This route is the way by which Surbiton, Kingston, and Richmond cyclists reach the Brighton road. We will pick up the route at Ewell, which may be made a starting-point.

It is a long, long ascent toward the ridge of the North Downs, all the way from Ewell to Banstead Heath; not necessarily a tiring one unless a south wind is blowing, but when it blows great guns from that quarter, then—why, then go home and wait until it comes from some other direction! Fortunately, the road-surface is excellent, and, coming in the reverse direction, there is not, probably, such another lengthy and uninterrupted a coast-down in the neighbourhood of London.

Three miles from Ewell, Nork Park, distinguished from far away by its dense hillside woods, is passed on the right, and we come to the beginnings of Burgh Heath. Here, at a turning to the left, there stands, at some distance from the road, an ancient tumulus surrounded by fir trees for the wonderment of those who care to go and seek it. Burgh Heath is a portion of the wild, unenclosed uplands including Banstead Downs, Walton Downs, Epsom Downs, and Walton Heath. The cyclist may notice in passing a number of ramshackle wooden shanties in the midst of the heath. These are the property of the descendants of those squatters who placed them here so long ago that they have obtained a prescriptive right, and cannot be evicted.

At the turning to Tadworth, at a point known locally as “Wilderness Bottom,” keep to the left, unless, indeed, you desire to explore the village, which was notable a little while since as being the country retreat of Lord Russell, the Lord Chief Justice, who resided at Tadworth Court.

Passing through Kingswood, we come up and down hill, and finally down, to Gatton, against the lodge gates of Gatton Park, once the seat of Lord Monson, but now the property of Mr. Colman, of the famous mustard firm. There is a public footpath through this very beautiful park, and the house is shown from 2 p.m. to 4. Cycles, however, must be left within the lodge gates. But although the pictures are very fine, and the Marble Hall worth seeing, the average visitor will doubtless be much more interested in the so-called “Town Hall” of Gatton, a kind of miniature summer-house in the shape of a classic temple, situated in midst of a lovely clump of scented limes in front of the house. It should be said that Gatton is not, and never was, a village. It is just a big park, with a manorial church adjoining the house. But Gatton was a parliamentary borough, and returned two members to Parliament, from the reign of Henry the Sixth, until it was disfranchised by the first Reform Act in 1832. With the sole exception of Old Sarum it was the rottenest of “rotten boroughs,” and contained not a single elector. It was a “pocket borough,” that went with the Park as a property. Cobbett, who was nothing if not downright and brutally frank, says, “You pass Gatton, which is a very rascally spot of earth.” So it was, for the political power wielded by its owner was almost always exercised in the interest of bribery and corruption, and Lord Monson, who purchased the property in 1830 for £100,000, did so with the idea of securing a splendid investment, to return him about a hundred per cent.; but in less than two years Reform had destroyed its value. So frankly corrupt were those times that we can only wonder why Lord Monson did not cynically prefer a claim for compensation. The “Town Hall,” therefore, is merely a satirical kind of freak, while the inscription of “Vox populi suprema lex,” among others inscribed on the pedestal of the urn that forms the sole ornament of the building, is an example of a former owner’s sardonic humour.

Rather than face the dangerous descent of Reigate Hill, we will, on returning to the Park gates, turn to the right, and make for Merstham, a pretty old-world village on the main Brighton road; bearing continually to the right until opposite the “Feathers,” after which, take the road that dips down to the left, to Nutfield. This goes in winding fashion for two miles, and then comes up a short, sharp rise to the church, standing prominently on a high bank above the left-hand side of the road, and containing a stained-glass window designed by Burne Jones. The apoplectic hue of the figures’ faces is exceedingly unpleasing.

Past the church, where a road runs right and left, turn left, and so through the few houses of Nutfield to Bletchingley, down whose hillside street we come with caution. The old church has an odd tower, and contains a tomb with some pretty Elizabethan verses to Sir Thomas Cadwallader. Note the huge and bombastical monument to a former Lord Mayor of London, occupying the whole of the east end of the south aisle. The effigies of the worthy knight and his lady seem to represent them singing an operatic duet, while attendant marble cherubs, with swollen faces suggestive of toothache, shed stony tears.

In less than two miles we reach Godstone, and, passing its green and village pond, and the “White Hart,” its famous old hostelry, turn sharply to the left, and then take the first broad road to the right. This is the Oxted road; but instead of proceeding quite so far as that village, we will, in a mile and a half, turn to the right for Tandridge, a hamlet with an ancient church, in whose churchyard notice the monument to the wife of Sir Gilbert Scott, the architect who restored (and helped to spoil) so many of our cathedrals. See, also, the ancient oak internal framing of the tower, and the tragical tombstone to Thomas Todman, 1781, aged thirty-one years, at the side of the south porch. Thomas Todman was a smuggler, who was shot dead by a Custom House officer. The inscription is curious. Here it is, oddities of spelling and punctuation preserved:—

Downhill from Tandridge and into the Weald, turning to the left by the railway, and following it for a mile. Then bear to the right, and enter the pretty village of Crowhurst, with its interesting church showing to the right of the road. One of the curios it contains is an elaborate cast-iron tomb-“stone,” on the chancel floor, with figures and raised inscription, dated 1591—a relic of the days when iron was mined and smelted in this Wealden district. This is one of several memorials connected with the Gaynesford family, once Lords of the Manor here, and so remaining for over three hundred and sixty years. Their old manor-house, now a farmhouse, and a very picturesque and interesting one, called Crowhurst Place, is only a mile distant.

It will be noticed that many of the letters on the iron slab are either cast in reverse or upside down. Mrs. “Ane Forstr,” it can readily be seen, was exceedingly proud of her descent. A very odd fact is that exact replicas of this cast-iron slab are found distributed throughout Surrey, and even in some places in Sussex; not always in the most decorous positions. There is, for example, one used as a fire-back in the kitchen of a farm adjoining Crowhurst Church itself, and others have been noted at Ewhurst, Godstone, and Horley, where one formed part of the flooring of a baker’s oven, and occasionally produced breakfast-table terrors in the neighbourhood when the domestic loaf of bread was found to be impressed with “Her lieth,” “deceased,” and other portions of the design, including the shrouded body in the centre. The simple explanation of this odd distribution is that the iron-founding firm must have found the mould ready to their hands when cheap fire-backs were wanted, and so cast them in this guise. It mattered little when few people could read.

The great yew tree in Crowhurst churchyard is among the very largest in the land, measuring thirty-two feet nine inches round its immense trunk at a height of five feet from the ground. It is thought to be about twelve hundred years old, and although it was greatly mutilated over eighty years ago by some local vandals, who thought how fine a thing it would be to scoop out the interior and to fix table and benches inside, for the accommodation of some twenty persons, the tree still flourishes. When this wanton outrage was performed, an ancient cannon-ball was discovered in the very heart of the trunk.

Three miles more of country lanes, and our journey ends at Lingfield, a modern horse-racing centre. Here a train may be found for the return to town.