In the 1640’s there was a long war involving England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland between Royalist who supported the King Charles 1 and Parliament over which had the final say in who ran these countries. A chapter in this long war took place in Weybridge and Cobham.
Since 1603 the Scottish House of Stuart, the Kings of England and Wales, Kings of Scotland and Kings of Ireland. The war in the 1640’s is variously known as the War of the Three Kingdoms or the English Civil War.
The Parliamentary forces, led by Oliver Cromwell, won the war and executed the King Charles 1 in January 1649. A republican form of Government was established with Oliver Cromwell installed as Lord Protector. During the war the Parliamentary forces had established the victorious New Model Army. As the war was concluding there were different factions within the Army and the general public about what should follow Royalist rule.
The land owning squirearchy and merchants were one faction. They came out on top. Then there were the Levellers and the Diggers. These favoured giving land and more rights to the ordinary people who had little property and no say in how the country was run.
They made little headway in winning these demands. Ordinary people lived in a tyrannical form of society as the fate of the Diggers at Weybridge showed. Their leader was Gerard Winstanley who lived in Cobham village.
The Diggers started as Cromwell's Council of State received a letter in April 1649 reporting that several individuals had begun to plant vegetables in common land on St George's Hills in Weybridge near Cobham, Surrey at a time when harvests were bad and food prices high.
It was reported that they had invited "all to come in and help them, and promise them meat, drink, and clothes." They intended to pull down all enclosures and cause the local populace to come and work with them. They claimed that their number would be several thousand within ten days. "It is feared they have some design in hand."
In the same month, the Diggers issued their most famous pamphlet and manifesto, called "The True Levellers Standard Advanced".
Where exactly in St. George's Hill the Diggers were is a matter of dispute. Some allege that they worked "on that side of the hill next to Campe Close". Another speculated that the Diggers were "somewhere near Silvermere Farm on the Byfleet Road rather than on the unprofitable slopes of St. George's Hill itself."
Winstanley remained and continued to write about the treatment they received. The harassment from the Lord of the Manor Francis Drake (not the famous Francis Drake , who had died more than 50 years before), was both deliberate and systematic: he organised gangs in an attack on the Diggers, including numerous beatings and an arson attack on one of the communal houses. He was ably assisted by the clergy in Walton and Cobham.
Following a court case, in which the Diggers were forbidden to speak in their own defence, they were found guilty of being sexually liberal Ranters (though in fact Winstanley had reprimanded Ranters for their sexual practices). If they had not left the land after losing the court case then the army could have been used to enforce the law and evict them; so they abandoned Saint George's Hill in August 1649, much to the relief of the local landowners.
As the hide sites in Elmbridge are notice boards which tell the story in more details. It would take another 200 years before the Chartists were able to make some progress on the demands of the Levellers and Diggers.
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There is PAID parking nearby.