WOTTON, LOWER and UPPER, (Surrey) 5 m. from Darking, not far from the bottom of White-Down, takes name from the great
quantity of wood, mostly beech, that surrounds it. 'Tis supposed to be the Wodinton mentioned in a charter of Edw. I.
granting to Will. de Latimer, then Ld. of it, a yearly Fair for 3 days, at St. Peter and Paul's tide, and the like at
Christmas. In the R. of Eliz. the Owens had this estate, and sold it to George Evelyn, who, by 2 wives had 16 sons and 8
daughters, and from whom it is descended to Sir John Evelyn, who has a fine seat here, among charming meadows, well
watered with gentle streams, but the roads about it are very bad in winter. 'Tis about half a m. from the Ch. which stands
on an eminence, the repository of the ashes of many of the Evelyns family. In the R. of Charles II. in opening the ground
in the Ch.-yard to enlarge the vault of the family, a skeleton was found, which measured 9 feet 3 inches in length. Among
the other monuments here is one for Mr. Will. Glanvill, one of the clerks of the treasury, who by his will, dated Dec. 31,
1717, besides other legacies to the poor here, bequeathed to five poor boys, not exceeding 16 years of age, 40 s, each, to
be paid every year on the anniversary-day of his death, on condition that, with their hands laid on his grave-stone, they
repeated without book the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles Creed, and the Ten Commandments; that they read the 15th chapter of
the first epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, and wrote 2 verses of it in a legible hand; and 30 l. more yearly, to be
expended in binding them out apprentices to handicrafts or husbandry, not giving above 10 l. with any one of them. The
boys were to be chosen out of the poor of this p. by his trustees, and if not so many of that age could be found here,
they might be chosen out of either of the ps. of Westcott, Abinger, Shere, Ashted, Epsom, or Cheam, in this Co. There are
in the skirts of this p. which extends almost as far as the Weald of Sussex, certain pits out of which they dig jet. The
stone about the ground in other parts, is that called the rag. There is abundance of iron-stone loose in the sands, and
about certain pyramidal hills to the S. W. Not far from Sir John Evelyn's seat, on certain streams and ponds, since filled
up and drained, were formerly many powder-mills erected by his ancestors, who were the first that brought that invention
to England, before which we had all our powder out of Flanders. In this p. were also set up the first brass-mills in
England for the casting and hammering it into plates, and for cutting it and drawing it into wire.