The Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter of Chertsey, Surrey was founded in the yeare A.D. 666 by Erkenwald, afterwards Bishop of London, who became its first abbot, the new foundation being endowed with lands by the munificence of Frithwald, Subregulus of Surrey, under Ulfar, King of the Mercians, who in subsequent accounts is associated with Erkenwald as co-founder. In the first charter of the foundation Frithwald recites that, for the augmentation of the monastery first built under King Egbert, he had granted 200 dwellings and 5 dwellings in a place called Thorpe to Erkenwald the abbot. This charter was witnessed and confirmed by King Ulfar and specifies the boundaries of the donation. A charter of privileges granted by Pope Agathon (678-82) was brought personally from Rome by the abbot then raised to the metropolitan see.
Subsequent kings confirmed the possessions of the monastery becoming Abbey of St. Peter of Chertsey: Offa, King of the Mercians, in 787, at the request of Cynedritha his queen, and Ceolnod the abbot; Ethelwulf in 827; and King Athelstan in 993. From the yeare 850, and onwards through the ninth century, the monastery shared the perils of the country threatened by the incursions of the Danes and in particular the counties of Kent, Surrey and Sussex, the fruitless efforts of the kings, the death of King Ethelbert 'broken with many labours,' and culminates in the account of the attack on the monastery itself, the slaughter of Beocca the abbot, Ethor the priest, and ninety monks, their home burnt down, and their lands wasted. Ethelwald, Bishop of Winchester (936-84), sent to the abbot and convent of Abingdon commanding that thirteen monks be sent to colonise a new house on the old site. In 964 King Edgar, inflamed by the reforming zeal of Dunstan, drove forth the inmates sent by Ethelwald and established regulars there with Ordbright as their abbot. In 1058 Abbot Siward was made Bishop of Rochester. Wulfwold was one of the six abbots (four of them Englishmen) who entered into a curious bond of confederation with Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, and his monks between 1072 and 1077.
CHOBHAM was granted to Chertsey Monastery by Frithwald, subregulus of Surrey and founder of the abbey, before 675. The grant was confirmed in 967 by King Edgar as 'v mansas apud Chabeham cum Busseleghe, cum Frensham et Fremeslye.' At the Domesday Survey its assessment was 10 hides, as it had been in King Edward's time, and it was still held by the abbey of Chertsey. It is traversed by the Bourne Brook and its tributaries which flow from the Chobham Ridges to the Thames near Weybridge, and the village and to the Thames near Weybridge, and the village and hamlets are chiefly on the gravel and alluvium of the stream beds, but the rest of the parish is on the Bagshot Sands- a village 3˝ miles north-west of Woking Junction, 6 miles south-west of Chertsey, the rest of the parish is on the Bagshot Sands, with extensive peat beds. Chobham was divided into tithings, Stanners, Pentecost, and the Forest Tything, lying east, west, and north respectively, but the modern division is practically into hamlets. Chobham Place is, as it now appears, a fine Georgian house standing on rising ground north of the village. The hall was part of a house of much older date, and the woodwork of the dining-room is late 17th-century.
Edward the Confessor certified by charter to Stigand the archbishop and Harold the earl that he had granted to Christ and St. Peter of Chertsey that town with the towns of Egham, Thorpe and Chobham, and that the abbot and convent should have soc and sac, tol, theam and infangnethef within all their manors, and also confirmed the gift by a previous charter of the Hundred of Godley. [BISLEY, CHOBHAM, PYRFORD, BYFLEET, EGHAM, THORPE, CHERTSEY, HORSELL.] Pyrford is the only manor in the hundred named in Domesday which was not held by Chertsey Abbey. The grant was confirmed by succeeding kings. Later on however the abbot ceased to exercise jurisdiction throughout the entire hundred as the king had certain rights in his manor of Byfleet. The hundred or half-hundred of Godley is made up of lands which, with the exception of Pyrford and Horsell, formed part of the early grants to the monastery of Chertsey. town of Chertsey, which formed the nucleus of the hundred, has occasionally lent its name to the latter. In 1325 a coroner was granted to Godley Hundred, owing to the difficulty which the abbot and convent had hitherto experienced in dealing with the prisoners at Chertsey gaol (q.v.). Bisley, which was parcel of the manor of Byfleet, and Horsell, which was and is included in the manor of Pyrford, are apparently not mentioned as separate townships in the hundred until about the 16th century. The 'Saint of England' further added to the endowment the village and church of White Waltham, Berks, with woods and 20 acres of pasture at Cookham.
The Domesday Survey shows that the estates held by the abbey were already very considerable and not confined to the county of Surrey alone, and they were later increased by further donations from the descendants of the Conqueror. Royal favour was accompanied by support from Rome. Pope Alexander III., recalling the privileges accorded by his predecessors, confirmed to the abbey the tithes of Chertsey, Egham, Thorpe and Chobham.
Odo was dismissed by William Rufus in 1092, and his place taken by Ralph Flambard of ill fame; but immediately on the accession of Henry I. Odo was restored to his former position. A few years later Abbot Hugh was sent on an embassy with Ralph, Archbishop of Canterbury and Herbert, Bishop of Norwich, from the king to the pope, returning the following year.
The Welsh priory or cell of Cardigan with its appurtenances, the churches of Holy Trinity and of St. Peter of 'Berwyke,' the chapels of St. Peter of Cardigan and St. Michael of Tremain which had been granted to the abbey by Rees Ap Griffin, Prince of South Wales, for his soul, and the souls of his wife, his parents and his sons, was confirmed by successive bulls of the popes, Alexander III. and IV. enacted that the chrism, holy oil, consecration of altars or churches, and ordination of clerks should be undertaken by the diocesan bishop, and forbad that any chapel or oratory should be built within the bounds of the parish save by the consent of the abbot and diocesan.
A West Ham, Essex church existed on this site in the late 12th century: on each side of the nave there are three blocked clerestory windows of that period. In the mid 13th century the nave was largely rebuilt and given north and south arcades of five bays. The church of All Saints originated in the 12th century, if not earlier. William de Montfitchet, when he founded Stratford Abbey in 1135, endowed it with, inter alia, land in Ham that had belonged to Ranulph the priest. One is in a charter of Henry II, probably issued between October 1181 and January 1182, confirming to the same abbey the church of West Ham, given by Gilbert de Montfitchet. About the same time Gilbert Foliot (d. 1187), bishop of London, licensed this appropriation and ordained a vicarage.
In the same way the abbot of St. Peter of Chertse was sent with Raymond, a monk of St. Albans, in 1198, by Richard I. to treat with the pope. The abbey is said to have been rebuilt in 1110 by Abbot Hugh, presumably a relative of King Stephen, whose charters refer to him as nepos meus. Abbot Aymer returned the knight-service of the house in 1166 as three knights and the knights' fees held of it as four. Martin, prior of Thetford, was appointed abbot during the lifetime of his predecessor, Bertan, in 1197, and is said to have been uncanonically elected.
In 1254 the estimated value of the rectory at West Ham was £53 6s. 8d. and that of the vicarage £8 The equivalent figures in 1291 were £30 and £8 13s. 4d. The ordination of the vicarage had provided that the vicar should pay 4 marks a yeare to the priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate (Lond.) for two small fields evidently adjoining New Barns.