One building within the "triangle" is unique in having come into existence some time after the old farms of the 17th century but considerably before the village began to grow at the end of the 19th century.
The Crosse estate map of 1686 uses the name "Burgham Green" for what we now call Stringers Common and this name is written across the area at the junction of the Woking Road and Jacobs Well Road, seemingly indicating that it was part of the common land and that there was no building there at that date.
In 1754 John Rocque published a map of Surrey at the useful scale of two inches to one mile, which enabled him to delineate more detail than previous makers of maps of this county. This map seems to be the first to show the property and the building which we now know as The White House. However, as with many other map makers of those days, one cannot always be confident of the accuracy of the information he depicted.
On a later map of Surrey published by Christopher and John Greenwood in 1823 at the smaller scale of one inch to one mile, the property is again marked,and perhaps the house. What is now White House Lane was shown as an access road from the Woking Road across Stringers Common to Watts Farm (described on this map as Tenement Farm).
So we have to wait until the Tithe Map of 1841, on a much larger scale, for our first positive information about this building. This time it is clearly marked and is described in the Apportionment as a cottage and garden in an area of just over one acre, owned by Elizabeth Wood and occupied by James Matlock.
Adjacent, and occupying about a quarter of an acre within the present grounds of the White House, another cottage and garden is marked, owned and occupied by Henry Stacey. The only trace of this latter building which remains today is its well.
The contemporary census is not entirely helpful since the address of James Matlock, agricultural labourer, is given merely as Stringers Common while Henry Stacey is not mentioned at all. By 1861, when James would have been about 70 and Hannah nearly 60, they no longer appear in the census returns. In that year St Ann's Villa is the only residence at Stringers Common which is specifically named and we believe this may have been the old Matlock cottage, and may have been extended because the household comprised Charles M. Chaplin, a Militia Officer (Staff), together with his two sisters, a niece and nephew, a visitor and three servants. During the next thirty years or more there appears to have been a constant flow of new occupants of this building.
By 1871 it had been renamed Burpham Lodge. The neighbouring cottage was still in existence but had no name. Thomas Corney, Land Surveyor, was now head of the household which included his wife Rosa, their son, an uncle and two servants. In 1874 John Edward Russell was in residence, then in 1881 Charles Piper, a Sergeant-Major on half-pay, and his wife Elizabeth. By 1887 the occupant was a Mrs Balfour but the 1891 census records that John Crane, the coachman, had been left in charge of the house.
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