Above: St Mary’s Church, West Horsley
St Mary's Church, in the semi-rural village of West Horsley, between Guildford and
Leatherhead, in Surrey, is a flint Saxon building dating from 1030 and is Grade
I listed. The church was spared when the rest of the village was burned in
1066. Its tower was added in 1120, and the church extended to its current size
in 1210.
West Horsley’s Raleigh School is a popular
two-form entry co-educational primary academy which has strong connections with
the Great Elizabethan. You can read about them here https://raleigh400.blogspot.com/2018/09/raleigh-far-and-wide-west-horsley.html
On 29 October, the church
hosted a service for the Raleigh School’s older children ‘to commemorate his
life and the impact he had on this country’ as the Rector, The Revd Philip
Herrington, explained.
The news, announced a few days previously
that ‘The Raleigh Bag’ may have been found at West Horsley Place, has excited
the whole village community, including the church.
‘It has long been thought that
Sir Walter Raleigh's head is buried under the floor of our chancel chapel,’ the
Revd Herrington wrote to me on 20 September. ‘According to a local historian,
June Davey, it was finally buried in 1660 when Carew Raleigh buried his
children (who died possibly of a plague-related illness) and decided that this
was the opportunity to bury his father's head as well. The 400th anniversary
seems to have affirmed the belief that his head is indeed buried in our church,
which is exciting.’
News of the find, and of
investigations by experts to discover the truth of the matter has indeed hit
the headlines both in the UK and abroad, especially in the USA. While there is excitement there is also
scepticism on the part of some experts as the American Smithsonian Museum
reported online.
You can read about the find at https://raleigh400.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-raleigh-bag-discovered-at-west.html
FOR THE RALEIGH 400 CALENDAR OF EVENTS WORLDWIDEIN 2018 CLICK ON http://raleigh400.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/raleigh-400-calendar-of-events-in-2018.html
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