THE Pilgrims’ Way ran through Albury Park, passing close to the old church and under the famous yew hedge, and crossed the clear trout stream of the Tillingbourne by a ford still known as “Chantry Ford.” Here a noble avenue of lime trees brings us to Shere church, a building as remarkable for the beauty of its situation as for its architectural interest. The lovely Early{88} English doorway, the heavy transitional arches of the nave and the fourteenth-century chancel are still unhurt, and among the fragments of old glass we recognise the flax-breaker, which was the crest of the Brays, one of the oldest families in the county, who are, we rejoice to think, still represented here. Shere itself is one of the most charming villages in all this lovely neighbourhood. For many years now it has been a favourite resort of artistic and literary men, who find endless delight in the quiet beauty of the surrounding country. Subjects for pen and pencil abound in all directions; quaint old timbered houses, picturesque water-mills and barns, deep ferny lanes shaded by overhanging trees, and exquisite glimpses of heather-clad downs meet us at every turn. Fair as the scene is, travellers are seldom seen in these hilly regions; and so complete is the stillness, so pure the mountain air, that we might almost fancy ourselves in the heart of the Highlands, instead of thirty miles from town. Here it was, in the midst of the wild scenery of these Surrey Hills, that a sudden end closed the life of a great prelate of our own days,{89} Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester. A granite cross at Evershed’s Rough, just below Lord Farrer’s house at Abinger Hall, now marks the spot where his horse stumbled and fell as he rode down the hill towards Holmbury on that summer afternoon.
SHERE.
SHERE.
CROSSWAYS FARM, NEAR WOTTON.
CROSSWAYS FARM, NEAR WOTTON.[9]
About a mile beyond Abinger we reach the home of John Evelyn, and see the grey tower of the church where he is buried. This is Wotton—the town of the woods, as he loved to call it—“sweetly environed” with “venerable woods and delicious streams;” Wotton where, after all his wanderings and all the turmoil of those troublous times, Evelyn found a peaceful haven wherein to end his days. There are the terraces, the “fountains and groves,” in which he took delight; there, too, are the pine-woods which he planted, not only for ornament, and because they “create a perpetual spring,” but because he held the air to be improved by their “odoriferous and balsamical emissions.” Not only these trees, but the oak and ash, and all the different species which he studied so closely and has written about so well, were dear to him as his own children, and he{91} speaks in pathetic language of the violent storm which blew down two thousand of his finest trees in a single night, and almost within sight of his dwelling, and left Wotton, “now no more Woodtonn, stripped and naked, and almost ashamed to own its name. Methinks that I still hear, and I am sure that I feel, the dismal groans of our{92} forests, when that late dreadful hurricane, happening on the 26th of November, 1703, subverted so many thousands of goodly oaks, prostrating the trees, laying them in ghastly postures, like whole regiments fallen in battle by the sword of the conqueror, and crushing all that grew beneath them.” Evelyn’s descendants have bestowed the same care on the woods and plantations, and in spite of the havoc wrought by wind and tempest, Wotton is still remarkable for the beauty of its forest-trees and masses of flowering rhododendrons.
WOTTON.
WOTTON.
The red-brick house has been a good deal altered during the present century, but is still full of memorials of Evelyn. His portrait, and that of his wife and father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne, are there, and that of his “angelic friend,” Mistress Blagge, the wife of Godolphin, whose beautiful memory he has enshrined in the pages of the little volume that bears her name. The drawings which he made on his foreign travels are there too; and better still, the books in which he took such pride and pleasure, carefully bound, bearing on their backs a device and motto which he chose,{93} a spray of oak, palm, and olive entwined together, with the words, “Omnia explorate; meliora retinete.” But the most precious relic of all is the Prayer Book used by Charles I. on the morning of his execution. It was saved from destruction by a devoted loyalist, Isaac Herault, brother of a Walloon minister in London, and afterwards given by him to Evelyn’s father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne. The fly-leaf bears a Latin inscription with this note:—This is the Booke which Charles the First, Martyr beatus, did use upon the Scaffold, XXX Jan., 1649, being the Day of his glorious martyrdom.”
The exact course of the Pilgrims’ Way here is uncertain. After leaving Shere church it disappears, and we must climb a steep lane past Gomshall station, to find the track again on Hackhurst Downs. The line of yews is to be seen at intervals all along these downs, and as we descend into the valley of the Mole, opposite the heights of Box Hill, we pass four venerable yew trees standing in a field by themselves. One of the group was struck by lightning many years ago, but still stretches its gaunt, withered arms{95} against the sky, like some weather-beaten sign-post marking the way to Canterbury.
BOX HILL AND DORKING CHURCH SPIRE.
BOX HILL AND DORKING CHURCH SPIRE.
The town of Dorking lies in the break here made in the chalk hills by the passage of the river Mole; Milton’s “sullen Mole that windeth underground,” or, as Spenser sings in his “FaËrie Queen,”—
{96}
THE WHITE HORSE, DORKING.
THE WHITE HORSE, DORKING.
The Mole owes its fame to the fact that it is so seldom seen, and several of the swallows or gullies into which it disappears at intervals along its chalky bed are at Burford, close to Dorking. The ponds which supplied the perch for that water-sousie which Dutch merchants came to eat at Dorking, are still to be seen in the fields under Redhill, and near them many an old timbered house and mill-wheel well worth painting.{97}
BETWEEN DORKING AND BETCHWORTH LOOKING WEST.
BETWEEN DORKING AND BETCHWORTH LOOKING WEST.
To-day Dorking is a quiet, sleepy little place, but its situation on the Stane Street, the great Roman road from Chichester to London, formerly made it a centre of considerable importance, and the size and excellence of the old-fashioned inns still bear witness to its departed grandeur. Whether, as seems most probable, the old road ran under the wall of Denbies Park, and across the gap now made by the Dorking lime works, or whether, as the Ordnance map indicates, it crossed the breezy{98} heights of Ranmore Common, pilgrims to Canterbury certainly crossed the Mole at Burford Bridge about half a mile from the town. The remains of an ancient shrine known as the Pilgrims’ Chapel are still shown in Westhumble Lane. The path itself bears the name of Paternoster Lane, and the fields on either side are called the Pray Meadows. From this point the path runs along under Boxhill, the steep down that rises abruptly on the eastern side of Dorking, and takes its name from the box-trees which here spring up so plentifully in the smooth green turf above the chalk. Boxhill is, we all know, one of the chief attractions which Dorking offers to Londoners. The other is to be found in the fine parks of Deepdene and Betchworth, immediately adjoining the town. The famous gardens and art collections of Deepdene, and the noble lime avenue of Betchworth, which now forms part of the same estate, have often been visited and described. The house at Deepdene is now closed to the public, but the traveller can still stroll under the grand old trees on the river bank, and enjoy a wealthy variety of forest scenery{99} almost unrivalled in England. A picturesque bridge over the Mole leads back to the downs on the opposite side of the valley, where the old track pursues its way along the lower slope of the hills, often wending its course through ploughed fields and tangled thickets and disappearing altogether in places where chalk quarries and lime works have cut away the face of the down. But on the whole the line of yews which mark the road is more regular between Dorking and Reigate than in its earlier course, and at Buckland, a village two miles west of Reigate, a whole procession of these trees descends into the valley.
ON “THE WAY” ABOVE BETCHWORTH.
ON “THE WAY” ABOVE BETCHWORTH.
All this part of the road is rich in Roman remains. Of these one of the most interesting was the building discovered in 1875, at Colley Farm, in the parish of Reigate, just south of the Way. Not only were several cinerary urns and fragments of Roman pottery dug up, but the walls of a Roman building were found under those of the present farmhouse. Some twenty years ago a similar building was discovered at Abinger, also in the immediate vicinity of the{100} track, but unfortunately it was completely destroyed in the absence of the owner, Sir Thomas Farrer. Another Roman house came to light in 1813, at Bletchingley, and one chamber, which appeared to be a hypocaust, was excavated at the time. Lastly, considerable Roman remains have been discovered and carefully excavated by Mr. Leveson-Gower in the park at Titsey. Of these the most important are a Roman villa, which was{101} thoroughly excavated in 1864, together with a group of larger buildings, apparently the farm belonging to the ancient house. These are only a few of the principal links in the chain of Roman buildings which lie along the course of this ancient trackway, and which all help to prove its importance as a thoroughfare at the time of the Roman occupation.
Another point of interest regarding this part of the Pilgrims’ Way is its connection with John Bunyan. When his peculiar opinions and open-air preachings had brought him into trouble with the authorities, he came to hide in these Surrey hills, and earned his living for some time as a travelling tinker. Two houses, one at Horn Hatch, on Shalford Common, the other at Quarry Hill, in Guildford, are still pointed out as having been inhabited by him at this time; and a recent writer[10] has suggested that in all probability the recollections of Pilgrimage days, then fresh in the minds of the people, first gave him the idea{102} of his “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Certainly more than one incident in the history of the road bears a close resemblance to the tale of Christian’s adventures. Thus, for instance, the swampy marshes at Shalford may have been the Slough of Despond, the blue Surrey hills seen from the distance may well have seemed to him the Delectable Mountains, and the name of Doubting Castle actually exists at a point of the road near Box Hill. Lastly, the great fair at Shalford corresponds exactly with Bunyan’s description of Vanity Fair, no newly erected business, but “a thing of ancient standing,” where “the ware of Rome and her merchandise is greatly promoted ... only our English nation have taken a dislike thereat.” In the days when Bunyan wrote, the annual fair had degenerated into a lawless and noisy assembly, where little trade was done, and much drinking and fighting and rude horseplay went on, as he may have found to his cost. The wares of Rome, in fact, were commodities no longer in fashion, and soon the fair itself came to an end and passed away, like so many other things that had been called into being by the Canterbury Pilgrimage.{103}
WINDMILL ON REIGATE COMMON.
WINDMILL ON REIGATE COMMON.
