Chapter X: The Brighton Roads 224 (4)

Here indeed a conscientious guide must hesitate how to counsel the pilgrim of the picturesque as to his progress among an embarrassment of scenic riches. There is hardly such another walk in England as that dozen miles or so along the top of the Downs between Guildford and Dorking. From St. Martha's Hill, one ascends to the stretch named the Roughs, a beautiful wilderness of beeches, yews, thorns, holly and other chalk-loving copsewood tangled in bracken and bramble. On the further side of this ridge there is a straight way up from Clandon station, coming out at Newlands Corner (567 feet). Thence, keeping eastwards along the wooded edge, one might in a mile or so drop down again into the valley by a deep coombe leading to Shere. But all along one can hold on by what is often a broad turf-way set in woods, with tracks going off south to the Tillingbourne villages and the Dorking line, north to the stations of the railway between Guildford and Leatherhead, each of them base for rare rambles. One has only to keep the crest of the ridge, taking the successive names of Netley Heath, Hackhurst Downs, and White Downs, till the way opens out on the expanse of Ranmore Common, stretching over the end of this block of the Downs above the gap made by the Mole. Here, by Denbies Park, there is a charming descent to Dorking; or northwards one finds a network of grassy and leafy lanes leading across the ridge towards Leatherhead. But ridge has ceased to be the fittest term for a table-land of chalk opening out beyond Guildford to a belt several miles broad, dotted here and there by islands of other formation, and often roughened by patches of the wildest ground within a couple of hours' walk of London tramway lines. As to the rutted sward-way along the Downs, usually a little back from the edge, its merit is romantic loneliness, hardly a house coming to view between Newlands Corner and Ranmore Common, where the crash of a woodman's axe may recall American backwoods; but it has the defect of a want of prospects, shut out by lush greenery that suggests a valley rather than a height of several hundred feet.

The pilgrims of old days seldom took more trouble than they could help, and their way lay below, near the foot of the Downs, where, after Chilworth, Albury is the next village in the Tillingbourne valley. There is much to be said, and something to be seen, at this old _bury_ on the heath, to the south of which is the site of an ancient camp occupied by the Romans. The Way, after running along the north of a wooded swell in the valley, on the other side of which lies the village, enters Albury Park at an ornate pinnacled fane popularly known as the Irvingite Cathedral. For Albury was the cradle of the sect known to itself as the Catholic Apostolic Church, of which the eloquent enthusiast Edward Irving was not the only or the chief begetter. That distinction rather belonged to Henry Drummond, banker, squire, and Tory M.P., a curious amalgam of business ability and fanatical fancies. At his Albury mansion he was in the way of gathering like-minded friends for study of the Scriptures, and among them, by much brooding over the prophecies, was hatched the new communion that claimed to be a return to gifts and hopes of the Primitive Church. The parson of Albury in those days was the Rev. Hugh McNeile, afterwards well known at Liverpool as a champion of sound Evangelical teaching, who sympathised with the early efforts of the movement, but withdrew from it when it began to take shape apart from the Church as by law established; and poor Irving was deposed by his own Presbyterian Church, while he fell into some suspicion even among his brother sectaries. Through the marriage of his daughter, Drummond came to be represented by the Duke of Northumberland, a family that inherited his part as patron of the body, gathering humbler adherents in a neighbourhood where Cobbett had found fault with the number of its "meeting-houses" and the proportion of its people gone crazy through religion. The elaborate services of the "Cathedral" are said to be still well attended. The parish church, near the mansion, was turned into a mortuary chapel and mausoleum by Mr. Drummond, who built a new one on a site more convenient for the village, itself mainly transplanted by him to a site more aloof from his house. Through the groves of the park, past the house, with its famous yew hedge, terrace, and the gardens, originally laid out by John Evelyn, ran the Pilgrims' track, here losing its common character as a lonely hillside lane.

Another notable resident of Albury was Martin Tupper, that once widely-read proverbial philosopher whose fame enacted the tragi-comedy of the rocket and the stick. His name hardly got fair-play in a generation when to sneer at it became a commonplace with every criticaster, a kind of gentry apt to follow Mr. Pickwick's advice as to shouting with the crowd. But to this much-bleating rhymester, thus shorn of his glory, the wind of criticism was tempered by most robust self-applause, as amusingly appears in his literary memoirs, illustrated by rills of the torrents of prose and verse flowing from a truly fountain pen. Some of his verses, indeed, as John Bull's address to Jonathan, deserve not to be forgotten; and, while he had no patience with his neighbours the Irvingites, he is always warmly on the side of Protestantism, patriotism, and heart-of-oak sentiments. He claims, with reason, to have been a precursor of the volunteer movement, not only by his dithyrambic tootlings but by the practical foundation of an Albury rifle club. He especially "fancied himself" as trumpeter of this Holmesdale Valley and its history, as set forth in his romance, _Stephen Langton_; and he was the _vates sacer_ of Albury's "Silent Pool," as he christened the Sherbourne Pond of rustics, haunted by the spirit of a bathing maiden to whom King John played Actæon, with the effect of drowning that scared Diana.

This deep chalk basin of crystal water prettily set in a wooded dingle is now one of the lions of the place, yet so secluded that many seekers pass it by unseen. It lies at the foot of the Downs beside Sherbourne Farm, to the left of the road coming down from Newlands Corner and forking on the right for the Irvingite Church; just short of the fork a lane turns left to a cottage where the key of the enclosure may be had. It has been lately stated in the newspapers that the Silent Pool was being sucked dry by water-works on the Downs; but since then I found it deep and clear and cool as ever. Can it be that all we read in newspapers is not always true?

Past the Silent Pool, the road leads between the Downs and Albury Park to beautiful Shere, with its lime-tree avenue, its quaint cottages, whose gables, brackets, and barge-boards make such tempting "bits" for the sketcher, its good old "White Horse" inn, and its picturesque church on the bank of the Tillingbourne, which offers here the unusual village luxury of a small swimming-bath. This village is associated with memories of the county historian, Bray, and of Grote, the more famous historian of Greece. Its charming environs have been so attractive to artists that a "Shere School" is noted among them. There is a house hereabouts that made the home of three R.A.'s successively. Vicat Cole was one of the early discoverers, also Mr. B. W. Leader, who still lives at Burrows' Cross a little way towards the sand ridge.

A short mile on from Shere is Gomshall, whose "Black Horse" stands close to the station for both villages, as for the more distant charms of Abinger and Holmbury St. Mary. From the Tillingbourne, here harnessed to industry, also giving a subject to art in an often-painted mill, the Pilgrims' Way now mounted on to the Downs, looking across to the park of Wotton and the sloping woodlands of Leith Hill. I have usually left the reader to imagine for himself the views from these heights; but here I may quote the description by that expert Mr. Baddeley, which figures in more than one guide-book.

Take the lane going off from the mill (near the _Black Horse_) up
the hill. When the lane expands take path on left through the wood
to a field with path going right up its steep incline. At top of
field, before again entering the woods, a superb view eastward is
obtained. Through a gap in the hills, between Box Hill and
Deepdene, we look far away over the Weald of Kent. The crowning
height of Leith Hill with its tower lies south-east, then the eye
ranges over the valley between the Chalk and Greensand ranges to
Holmbury and Ewhurst Mill. The South Downs appear in the blue
distance to the left of the Hambledon Hills, and the irregular
crest of Hindhead west of them. The whole is framed by the woods on
either side of the field in which we stand. Entering the wood at
top of this field, the path soon rejoins the cart-track from the
lane that we left, and we reach the open meadows on the hill-top.
Here the woods shut out any view. Proceeding westward along two
meadows, at some farm buildings we take a path leading left into
the woods over Shere, and in a few yards after entering these,
obtain a view south and west that is even more beautiful than the
one just described. From no point does the Vale of Chilworth appear
to such advantage. Albury Park and the village of Shere are
immediately below us, and far away we trace the vale past Chilworth
to Shalford. Ewhurst Mill is again prominent due south, and the
sweep round to Hindhead, already described, is continued to the
Hog's Back, seen stretching westward like a long green gable roof.
The prominent feature is St. Martha's Hill, with its chapel
standing out as a lonely beacon in the distance. Charter House is
seen to the south-west, the Devil's Jumps being to the right of it,
and the hills of Hants beyond.

Without troubling oneself why the pilgrims now sought a more airy road, one may get on to the Downs and follow the crest. Or a little farther along the Dorking road, opposite a pond, goes off a pleasant way behind Abinger Hall and across the stretch of wild common known as Evershed Rough, at the edge of which a cross marks the spot where Bishop Wilberforce of Winchester, riding across the Downs, was killed by a fall from his horse. Farther on, past the Deerleap Wood and Wotton Church, there is a rough scramble up the wooded coombe of Pickett's Hole, or a more gradual road leads through Denbies Park, the drives of which are formally closed on the last day of the year, else open to pilgrims on horse or foot, but not to cyclists.

Thus we come to the final lofty expanse of Ranmore Common, where a graceful spire makes a far-seen beacon beside the upper edge of Denbies Park, whose mansion was the home of Mr. Cubitt, builder of Belgravia. Beyond this, the Downs are cut by the Mole valley, across which rises the bold promontory of Box Hill. How the Pilgrims' Way crossed this gap makes again matter of question. Mr. Belloc is positive that the old road must have gone straight over the mouth of the valley, perhaps by that very lane in which the narrator of the "Battle of Dorking" had his baptism of fire. But tradition, supported by such names as Pray Meadow and Paternoster Lane, and by the ruins of a chapel in West Humble Lane behind the Box Hill station, avers that here the pilgrims turned to the north side of the Downs, making thus for Burford Bridge, a mile down the river.

By Burford at all events is our best way up to the top of that Cockney paradise, Box Hill. Lucky are the citizens with such a scene within reach of their picnic excursions, and luckiest those sound enough in wind and limb to make the straight ascent from the hotel up the steep chalk slope, reached also by a zigzag road from Juniper Hall. The face towards Dorking is covered by an enclosure of rich wood, open to any one taking refreshment at the Swiss Cottage just within its gate. Beyond this one is free to roam over turf slopes and among the groves, where indeed of late years part of the land has been acquired by the War Office for fortifications to figure in any future Battle of Dorking; so here and there the forbidding initials W. D. remind us not to trespass upon the demesne of a power that is master of twenty legions. It appears, indeed, that this plan of fortification is not to be carried out. Keeping as near the edge as possible, one comes round to a brow looking over the next stretch of the Holmesdale Valley, where the Downs are cut by an enormous chalk pit, the largest I know in the county, taking its name from the village of Betchworth below.

This yawning mouth has swallowed up the Pilgrims' Way. To keep along the Downs, curving as an amphitheatre of some half-dozen miles on to Reigate, is no easy task. I have done it, and again I have failed to find a practicable path, since "W. D." has in part closed the woods. A friend of mine who repeatedly achieved the adventure, reports that he never twice took quite the same line. Perhaps the stranger would save himself time and trouble if, at the "Hand in Hand," he struck into the road that runs behind the ridge to fall into the London highway piercing its height through Pebble Coombe; then, from the edge of Walton Heath beyond, he may get back on to the Downs, in front of their coronet of woods. The Way, beyond that coombe, is traced by Mr. Belloc on rough high ground; but a line of yews slanting up from the picturesque village of Buckland with its church and court, a mile on in the valley, has been taken to mark its ascent to Colley Hill and the lofty park of Margery Grove. A mile farther on, it comes behind a beech wood on the brow overlooking Reigate, the view from which was dubbed by Cobbett's dogged patriotism the finest in the world. This is now a public demesne of Reigate, a town lying just off the Way, though no doubt intimately connected with it, as shown by the Chapel of St. Thomas, once to be visited where now stands its old Town Hall. A little farther, immediately above Reigate, among the copses of the height lurks a new fort, inconspicuous as is the nature of such latter-day strongholds; and where the Way passes through War Office property as a shady lane, it has been clearly labelled by name so as to point it out to the meanest topographical capacity. It crosses the Brighton road by another modern feature, a suspension bridge, from the seats beside which the prospect is most often enjoyed by cyclists.

Here is reached Gatton Park, where the Way, after rising to 700 feet, betakes itself to the north slope of the ridge. Tradition and the O. S. map make it coincide with the byroad leading beside the north edge of the park; but Mr. Belloc maintains that it must have presently run through this enclosure. One may enter at the lodge gate and walk among its lakelets and timbered knolls to the east side, where are the mansion, the church, and the "Town Hall," a sort of garden temple on a little mound, in which till 1832 one person proceeded to the election of two members of parliament. This notorious rotten borough, as

Mr. Belloc suggests, may have owed its privilege to former importance as crossing-place of roads north and south. The small church is a museum of ecclesiastical decoration, collected from far and wide by a former owner, Lord Monson, buried in the mausoleum adjoining the house. His mansion was designed on a lavish scale, carried out so far as the hall goes, which makes a rich show of coloured marbles, terra-cotta reliefs and frescoes, in imitation of a chapel at Rome; but it looks to be an artistic Tower of Babel, as if the builder's ambitious plans had been nipped by the Reform Bill when it took away the special value of what Cobbett styled a "very rascally spot of earth." A successor of this peer unfortunately lent his name to a too well-known financier; with the result that Gatton passed into the hands of a gentleman who boasts how he made his money from the mustard people superfluously leave on their plates, and of whom his Redhill neighbours have cause to think that he spends it with like liberality.

Beyond Gatton comes a descent into another gap of the Downs, filled by the pretty and prosperous village of Merstham, with its "Feathers" Inn, and its old Church on a knoll. In the valley, the high-road of Redhill and two railway lines have obliterated the crossing of the Pilgrims' Way on to the next face of the Downs, which now sweep back a little farther north. For a short mile, we may be content to take a road along the foot; then a path slanting up the slope brings us back to the crest, where the Pilgrims' track has been transformed as approach to new houses. Near these turns north a byway to the Church of Chaldon, lying a mile or so behind our route.

This secluded Church is notable for the best of such fresco wall-paintings as were a feature of other churches in Surrey. The work seems to date from the generation after Becket, but became overlaid by plaster and white washing, under which it was discovered on the Church being restored a generation ago. Since their exposure, the colours have somewhat faded, so the short-sighted visitor, unversed in mediæval symbolism, may be told how the lower part displays the torments of the wicked at the hands of hideous devils, beside a serpent writhing among the fruit:--

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe.

From this grotesquely dismal scene, happier souls struggle up the Ladder of Salvation to where on one side Christ is seen triumphing over the powers of Evil, and on the other St. Michael weighing souls in his balance. One of the figures below, holding a bottle, is interpreted as a temperance lesson, no doubt needed by some of the pilgrims, who must often have turned aside to profit by this pictorial sermon. The worst torment seems to be that of a millionaire of the period, who had perhaps not opened his money bags to relieve poor pilgrims.

For the Pilgrims' Way we have only to keep the brow of White Hill, looking over to the southern ridge on which Bletchingley stands. After crossing the road from Caterham to Bletchingley, it is continued by a lane turning off beside a tower and past the mansion called Arthur's Seat, to the War Coppice, once an ancient camp, but now, like the Cardinal's Cap on White Hill, offered as a too eligible building site. Except by peeps, the view to the south becomes obstructed; and we look over the Harestone Valley, down which a pleasant path runs northward to Caterham. At Gravelly Hill and its Water Tower, new road-making seems to transmogrify the Way, that on the slope beyond must have taken a scramble into the deep hollow through which runs the high-road to Godstone. Perhaps the original track is represented by a narrow lane descending on the south face of the Downs.

Across that quarried hollow, we again ascend the Downs for their last half-dozen miles in Surrey. A little below the milestone goes off a charmingly devious lane up Winder's Hill and along the south side of Marden Park, past its white shooting "Castle" so conspicuous on the brow, then the lodge gate, through which there is a bridle-way running to Caterham or on to the farther end of the park, two miles north. Evelyn tells us how this fine demesne was made from a "barren warren" and a poor farm in a hardly populated parish, by that "prodigious rich scrivener" of his own time, Sir Robert Clayton, a Lord Mayor of London, whose virtues, or at least his fortunes, are attested by the monstrous monument covering a whole chancel wall of Bletchingley Church on the ridge to the south. Here, admiringly says our authority on such matters, the wealthy citizen so changed the face of hill, valley, and "solitary mountain," that before long Marden looked like "some foreign country" which would "produce spontaneously pines, firs, cypress, yew, holly, and juniper," not to mention "an infinite store of the best fruit."

The sylvan riches of Marden Park may be sampled from a lovely lane winding round the outside of its enclosure to gain the open edge of the heights. The Pilgrims' Way here dropped to a lower level, passing by what is still called Palmer's Wood and another wood on the face of the Downs, again hugely scarred by chalk cuttings. It next runs right through the middle of Titsey Park, where a Roman villa was discovered near its course. Titsey Place was the old seat of the Greshams, a name well known in City annals, whose monuments are preserved in the new church on the east side of the park. From this point eastwards the Way is a modern lane easily followed for miles.

The modern pilgrim may as well leave this lower road to be looked down on from the edge, along which he can hold on from Marden Park, by hints of War Office possession, and some lonely houses that mark an attempt at a new London settlement meant to take its name from Woldingham on the lower ground behind. Thus is gained the inconspicuous swell of Botley Hill, which appears to be the highest ground on the Surrey Downs (882 feet) but has no markedly prominent point to command a view, looking north across a somewhat featureless table-land to the towers of the Crystal Palace, and south over a more pleasing expanse of hills, dales, woods, and villages. Presently this prospect is interrupted by woods, behind which five roads meet to make the perilous descent by Titsey, as other arduous lanes and paths have been seen dropping down towards Oxted and Limpsfield. Still we may keep the edge, taking the Westerham road, almost half a mile along which, at Cold Harbour Green, the highest face of the Surrey Downs (880 feet) is marked by a clump of beech trees above a farm named Pilgrims' Lodge. A little farther along the high ground stands the last Surrey Church, Tatsfield, looking far over the vale by which the Way now enters Kent.

Many a weary league had the pilgrims yet to tramp or trot, up and down, along or above the Kentish Downs. Little thought had they to spare for the beauties of their long road, unless when some poetic soul was half-unconsciously moved by the freshness of a flowery mead or the coolness of the good greenwood where "smalle fowles maken melody." Least of all did they admire the arduous steeps and the patches of wilderness on which a generation free from the fear of robbers and bogeys best loves to linger. In this too short account of some forty miles as the bird flies, which might well be doubled by turning here and there among varied scenes and sites, I have been able only to outline one of the most alluring ways in England, which threads together nearly all Surrey's fairest charms. If the gentle reader do not believe my report, let him make this pilgrimage for himself, as he may do, day after day, in stretches of some dozen miles, by striking into its road from Farnham, Guildford, Dorking, Redhill, or Caterham, each giving access to a fresh block of the Downs.

VI

THE ROMAN ROAD

An improvement on the British trackways, comparable almost to railways in relation to turnpikes, must have been the paved and embanked Roman roads, with their milestones and stations. Several of them are known, either as straight stretches of modern highway, or fallen into miry and grassy desuetude, or only guessed at as having shaped parish boundaries. Least forgotten are the main roads connecting London with provincial towns and camps. Our long and nearly straight Edgware Road was Watling Street, with its branches making the Midland or London and North-Western system of Roman travel. John Gilpin's road out by Tottenham and Edmonton for several miles followed Ermyn Street, the Great Northern line of the Romans. They had a Great Western road also, running by Staines to Silchester, which has

preserved no familiar name. Watling Street, which originally, till diverted to London Bridge, came down by our west-end parks to cross the Thames at Westminster, in Surrey turned eastward into Kent as their Chatham and Dover route. From either this or from Ermyn Street, or rather as a continuation of both, "Stane" Street went south towards Chichester, the Roman Regnum, with a branch that might be styled the Brighton line of the period, when indeed Pevensey was the important terminus on this coast. From earliest days of commerce, Surrey could not but be crossed by ways from London to the southern ports; and perhaps here, as elsewhere, the Romans only adapted older tracks, as our generation may turn a canal into a railway.

More than one Roman road was made here, but what has been remembered as _the_ Roman road, is the ancient Stone Street that ran right through the centre of the county. This name, still in parts familiar, is borne out by excavations made at different times, when flints and other stones laid alternately, to a thickness of four or five feet, were found bedded in sand and gravel or cement. As in the case of the Pilgrims' Way, part of its line has been more or less closely followed by an actual road; part has become obliterated, the course only to be guessed by the rule of general straightness, unless where turned askew by insurmountable obstacles; but one stretch still remains clearly marked out, buried beneath a turf track that makes the joy of pedestrians. It begins just beyond the racecourse of Epsom, to which the Romans marched by much the same line as the cyclists' road through Kennington, Clapham,--or Streatham,--Tooting, Morden, and Ewell. The name Newington _Causeway_ is taken as a hint of Stone Street's connection with London Bridge.

Before it gets clear of the suburbs, this road passes the remains of the once great Priory of Merton, hidden away behind a mill on the banks of the Wandle, and shut in by what may now be called a purlieu of Wimbledon, but could be described by Lackington, the autobiographical bookseller, as "the most rural village of the most beautiful county." Here were educated Thomas à Becket, and the founder of Merton College; and here in 1236 a council of barons let their king know how they were unwilling to change the laws of England. What the Merton folk remember more clearly and proudly is the residence here of Nelson with his too intimate friends the Hamiltons, in a house the identification of which was made matter of recent newspaper controversy, so blurred are the records of a century back. Confusion seems to have arisen from the fact that the Hamiltons temporarily occupied Merton Abbey House; but their fixed home was Merton Place, to the south of the Abbey, which has disappeared along with the stream in the grounds, by Lady Hamilton christened the Nile, in honour of her hero. The "Nelson's Arms" and Nelson Grove Road preserve his memory here. Close to Merton Abbey station there is a gateway to be seen as the finest fragment of the old monastery, reached from the high-road by a path up the Wandle. To our generation the Abbey has perhaps been best known as site of William Morris's factory of artistic decorations. Merton has grown so fast that a manorial mansion might well seem an anachronism here, as was recognised by its squire, Mr. John Innes, bequeathing his property in generous endowment for local amenities and benefactions to what is now a London suburb, yet not without some rustic features.

The next village, Morden, looks still not unfit to have a squire in its park; then two or three miles farther on, the cyclist spins unsuspecting by another name fallen from high estate. He approaches Ewell and the springs of the Hogsmill River, along the wall of Nonsuch Park, in which once stood a stately palace built by Henry VIII.; and on the other side of the road the name of Worcester Park recalls how this outlying residential suburb also made part of a royal demesne, the neighbourhood of which fostered Epsom in Tudor and Stuart days. Nonsuch Palace became a favourite residence of Elizabeth and James I., and seems to have set a fashion of the day in names. The Virginian colonists christened Powhattan's lodge _Nonsuch_, as "the strongest and most pleasant place in the country," when John Smith also complimented Pocahontas with the title "Nonpareil of Virginia." The present mansion keeps no more than the name of Nonsuch, the site of which was near the modern mock antiquity styled Ewell Castle and the ivied tower of the old church, that makes such a picturesque monument beside its successor. Pictures and Camden's description preserve the grandeur of that vanished palace, still standing in the plague year, to be used as a government office, when Pepys hints how it was falling into decay, but Evelyn could admire the manner in which its walls "were all so covered with scales of slate, that it seemed carved in the wood and painted, the slate fastened on the timber in pretty figures, that has, like a coat of armour, preserved it from rotting."

So much for the high-road to Epsom. But if I were going there in no hurry and in dry weather, I once could walk almost all the way from Richmond Park or from Putney Heath over grass or green lanes, with only two bits of road tramping, one at Coombe, and one through the houses of Worcester Park: there has, indeed, been so much building hereabouts of late, that I should fear now to find the paths turning to streets. This way is mainly up the course of the Hogsmill River to Chessington, the parish where Fanny Burney visited the retreat of her "Daddy" Crispe. From the hillock on which the little church stands, more than one path leads on by the tower of the asylum at Horton and beneath the railway line into Epsom's main thoroughfare.

Few able-bodied Londoners of our generation have not by one route or other visited Epsom, which has four railway lines from the capital, two of them indeed not taking the trouble to come beyond the famous racecourse on the Downs. The smart little town lies mainly along the Dorking high-road, in a dip between the Downs and the expanse of Epsom Common, which imperceptibly merges with the wooded swell of Ashstead Common, named Leatherhead Common on a map of a century ago, before it became a resort of school-feasting Londoners. A conspicuous building on the Downs side is Epsom College, founded for the sons of medical men. That tall tower at Horton makes a landmark on the flat to the other side. The London end of the town is more commonplace, but farther on, about the Clock Tower that replaces the old watch-house, roomy openings, venerable inns, solid dwelling-houses, and shaded walks hint at the amenities of Epsom in its days of watering-place fame. Beyond this south end are the notable mansions of the Durdans and Woodcote Park, each in their well-wooded grounds. Above all, shining on the top of the Downs, the Grand Stand, more than once enlarged since its building in 1829, makes the Capitol or Acropolis of this Surrey Olympia.

Racing upon Banstead Downs, as the name then was, is first heard of under patronage of James I. on his visits at Nonsuch. A horse-race here is said to have been the excuse for that gathering of Cavaliers that ended so ill outside of Kingston, when they would have revived the Civil War. Foot- as well as horse-races, with cudgelling and wrestling matches, drew spectators in simple days whereof Herrick tells us how--

Naked younglings, handsome striplings run
Their goals for virgins' kisses; which when done,
Then unto dancing forth the learned round
Commixt they meet.

The running footmen of the quality were in a manner professionals at the sport that made their duty. Pepys notes how one summer day the town talk among such quidnuncs as himself was "of nothing but the great foot-race run this day on Banstead Downs between Lee, the Duke of Richmond's footman, and a tyler, a famous runner," and how the athletic flunkey won, though the betting was three to four against him. Charles II. and his brother of York both lost money on this "event," and let us hope they paid up.

These princes helped to make horse-racing fashionable, Newmarket being the chief scene of it, where the horses were ridden by noble sportsmen in person, our merry monarch himself acting the jockey. The Banstead gatherings were as yet not so celebrated, still Defoe in his _Tour_ is quite enthusiastic about the spectacle on the Downs when "they are covered with Coaches and Ladies, and an innumerable Company of Horsemen, as well Gentlemen as Citizens, attending the Sport; and then, adding to the Beauty of the Sight, the Racers flying over the Course, as if they neither touched not nor felt not the Ground they run upon: I think no sight except that of a Victorious Army, under a Protestant King of _Great Britain_, could exceed it." That unlamented Prince Fred, "who was alive and is dead," lived for a time at the Durdans, and then gave a cup to be run for at Epsom, which brought its course into more note. But its real fame and fortune date from about 1778, when a sporting Earl of Derby and his friends founded the Oaks and the Derby stakes, to be run for at what ought to be the brightest time of our year, yet the "blue ribbon of the turf" has been won in a snow-storm.

Before the height of its racing renown, Epsom had, we know, had a spell of prosperity as a spa. The mineral water, charged with sulphate of magnesia, is said to have been discovered early in the seventeenth century, through a countryman noticing how his cows--or his ass in a variant story--would not drink it, a reversal of the usual legend, as shown in the leading case of Bladud's pigs at Bath. In Fuller's day "Ebsham" was a resort of citizens coming from what even then

might be styled "the worst of smokes into the purest of airs." By the middle of the century the waters had won a name; and a little later Pepys found the place so full that he could not get a lodging. Nell Gwynne was another patron at this period. The height of its vogue seems to have been under Queen Anne, whose husband came to drink the waters. Nearness to London must have helped Epsom's favour; and its people were not backward in laying themselves out to accommodate strangers, for whose entertainment were provided the usual gaieties of a watering-place, set off by its situation in what seemed "a great Park filled with little Groves, Lodges, and Retreats for coolness of Air and Shade from the Sun." But it is only in summer, says Defoe, that visitors can be expected, the clays of the lowlands making ill roads for winter jaunts.

Defoe declares Tunbridge Wells then the more fashionable place, favoured by "the Nobility and Gentry, as Epsom rather by Merchants and Rich Citizens"; both frequented rather for "the Mirth and Company, for Gaming or Intriguing or the like," than for "meer Physick"; and he states that Londoners of a lower class who sought serious treatment found it by walking out to the wells of Dulwich and Streatham, so much beset on holidays by "an unruly and unmannerly" crowd that the "better sort" kept aloof from such Cockney haunts. One notes how a contemporary French _Guide du Baigneur_ advertises Dulwich and Streatham as well as Epsom among our spas, though other more famous British resorts have not yet swum into the ken of this authority. The sulphur water of Streatham, indeed, may still be tasted, pumped up behind the counter of a dairy by a dispenser who has informed me that he finds it excellent as "supper beer"--_de gustibus_, etc.

John Toland in 1711 gives the wordiest account of Epsom spa and its company, lodged in a group of hamlets about the main street, with the paved Terrace, Assembly Room, and two rival bowling-greens as centres of intercourse. The writer himself had a "Hermitage" at Woodcote Green, from which he thus describes, is his _Letter to Eudoxa_:--

By the Conversation of those who walk there, you would fancy
yourself to be this Minute on the _Exchange_, and the next Minute
at St. _James's_; one while in an _East-India_ Factory, or a
_West-India_ Plantation, and another while with the _Army_ in
_Flanders_, or on Board the _Fleet_ in the _Ocean_.... A fairer
Circle was never seen at _Baiae_, or _Cumae_ of old, nor of late at
_Carelsbad_, or _Aix-la-Chapelle_, than is to be admir'd on the
High-Green and in the Long-Room, on a publick Day. If the _German_
Baths out-number us in Princesses, we out-shine them in Nymphs and
Goddesses, to whom their Princes wou'd be proud to pay Adoration.
But not to dissemble any Thing, bountiful Nature has likewise
provided us with many other Faces and Shapes, I may add, with
another Sett of Dress, Speech, and Behaviour (not to mention Age)
ordain'd to quench the cruel Flames, or to damp the inordinate
Desires, which the Young, the Handsom, and the Accomplish'd, might
undesignedly kindle.... The Rude, the Sullen, the Noisy, and the
Affected, the Peevish, the Covetous, the Litigious, and the
Sharping, the Proud, the Prodigal, the Impatient, and the
Impertinent, become visible foils to the Well-bred, Prudent,
Modest, and Good-humour'd, in the Eyes of all impartial Beholders.
Our Doctors, instead of prescribing the Waters for the Vapours, or
the Spleen, order their Patients to be assiduous at all publick
Meetings, knowing that (if they be not themselves of the Number)
they'll find abundant Occasion to laugh at bankrupt
Fortune-Hunters, crazy or superannuated Beaus, marry'd Coquets,
intriguing Prudes, richly-dress'd Waiting-Maids and complimenting
Footmen.... The Judicious EUDOXA will naturally conclude, that such
a Concourse of all Ranks of People, must needs fill the Shops with
most Sorts of useful and substantial Wares, as well as with finer
Goods, Fancies, and Toys. The Taverns, the Inns, and the
Coffee-houses answer the Resort of the Place. And I must do our
Coffee-houses the Justice to affirm, that for social Virtue they
are unequal'd by few, and exceeded by none; tho' I wish they may be
imitated by all. A _Tory_ does not stare and leer when a _Whig_
comes in, nor a _Whig_ look sour and whisper at the Sight of a
_Tory_. These distinctions are laid by with the Winter Suit at
_London_, and a gayer, easier Habit worn in the Country.

Epsom's credit appears to have been lost through the trickery of a certain apothecary, who set up "New Wells" with Assembly and gambling-rooms, which took for a time, till it leaked out how the virtue of this rival spring was only matter of imagination. That humbug had bought up the original well, and went so far as to close it by way of protecting his own dishonest enterprise. Then Epsom fell off as a resort; and though attempts were made to galvanise its repute, it never got back those throngs of visitors, while the artificial Epsom salts came to be a popular remedy. The once famous well is now obscurely enclosed in the grounds of a private mansion on the Common, to be seen above a row of cottages beside the railway, just outside the town. Among the Ashstead oaks, higher up on the Common, there is a still more neglected spring known as the "Roman Well," the highest point of this open woodland having apparently been the site of a Roman camp.

The Roman Road is on the other side of the town, beginning at the south-west corner of the racecourse, to be followed in a nearly straight line from an inn below the Grand Stand. On the Ordnance Maps it is marked _Ermyn Street_, but Stone Street is the traditional name, though it seems anything but stony in our macadamising days. An easy and pleasant way of striking into it from the town is to turn up left at the "Spread Eagle," then presently right by a flagged path and a lane forking to the right, which brings one below Lord Rosebery's seat, the Durdans, where a road goes straight up-hill to the inn above mentioned. One might, however, keep another in the same direction as the lane, presently bending up left round Woodcote Park, and past Ashstead Park on the right, till at the top of the ascent is struck the Roman Road.

There is no mistaking this deserted highway, here a broad stretch of turf, on which practical farmers must cast a covetous eye. At a height of about 400 feet, it makes a delightful walk, crossed by tempting pathways, on one side to the Dorking road through Ashstead and Leatherhead, on the other to Headley and Walton, by which one might cut across to the Reigate road. Pebble Lane is a local name, suggested by traces of the Roman construction that have been exposed to view; and there are hints of the old embankment, where to the careless eye nothing may appear but a swathe of waste land. The Church in Ashstead Park is believed to occupy the site of a Roman villa, such as often stood a little way off these roads, like a modern gentleman's house behind its avenue.

Among the divagations suggested by guide-posts, one might choose the mile or so's walk behind Ashstead to the church of Headley-on-the-Hill, whose spire is a far seen landmark and a focus of several such footways, another of which would lead back to the Roman Road farther on. If one keep straight along it, after half an hour's soft walking it grows narrower, rougher, and shadier, crooking its way through a wood as it comes upon the yew-dotted and tumulus-swollen slopes of the Downs above Leatherhead. All this part of Surrey is particularly rich in yews, such as we saw in the Druid's Grove of Norbury across the Mole, which our road now approaches. Beneath it, beside the valley high-road, the grounds of Cherkley Court contain a mass of yews packed together over some ninety acres, some of the trees very large and beautiful in form. Dr. John Lowe, in his monograph on the _Yew-trees of Great Britain and Ireland_, speaks of this as "perhaps the finest collection of yews in existence."

Leatherhead Downs run into the neighbour name of Mickleham Downs, which in part are still much as they were described by Aubrey, but their clumps of ancient yews and thorn-trees are relieved by more artificial parks and woods, below which opens the lovely valley of the Mole, with Norbury Park on its opposite slope. The Roman Road seems to have dropped down into the hollow below Juniper Hill before crossing the Mole; but then its line becomes lost, though fragments of it are said to have been made out in living memory. Let us be content to take two or three miles of turnpike by Burford Bridge to Dorking, whose tall spire, reared in memory of Bishop Wilberforce, marks the traditional course of Stone Street by its churchyard.

As it left the chalk formation to mount upon the greensand, this old road must have crossed the central scene of that "Battle of Dorking" that has escaped mention by grave historians, who might indeed note the national characteristic which turns such a fable into the form of a wholesome warning, whereas the prophets of foreign fiction are more in the way of tickling their readers with glorious victories of imagination. The name thus used to point a moral and adorn a tale from _Blackwood_, was suggested by the position of Dorking at the foot of the steep Downs, making a natural line of defence for the south side of London. In Domesday the town figures as _Dorkinges_, a name authentically famed through a breed of fowls said to have been introduced by the Romans. There can be no doubt about its antiquity, and its importance in good old days is vouched for by the size and number of its inns, the "White Horse" and "Red Lion" still flourishing, and others turned into shops in our own time. The curious stranger searches in vain for the sign of the "Marquis of Granby," for the tomb of Mrs. S. Weller, sen., or for the chapel at which Mr. Stiggins ministered; but an actual coachman named Weller is said to have lived at Dorking in Mr. Pickwick's time, and his chronicler seems to have had in view the "Old King's Head," which became the Post Office.

A peculiar custom of Dorking must probably be spoken of in the past tense, now that staid citizens have been resolute in putting it down, as happened earlier at Kingston and other towns. Here lasted longest in Surrey what seems a survival of Carnival roistering, a triple game of football played through the main streets on Shrove Tuesday, between sides living east and west of the church. On this afternoon, all shops being closed, three balls,

red, white, and blue, were carried out in procession to the music of a traditional tune, to be kicked off by the town crier at the Church passage. The red ball having been first worried by the boys, at 3 P.M. the blue ball was taken in foot by the men; and at 4 P.M. a grand final struggle, hundreds strong, began with the white ball, going on till the chimes rang at 6 P.M. These Saturnalian scrimmages proved as hard to extinguish as the bonfire-revels at Lewes on Guy Fawkes Day; but this year a dozen extra policemen appear to have been too many for young Dorking's half-hearted conservatism; and for an illustration of the old Shrove Tuesday sports, one must go all the way to St. Colomb in Cornwall, where the ceremonial Hurling Match between "Town" and "Country" is still honoured in the observance.

These footballs were inscribed with the legend, "Wind and water is Dorking's glory." From some winds Dorking is well sheltered; but the lower part of the town has only too much water in the ponds filled by the Pipp Brook, at one time an attraction of the place, being stocked with perch, carp, and tench, that supplied the dish called "water souchy," a stew of fish in esteem with London citizens. Sanitarians now shake their heads over this damp and misty flat, and Dorking's recent growth is rather upon the high ground behind the long, spacious main street. In point of picturesqueness its situation is most admirable, shut in among such heights as Ranmore Common, Box Hill, and the broken swell of parks and woods rising southwards to Leith Hill.

Much of this beautiful country is enclosed in renowned demesnes; most famous of them Deepdene, lying close behind the town. That paradise of almost European reputation takes in the adjoining Betchworth and Chart Parks; and the wood on the opposite face of Box Hill also belongs to the property, that in a circumference of a dozen miles makes a magnificent collection of English and exotic timber. The nucleus of it was the deep hollow or "Long Hope," which Mr. Charles Howard, in Cromwell's time, laid out as an amphitheatre of garden terraces, an open-air conservatory of flowers and rare plants, visited with due admiration by his neighbour John Evelyn, and also by Aubrey, who declared the sight "worthy of Cowley's Muse." At the beginning of last century the estate was bought and extended by "Anastasius" Hope, author of a celebrated Eastern romance, and liberal patron of such artists as Flaxman and Thorwaldsen, with whose works he stored the mansion begun by him. As a guest here, Disraeli is understood to have written _Coningsby_. Another owner of note was Mr. Beresford Hope, the proprietor of the _Saturday Review_. In the hands of his heirs the estate fell among the Philistines, and after a succession of tenancies this lordly demesne has been turned into an _hôtel de luxe_. But if strangers cannot gain the lofty beech terrace, commanding such a rich woodland prospect, and from a lane outside must be content with a tantalising peep of the rhododendron show within, they may take a public path to the Glory Wood behind the town; or, on its east side, in the valley of the Mole, they find the avenues of Betchworth Park open as a way to Brockham; while the grounds of Box Hill, and some of the finest outskirts of Leith Hill, such as the Nower park-slopes, offer free rambles.

To follow the Roman Road's course southwards from Dorking, one takes the Horsham Road over Holmwood Common below the eastern flanks of Leith Hill. On the right hand of this highway, a straight line under the Redland Woods is marked on the O.S. map as Stone Street, which here, indeed, needs an antiquary's eye to trace it over private enclosures. Above it, by lanes winding through the woods, is reached the lofty village of Coldharbour. This name, often occurring on or near an old road, is believed to denote an inn, like the caravanserais of the East, that supplied only bare walls. Evelyn reviles a poor Alpine inn as a "cold harbour, though the house had a stove in every room." It is not improbable that a deserted Roman villa or military station would be turned to account as such a place of more or less imperfect shelter. Ruskin, in one of his rashest excursions _ultra crepidam_, opined that the Camberwell Coldharbour Lane might have been called after _coluber_, from its snake-like windings; but he seems not to know how many Coldharbours there are in England, and that several of them stand near Roman roads, whose character was anything but serpentine. Beside this lofty village is the Camp of Anstiebury, traditional harbour for an invading force of Danes, who sallied forth to be slaughtered on the slopes of Leith Hill or on Ockley Green below.

On the south side of Leith Hill, showing such a bold face to the flats of Ockley, the line of the Roman Road coincides with the modern one, still known as "Stone Street causeway," that had been ascribed by country-folk in Aubrey's time to the work of the Devil. This road runs straight for about three miles, then, beyond its forks, the line of the old way is marked on maps as leading about as far ahead, across the Sussex border, into the valley of the Arun. As a practicable path, however, it seems to have fallen much out of use, overlaid by the woods and grounds of this generation. In the fork one can see no trace of it now, but, if one here take the right-hand road crooking up to the hamlet of Oakwood Hill, below this an inscription, _Shut the Gate_, shows the bridle-way preserved as drive of a modern mansion. Beside this house it passes as a green lane to be almost choked as it tunnels the copses that soon obscure its line for a stranger, though local wayfarers make out a right-of-way to Rowhook. Mr. Malden, the Surrey historian, who has patiently explored part of its lost course, finds that some ancient lanes take no heed of that older track, which he supposes to have been early abandoned as leading into the Wealden wilds, almost uninhabited at the date of Domesday.