[2] Chilworth was the name of an ancient manorial estate recorded in the Domesday Book (1086) as belonging to Alwin before the conquest, and afterwards to Odo of Bayeux.

On the site of Chilworth manor house there formerly existed a monastic cell belonging to the Augustinian canons of Newark Priory, Surrey (between Ripley and Pyrford), one of whom probably served the parishioners of St Martha during the Middle Ages.

[3] Newark Priory was dissolved by Henry VIII and by 1580 Chilworth manor was owned by William Morgan (c. 1525–1602), who also held the neighbouring manor of Tyting with Henry Polsted (whose son Richard Polsted[4] married a daughter of Sir William More (died 1600) of Loseley Park).

[6] His wife, Lady Margaret, extended hospitality to the poet Robert Tofte and his brother at Chilworth, who dedicated his translation of Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato to her in 1598.

As a result of the costs involved in the elections, the property was sold to Richard Houlditch, a director of the South Sea Company.

John Bunyan, who lived nearby at one time, is reputed to have based The Hill of Difficulty in Pilgrims Progress on the path from the manor to St Martha's Chapel.