Headstone with a relief carving of the Good Samaritan, in the churchyard of St Nicholas

Summary

Headstone commemorating an unknown woman, late C18, situated to the north-west of the Church of St Nicholas, Sutton.

Reasons for Designation

The headstone commemorating an unknown woman, with relief carving depicting the parable of the Good Samaritan, in the churchyard of St Nicholas, Sutton, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* As a late-C18 headstone, with relief carving of a Biblical scene, unusual in a churchyard memorial of this date;

Group value:
* The Church of St Nicholas is listed at Grade II*, and a number of other tombs within the churchyard are listed at Grade II.

History

The manor of Sutton belonged to Chertsey Abbey from before the Norman conquest to the Dissolution when it passed to a succession of mostly non-resident owners. In the C18 the village became a coaching stop on the route to the races in Epsom and then Brighton and by 1800 it was a small village sprawling up the hill from the common (now the Green) to the Cock Cross Roads. The arrival of the Sutton to Epsom railway in 1847, the Epsom Downs line (1865) and the more direct line to London via Mitcham Junction (1868) led to rapid change. Middle class development took place at Benhill and in the area around the railway station, while Newtown, east of the High Street, was more working class. The High Street shops developed quite rapidly, probably largely in the 1870s and 1880s and by 1900 Sutton was a small commuter town in the countryside beyond London. In the 1920s and 1930s the whole area was engulfed by suburban development.

The present Church of St Nicholas is a rebuilding of earlier churches on the site; the earliest was a Saxon church built by the Abbot and monks of Chertsey Abbey who had been granted the manor of Sutton in AD 675. This church was partly re-constructed at the end of the C13 by the Abbot of Chertsey, John de Rutherwyck, and the list of Rectors dates from 1291.

Following an increase in the population of Sutton it was decided in 1862 that additional church accommodation was necessary, and the architect Edwin Nash was employed to rebuild the earlier church; the earlier monuments were re-sited in the new church.

The churchyard has retained its form since that time.

The headstone with a relief carving of the Good Samaritan is situated to the north-west of the church. The inscription is largely illegible, and the name of the subject is not known; however, enough can be read to discover that she was a married woman, and that she had a number of children who died in infancy. As a churchyard memorial, this headstone is unusual for its date in being enriched by a Biblical relief sculpture; though worn, it is clear that this is an illustration of the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), in which a man, robbed and beaten on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, is tended to by a Samaritan, a priest and a Levite having passed him by. The Samaritan bandages his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and then carries him on his donkey to an inn.

Details

Headstone commemorating an unknown woman, late C18, situated to the north-west of the church.

MATERIALS: stone.

DESCRIPTION: headstone, facing west. The top of the headstone is an eared segmental arch, the ears supported on vertically elongated scrolls, which frame relief carving depicting the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here, the victim is seen lying to the left, with the Samaritan kneeling beside him at the centre; to the right, the head of the donkey is seen tethered to a tree. The relief is worn but legible. Very little of the inscription below, in a variety of scripts, is legible, though the words 'Wife of [...]' can be read below the area which held the subject's name, and the words '[...] Children / [Who] all died in their infancy' can be read at the bottom. The sides of the headstone have narrow horizontal reeding, known as corduroy work.

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Print the official list entry