Ewell is a convenient starting-point for this trip for South Londoners, and has the additional advantage of being served by two railways. Only in the spring of the year, when the Epsom races are on, and the Derby brings riotous crowds down by road as well as rail, do Ewell and Epsom wake out of their customary quiet. For the rest of the year they are old-fashioned places, even in these villa-building latter days. Ewell, as its name in some sort implies, is a place of springs and running waters, with crooked streets and with an ancient ivy-mantled church tower, all that is left of the old parish church, standing solemn beside the modern building. Just inside the churchyard gate notice a stone to one who lost his life by falling from a horse at Shipton-under-Wychwood, Oxon; and, close by, a monument with urn and a kneeling figure in relief on a pedestal to James Lowe, born 1798, who “met his death from an accident the 12th October 1866. He was the inventor of the segments of the screw-propeller, in use since 1838, and his life, though unobtrusive, was not without great benefit to his country. He suffered many troubles, but bore them lightly.”

Epsom, “town” we should presumably call it, a mile and a half down the road, hints little or nothing to the passing cyclist of its horse-racing fame, save perhaps for stray glimpses gained of the great Grand Stand perched upon the windy Downs, more than a mile away to the left; and if little be told by external appearances of this intimate relation with the foremost classic race in England, still less would the stranger gather that Epsom is a Place with a Past; a past, as a fashionable Spa, scarce inferior to Bath in the days of good Queen Anne. Epsom wells and Epsom salts have had their day and ceased to be.

Suburbia is extending its frontiers in this direction, and breezy Ashtead, two miles farther on, down a pleasant road, is now set within the marches of the suburbs, where the opposing camps of market gardeners and speculative builders are pitched cheek by jowl, and bricks and plaster are banishing the broccoli and the peas. At Leatherhead the incursions of villadom are lost in the intricacies of the old-fashioned little town and in the embowering foliage that owes its density to that beautiful stream, the Mole. Leatherhead is situated at the junction of many roads. It is what military men would call a “strategical point,” and, touring on a cycle through the southern and south-western districts outside London, you come to it, whether you will it so or not, again and again. And, just because it is a pleasant place, you do not regret the necessity. The streets of Leatherhead are narrow, and slope steeply towards the river Mole; also, they curve in somewhat puzzling fashion. Our way, however, lies straight ahead, passing that queer old inn the “Running Horse” on the right, where the landlady, Elynor Rummyng, gave short measure in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and was rolled in a barrel for her pains. A very old painted sign, fixed on the front of the house, and now glazed to protect it from the weather, shows a portrait of this iniquitous person, who, if the artist is to be credited, was a phenomenally ugly specimen of humanity, with predatory beak-like nose, covered with warts. Here we cross the Mole by a long bridge, and presently, keeping straight ahead, ascend a sharp rise, which leads on to the rather exposed upper road to Great Bookham and Effingham, those places being singularly provided with parallel roads less than a quarter of a mile apart. A cross-road to the right, when two miles out of Leatherhead, gives access to Great Bookham village. The church, which is interesting, appears to be generally locked up, except during service. In the churchyard notice the very beautiful modern churchyard cross to the memory of Guy Cuthbert Dawnay, killed by a buffalo in Masailand.

Regaining the upper road, Effingham is reached in a mile. The church will be noticed standing, with the tiny village, off to the right. The place gave a title to Lord William Howard, created by Queen Mary “Lord Howard of Effingham,” and it was the son of this nobleman who, as Lord High Admiral, commanded the little fleet that destroyed the Spanish Armada. Knowing this, the tourist approaches Effingham with due reverence and great expectancy. Unhappily, there is nothing whatever in village or church to connect them with the Admiral or others of the Howards. The church itself is utterly modernised.

At the roads that here run right and left stands a large inn, the “Prince Blucher.” Turn to the left, and then, after proceeding for nearly a mile, take the second to the right. We are here on very high ground, having cycled for a long while almost imperceptibly uphill. Away to the left the successive hills of the North Downs are seen: Box Hill and the others towards Reigate, with their wooded crests and the characteristic chalky scars on their southern face, softened to a Corot-like mellowness in the golden sunshine of an autumn afternoon. At the turning to the right, at which we have now arrived, the road goes suddenly down and deteriorates alarmingly, being knobbly and narrow, and partly overgrown with grass. This is Effingham Hill, and unless you would acquire reasons for vividly remembering the place in the way of being thrown off, it is distinctly advisable to walk some way down. This descent leads to a farm in a deep hollow. Through the stony farmyard, and walking up an equally stony rise on the other side, a straight flat road is reached, running for half a mile. Then, where roads right and left appear, turn to the right, and so downhill to where a sign-post stands at the bottom. Turn at this point to the left, along a secluded road through copses which lead presently to the crest of a hill marked by the red danger-board of the Cyclists’ Touring Club. These are the so-called White Downs, and this White Down Hill. There are, as every cyclist knows, degrees of danger on hills so marked by the C.T.C. Some are so little dangerous that this red warning-board is often disregarded; but this particular hill is a mile long, very steep, rough, and strewn with flints and lumps of chalk, and with a sharp curve when nearly at the bottom. It is, therefore, superlatively dangerous, and no one should on any account attempt to ride it. It is no hardship to walk down this hill, for it is no less superlatively beautiful than dangerous. It is a hollow road, or rather lane, with rugged chalky sides, into which the trees have thrust great gnarled and knotty roots, like the fangs of teeth, with steep hillsides stretching away overhead. Great beeches and lesser hazels and hollies make a perfect tunnel of foliage, through whose framing the eye looks down to the Weald, far below.

When this descent is accomplished, the road leads over a railway bridge, whence, to the left, the most beautiful views of the Downs, with the spire of the church on Ranmore Common above and that of Dorking Church below, are spread out. Notice a brickfield on the right, and look for a green road, also on the right, a few yards beyond. This leads to a piece of common land, known as “Evershed’s Rough,” the scene of the fatal accident to Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester, on 19th July 1873, when, riding horseback, he was thrown by his horse stumbling. The place is marked by a granite cross ten feet high, simply carved with the initials “S.W.” and a shepherd’s crook, in relief, with the date inscribed in smaller letters. The rebuilt parish church of Dorking, whose lofty spire can be seen from near this spot, is also a memorial to that energetic prelate, whom men called in life “Soapy Sam.” Some day, doubtless, when our civilisation and its records have alike perished, say a thousand years hence, the antiquaries of a new era will be disputing as to the origin and meaning of this lonely cross, with its weatherworn initials and shepherd’s crook.

Cross-roads presently appear down the road. Here a sign-post points ahead for Abinger, with the added information that the first turning to the left should be taken. Turning accordingly, as bidden, a pretty lane is reached, with a very beautiful old pond, fringed with rushes, on the left. This is Abinger mill-pond, and the rust-red roofs of the mill itself can be seen rising from a hollow on the farther side; an old, old building which Nature has long since reclaimed as her own, with lichens growing everywhere, and ferns and wild plants that only the botanist can name luxuriating amid the dampness of the disused mill-wheel.

It is a steep and tiring ascent along a sandy lane to Abinger, where a little church on one side of the road, the “Abinger Hatch Inn” on the other, and a few cottages, comprise the village. Three miles straight ahead is Leith Hill, the tallest in the south of England, rising to a height of close upon a thousand feet. The route lies past Abinger Common, with its well and picturesque well-house in the Norman style, built and dedicated to St. James by Mr. Evelyn of Wotton in 1893. The way to the summit of Leith Hill is through pine-woods and along a road of such excellent surface and so gradual a rise that this hilltop expedition is not at all fatiguing. It leads by degrees half round the hill, and brings one to a point where the road is crossed by a white gate, directly under the tower that crowns the hilltop. To leave one’s cycle here against a tree-trunk, and to clamber up the chalky final ascent to where the tower stands on its flat plateau, is the best plan. Those who are not already high enough can ascend this tower at the cost of a penny a-head, and some six thousand persons annually avail themselves of the privilege. It was originally built in 1766 by a Mr. Hill, of Leith Hill Place, who, dying in 1772, was, according to his injunctions, buried here, under the flooring, when the interior of the tower was filled up with cement and stone. The stone tablet recording that he “led the life of a true Christian and rural philosopher” still remains, and so does the legend (true or untrue) that he was of opinion that the world would be reversed on the Day of Judgment, and so directed that he should be buried head downwards.

The tower, having become ruinous, was restored by Mr. Evelyn, who added the staircase turret. By the sight of it, crowning the summit, Leith Hill can be identified many miles distant, and the view from this hilltop is extraordinarily widespread. The whole of the counties of Surrey and Sussex, as far as the South Downs, is stretched out flat like a carpet, to where the wall of the South Downs alone prevents the sea being disclosed along the length of the Sussex coast. At one point, indeed, it can be seen, and that directly in front, where a notch in those distant hills discloses a something that may be sky and may be water, you think. But as you look, on a sunny afternoon, and continue looking, the sunlight streams down momentarily and wakens a million facets to life, all flashing like diamond-points or flecks of fire. They are the ripples of the English Channel, transfigured by this radiance, and the notch through which you see them is Shoreham Gap.

There are nearer stretches of water that thus mirror the sun’s rays. Frensham Ponds, away in the west, eighteen miles away as the crow flies, glitter like burnished steel, and in sharp contrast with black and sullen Hindhead. Down below, somewhere amidst the woods that are set round about this hill of hills, is another lake, and near it the clustered chimneys of a great mansion. For the rest, the weald at the foot of the tumbled masses of the North Downs is vague, formless, inchoate. There are towns there, we know, and villages, hamlets, roads, and railways; but they are all lost in immensity. Perhaps, if you take literature in your pocket when cycling, the reading of Tennyson’s “Vastness” is appropriate here, for it echoes the sense that comes to one on this hilltop of the littleness of one’s self. (Mem.: If you wish to retain a good conceit of yourself, keep to the plains!)

Clambering down to the road again, and through the gate already mentioned, a beautiful downhill road leads to the hamlet of Coldharbour, nestling amid the foothills and the Alpine valleys in miniature that surround Leith Hill. All the way hence to Dorking are trees: plantations of Scotch firs, larches, and other trees that give an added mountainous character to the scenery. And lonely withal, and steep. Redlands Wood is passed through, and a long, steep hill, danger-boarded. With caution, however, and a reliable brake, there is no reason why this should not be ridden. So, coming swiftly down into the flatlands, we are in Dorking before we know that town is so near.

Turning to the right and through the main street, we are soon out in the open country again, and turning to the left at Betchworth Park, and under the shadow of Box Hill, and in view of the line of yews marking the course of the Pilgrims’ Way, reach the left-hand turning for Burgh Heath and Ewell. Toilsome is the ascent of Betchworth Hill, by which the summit of the North Downs is gained, but beautiful the backward view when this excelsior business is done. Downhill again, however, into Pebble Coombe, and up to Banstead Downs, whence—oh, happiness! you may coast, feet up, with or without a following wind, nearly all the way down into Ewell; some four miles, that is to say, along the best of roads, through open heaths that, whether they are called Burgh Heath, Banstead Downs, Walton Heath, or Epsom Downs, are only portions of one vast high-lying plateau dipping towards the valley of the Thames. Sign-posts are not wanting on these heights—a fortunate circumstance, because the wayfarers are not many.