of Sir E. Antrobus; Whitehall House, of W. Kellick, Esq.; and Nonsuch Park, of W. F. Farmer, Esq. Whitehall House is timber-built; and contains a room, said to have been used by Queen Elizabeth, on her visits to Nonsuch Palace. That palace was in the neighbourhood; and was built by Henry VIII., and demolished by Charles I.’s Duchess of Cleveland. The present Nonsuch House stands at some distance from the site of the palace; and is a modern castellated structure, originally from designs by Wyattville, but much altered and enlarged. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Winchester. Value, £559. Patron, St. John’s College, Oxford. The church was built in 1864; and is in the early English style, with a tower. The chancel of the previous church still stands, and contains elaborate monuments of the Lords Lumley. Five out of six successive rectors, between 1581 and 1662, became bishops. Gilpin, the author of “Forest Scenery,” kept a school here.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
