XI

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And now, before we proceed further along the Portsmouth Road, we must “change here” for Dorking, a coach-route greatly favoured of late years, both by Mr. Rumney’s “Tally-ho” coach, and Mr. E. Brown’s “Perseverance,” by way of a relief from their accustomed haunts, to St. Albans and elsewhere. The “Perseverance” (which, alas! no longer perseveres) left Northumberland Avenue at eleven a.m., and came down the old route until Surbiton was passed, when it turned off by way of Hook and Telegraph Hill, by Prince’s Coverts to Leatherhead, and so into Dorking.

THE “TALLY-HO” HAMPTON COURT AND DORKING COACH.

THE ‘TALLY-HO’

Mr. Rumney’s “Wonder”—bah! what do I say?—I should say that gentleman’s “Tally-ho” ran to Dorking in 1892, what time the “Perseverance” also ran thither, and a fine seven-and-sixpenny ride it was, there and back. By “there and back” I do not name the route between London and the old Surrey town. Oh no; Mr. Rumney’s was quite an original idea. He gave Londoners the benefit of a country drive throughout, and ran between the sweet rurality of Hampton Court and Dorking. At 11.10 every morning he started from the “Mitre” Hotel, and so, across Hampton Bridge, to Ditton and Claremont, and thence to Dorking, where, at the “White Horse”——

But I anticipate, as the Early Victorian novelists were wont to say. I will quote an account of the journey that appeared in one of the weekly papers at the time, and have the less hesitation in quoting therefrom, because I wrote the article myself, and if a man may not quote himself, who, in Heaven’s name, may he quote?

“Every week-day of this spring-time the ‘Tally-ho’ leaves the ‘Mitre,’ at Hampton Court, for Dorking. At eleven o’clock everything is in readiness save the driver, who puts in a staid and majestic appearance on the box only at the last moment. All around are ostlers and stablemen and men who, although they have nothing whatever to do with the coach, and do not even intend to go by it, are yet drawn here to admire the horses and to surreptitiously pat them after the manner of all Englishmen, who, even if they know nought of the noble animal’s ‘points,’ at least love to see good horse-flesh. Vigorous blasts from ‘yards of tin’ arouse alarums and excursions, and bring faces to the hotel-windows, reminding one, together with the gold-laced red coat of the guard, of the true coaching age, so eloquently written of by that mighty historian of the road, C. J. Apperley, whom men called ‘Nimrod.’

“The appointments and the horse-flesh that go to make a first-rate modern turn-out are luxurious beyond anything that ‘Nimrod’ could have seen, splendid as were some of the crack coaches of his day. Were he here now, he could but acknowledge our superiority in this respect; but we can imagine his critical faculties centred upon what he would have called the ‘tooling’ of the drag, and his disappointment, not in the workmanship of the driver, but in the excellence of the highways of to-day, which give a coachman no opportunities of showing how resourceful he could be with his wrist, nor how scientific with his ‘springing’ of his team. Let us compassionate the critic whose well-trained faculties are thus wasted!

MICKLEHAM CHURCH.

TO DORKING

“But it is full time we were off. A final flourish of the horn, and away we go, our coach making for the heart of Surrey. ‘Southward o’er Surrey’s pleasant hills,’ as Tom Ingoldsby says, we go, to Leatherhead, beside Drayton’s ‘mousling Mole’; and so, with a clatter and a cheery rattle of the harness, past Mickleham, with its wayside church, and Juniper Hall, red-faced, green-shuttered; perched above the roadside, redolent of memories of the French refugees,—of whom M. D’Arblay, the husband of Fanny Burney, was one,—and still wearing a fine and most unmistakable eighteenth-century air, even though, as we pass, an equally undoubted nineteenth-century telegraph-boy comes walking, with the leisurely air peculiar to telegraph-boys, out of its carriage-drive into the road.

BURFORD BRIDGE.

THE “WHITE HORSE,” DORKING.

“Now we are nearing our journey’s end. The glorious woodlands of Norbury Park—that old-time resort of literary ladies and gaping gentlemen, who stapped their vitals and protested monstrously that the productions of those blue-stockings were designed for immortality, long before the modern woman was thought possible—the woods of Norbury come in view, and the great swelling side of Box Hill rises in front, with the Burford Bridge Hotel beneath, shaded by lofty trees which take their nourishment from the Mole, bridged here by a substantial brick-and-stone structure that gives that hostelry its name.

The Road to Dorking.

BURFORD BRIDGE

“No more pleasant week-end resort than the Burford Bridge Hotel—‘providing always,’ as the lawyers might say, that you do not make your week-end coincide with one of Sir John Lubbock’s popular carnivals. Then——! But enough, enough. Hie we onwards, casting just one backward glance towards that hotel which was just a decent road-side inn when Keats wrote ‘Endymion’ there, coming in from moonlit walks across Box Hill, inspired to heaven knows what unwritten poesy. Also, the Burford Bridge Hotel has a claim upon the patriotic Englishman, who, thank goodness, is not extinct, although Mr. Grant Allen thinks the generous feeling of patriotism is unfashionable. For here Nelson slept during his last night on English soil. The next day he embarked from Portsmouth, and—the rest is history!

“Dorking at last! We pull up, with steaming cattle, at the old ‘White Horse,’ where lunch is spread. We speculate upon the theory (one of many) that the real original Weller inhabited here, but come, of course, to no conclusion, where so many learned doctors in Dickens disagree. We adventure down to Castle Mill; yea, even to the picturesque Brockham Bridge below the town, beyond the foot of Box Hill. The town of Dorking stretches out its more modern part in this direction, halting within sight of Castle Mill, whence its avant-garde is seen stalking horribly across the meadows. For the rest, Dorking is pleasant enough, though containing little of interest; and the parish church of St. Martin has been rebuilt. Yet the long High Street still contains a few quaint frontages of the seventeenth century, and our halting-place has a curious sign of wrought ironwork. Those who do not pin their faith to the ‘White Horse’ as the original of the ‘Marquis of Granby’ in the ‘Pickwick Papers,’ elect to swear by the ‘Red Lion,’ once owned by a coach-proprietor who might have sat for Samivel’s father.

LITERARY LIGHTS

“The town and district have, indeed, many literary associations. Some of these authors are now forgotten, or were never of more than local celebrity; but what generation will that be which forgets old John Evelyn, the diarist and author of ‘Sylva,’ and many other works, who must often have ridden into the town from Wotton House, near by? He was a friend of another congenial worthy, John Aubrey to wit. That amusingly quaint, but not strictly reliable, old chronicler, says of this town:—‘Dorking is celebrated for fowls. The kine hereabout are of a sandy colour; the women, especially those about the hill, have no roses in their cheeks.’ I do not notice that, however true may be his remarks about the fowls.

BROCKHAM BRIDGE.

Castle Mill.

“Defoe, among others, lived here; and Benjamin Disraeli at Deepdene conceived the idea of ‘Coningsby,’ and wrote part of that work under its roof, as may be seen set forth in his dedication. The fame of Madame D’Arblay belongs more correctly to Mickleham. Then there were at Dorking many disciples of the Aikins and Barbaulds, those Clarissas and Laetitias of a pseudo-classic age whose dull wit was as forced as were the turgid sentiments of the eminently proper characters in their writings. Theirs was an age whose manners were as superficial as was the stucco upon the brick walls of their neo-classic mansions and quasi-Greek conventicles; and, for frankness’ sake, I think I prefer our own times, when we have no manners and make no pretensions that way.

“However, time is up. The guard winds his horn up the street, and we take our seats again. The coachman gathers up his reins and shakes squarely down into his seat; the ostlers step back. ‘Good-bye, good-bye,’ and we are off at a quarter-past three on the return journey. We halt our team by the way at a cheerful inn. The air bites shrewdly, and——‘Well, yes; I don’t mind if I do!’ ‘Here’s confusion to the Apostles of the Pump; a health to our driver; prosperity to the “Tally-ho,” and——’ ‘Hurry up, please, gentlemen!’ We take our seats once more with alacrity, and another hour sees us again at Hampton Court.”

To show the manner in which coach accounts were kept in the coaching age, I append a copy of an old statement now in my possession. It is a “sharing account,” and details a month’s takings and expenses in the expiring days of road travel.

Meanwhile we resume our itinerary of the Portsmouth Road where we broke off, at Esher.

COACH ACCOUNTS

Dr.Cr.

LONDON AND DorkingCOACH.

Account for 4 Weeks, ending the 5th Day of August 1837, both inclusive.

RECEIPTS. DISBURSEMENTS.
Messrs. Horne 82 17 6 ——
Mr. Walker 75 12 Messrs. Horne.
Duty 16 17
Mileage
Tolls and Wages
Booking and Settling Accounts 3 3
Washing and Greasing 1 1 21 1
Dr. Mr. Walker.
To Receipts of Messrs. Horne 24 11 4
Do.of Mr. Walker 75 12
£ 100 3 4
Mr. Walker.
Wages and Tolls 13 4
Booking
Washing and Greasing
Mileage 7
Touter 16 21
Cr.
By shares 79 3 4
Disbursements 21
£ 100 3 4
SHARES.
Miles.
8 Messrs. Horne 37 5 2
17 Mr. Walker 79 3 4 116 8 6
25 Miles @£4 13 1½ 18/25 a mile.
£158 9 6 £158 9 6

At Esher the fallen Cardinal Wolsey lived awhile when Providence frowned upon him—and for Providence in this connection read Henry VIII., who filled that position towards the great prelate, with great Éclat and an altogether overwhelming success. When the king commanded Wolsey to retire hither, the Cardinal lived in the old building of Esher Place, whose only remains are seen at this day in the Gatehouse standing in the damp and watery meadows beside the Mole. He found the place little to his liking, and displayed his sorrows in a letter to Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, wherein he complains of the “moist and corrupt air.” That he was quite in a position to appreciate the dampness of his residence, we may well believe when we read that he was “without beds, sheets, table-cloths, or dishes”; and that he presently “fell sore sick that he was likely to die” creates, under the circumstances, no surprise.

The place of Wolsey’s compulsory retirement was almost completely destroyed when the modern mansion of Esher Place was built, and the chief historic house of Esher is now Claremont.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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