It would be quite easy for a stranger to pass through the Betchworth that lies on the main road between Dorking and Reigate, and to believe he had seen it all. But the best of Betchworth is by the little church, south of the main road on a bend of the Mole. The church, cool and white, stands deep in a ring of beeches, elms, and ash-trees, and the baker and grocer of the village lives among roses in a little street of cottage gardens opposite. At least one of the bequests to the parish is curiously described on the church wall. Mrs. Margaret Fenwick left L200, which was to be used partly in binding out poor children as apprentices, and partly "in prefering in marriage such Maid Servants born in this Parish as shall respectfully live Seven Years in any Service and whose friends are not able to do it." The intention is clear, but friends unable to live respectfully seven years in one service would, one would think, be numerous. The real centre from which to see the country east and south of Betchworth is Reigate, but a walk from Dorking to Reigate might very well take in Leigh, which is a little out of the beaten track. But if you ask the way, do not inquire for "Lee." "Lie" is the name. The village is very small, but it stands round a pretty little green, and one of the old timbered cottages with a Horsham slab roof sets the right grace to a group with the church and its trees. Leigh church has fine brasses of the Arderne family, who had Leigh Place, once an ancient and moated house half a mile north of the village, now a rather nondescript but quaint building; the moat remains, the house has been partly pulled down, partly rebuilt. Leigh Place belonged first to the great family of de Braose, but its earliest legends are of the Ardernes. There was a Sir Thomas de Arderne who wooed Margery, the wife of Nicholas de Poynings, in a very rough manner; he saw no way to making her his own wife except by making her widow of de Poynings, and so killed him. Tradition says that she died of a broken heart, and haunts Leigh Place, a sad lady in white; but it was probably not Sir Thomas, but a descendant of his, who first had Leigh Place. Still, to Leigh belongs the story. After the Ardernes, Leigh Place came to the Copleys, who were also of Gatton. One of them, Sir Thomas Copley, had original notions as to the proper bearing and attributes of an English gentleman. Mr. John Watney, writing in the _Surrey Archaeological Collections_, gives a long letter which Sir Thomas wrote to Queen Elizabeth in 1575, defending himself, among other things, for having taken to himself titles to which he had no right. His defence is ingenious:--