Part 5

Guildford is Surrey's county town, though so far shorn of its dignity that the County Council meets at Kingston, and much overgrown by Croydon, not to speak of the South London suburbs. There is no question as to its antiquity. It seems to have been a place of note in Saxon days; then, soon after the Conquest, a lordly castle was built here, that came to be visited by several of our Norman sovereigns. The town was so happy as not to figure much in history, and to this it may owe the preservation of so many old buildings. There is no southern county seat that looks its part better than Surrey's, even since in our day its time-honoured features have been much overlaid by new ones, while everywhere it wears an air of roominess and thrivingness not always associated with the picturesque. Being only thirty miles from London, reached by three, nay four railway lines, it has become a favourite place of residence for business men and of retreat for officers, whose houses go on spreading up the dry and airy slopes of the Downs, above the old town rooted in the hollow of the Wey. Hence steeply-mounting, the broad main thoroughfare well displays its points of gabled roofs, projecting oriel windows and quaint doorways, more than one of the old houses, such as No. 25 and the Angel Inn with its vaults, being themselves notable sights. "Shall we go see the relics of this town?" If so, nearly all of them lie along or about its unique High Street, up which let us stroll, beginning from the bridge in the dip below the railway station, which is on the other side of the river.

Above the bridge stands up the tower of St. Nicholas, one of Guildford's three parish churches,

[Illustration: A HAYFIELD, WONERSH.]

which has been more than once rebuilt, but preserves the ancient Loseley Chapel, containing fine monuments of the More family. A little way up the High Street, to the right, in Quarry Street, will be found the old church of St. Mary's, partly built of chalk mixed with flint and rubble, showing many remarkable points of interest and controversy for archæologists, among them a bit claimed as Saxon, some grotesque corbels, and the vaulted roof of St. John's Chapel, ornamented with grim mediæval frescoes, which, like those in Chaldon Church, have become much obliterated, but it is now proposed to revive them. Their subject seems to be various marvels and horrors, mostly connected with legends of St. John; and they have been taken for the work of William of Florence, an artist employed by Henry III.

On the other side of High Street, a projecting clock face marks the Guildhall, dating from the end of the seventeenth century. This is a place to be visited, for behind its striking exterior are treasured several royal portraits, among them Charles II. and James II. by Lely, also some curious carvings on the mantelpiece of the Council Chamber, with a collection of standard measures of 1601 given by Queen Elizabeth. The woolsacks in the town arms commemorate a former renown for the making of cloth, also woven at surrounding villages, an industry said to have decayed through shortcomings on the part of the manufacturers. Aubrey asserts that Wonersh, now such a quiet village, flourished by making blue cloths for the Canary Islands, till the greedy clothiers hit on a trick of stretching out a web of 18 yards to 22 or 23, which led to their losing the market.

At the top of the ascent, on the right-hand side, is the High or Trinity Church, rebuilt in the eighteenth century, not very pleasing in itself, but enshrining some of the old memorials, as well as later ones. One of these, in all the absurdity of classical costume, shows the recumbent effigy of Speaker Onslow, who so long and so worthily filled the Chair of the House of Commons, and whose family are still Guildford's great neighbours and patrons. The principal monument is the elaborate one to Archbishop Abbot of Canterbury (d. 1633), erected in the old church by his brother Sir Maurice Abbot, a Lord Mayor of London, to be beheld by Pepys among other tombs "kept mighty neat and clean with curtains before them." This prelate stands high among the benefactors of his native town, though as a stalwart Puritan he has had hard things said against him. His chief claim to remembrance is as one of the body of scholars who translated or edited the authorised version of the Bible. Another of "that happy ternion of brothers," as Fuller calls them, was Robert Abbot, who by long display of learning came to be Bishop of Salisbury--"but alas! he was hardly warm in his see before cold in his coffin." As for George, the archbishop, "he did first _creep_, then _run_, then _fly_ into preferment," yet to have his wings painfully clipped after he had reached the highest post of the English Church. Shooting deer at Bramshill Park, near what was to be the rectory of his descendant, Charles Kingsley, this muscular Christian primate had the ill-luck to kill a keeper. Like the keen sportsman he was, King James made light of the accident, as one that might happen to any one; and a jury threw the blame on the victim; but the scandal was so great that it seemed well to grant a royal pardon to the right reverend manslayer. Even then, three Bishops-elect, Laud among them, declined to receive consecration at his blood-stained hands. The unfortunate Archbishop showed himself greatly concerned; he settled a pension on the man's widow, who with such a dowry soon got another husband; and he kept a monthly fast for the rest of his life. The story goes that he never smiled again. For a time he went into retirement at the Hospital with which he had endowed Guildford, as an almshouse for the tradesmen whose decaying industry he strove to restore. But we hear of no remorse for what seems a darker offence than accidental manslaughter--the pains this Archbishop had taken, in 1611, to get two unfortunate men burned for their damnable guilt in disagreeing with him on a point of theology.

Abbot's Hospital, standing just opposite the church, is one of the principal sights of the town, a building of stately picturesqueness that bettered its model, the similar institution founded by Archbishop Whitgift at Croydon. Passing through the noble archway adorned with the arms of Canterbury, and under the imposing tower with its domed turrets, the visitor finds himself back in a quiet nook of Jacobean England, where all seems in keeping with its motto, _Deus nobis haec otia fecit_. On the left of the gardened quadrangle are the apartments of the twelve brethren, on the right those of eight sisters, all bound not to practise forgery, heresy, sorcery, witchcraft and other crimes. Farther on are reached the Master's house, and the entrance to the Hall and Chapel. The panelled Hall preserves its old fittings, and some portraits of sound Protestant divines, while in the coloured glass will be noticed the inscription of a quite mediæval pun, _Clamamus Abba Pater_. The most striking feature of the Chapel is the two painted windows telling the story of Jacob, in pictures with Latin legends, the first representing Esau's hunting errand, that must afterwards have been a sore subject with that pious founder.

High Street, now mounted to its highest, goes on as Spital Street to fork eventually as the Epsom and the London Roads, both of them, indeed, leading to London. Beyond this, all is smart and modern, where an airy suburb straggles on to the Downs. But on the right of Spital Street was passed the Grammar School, founded at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and still preserving some of its old features that make it worth a visit. Its treasure is a library of chained books, several scores in number, surpassed only by those at Wimborne Minster and at Hereford Cathedral. Schoolboys of our generation may be more interested in an antiquarian discovery of Dr. W. G. Grace, who found a musty record of the Guildford boys playing cricket so far back as the time of Queen Bess.

To the last has been left that which is not the least of Guildford's lions, its old Castle, standing above St. Mary's, a little to the right of the Market as we came up High Street. Guildford Castle is believed to date from Henry II., but first comes to mention in King John's time. What has been left of it by the power _Edax rerum_ is mainly its grim keep, solidly planted on a mound that may have been the site of a pre-Norman fortress. Beside this, part of the area is prettily laid out as a public garden. Some curious bits of carving are to be noted in the keep. Within the gateway on the lower side will be found the Surrey Archæological Society's Museum, not a very large one as yet, but containing a varied show of county antiquities. From the top of the keep there is a fine view of the Wey valley.

This view may be enlarged by mounting the lane behind, that leads to a much less imposing modern fort on the Downs, by which goes out the grand walk along them to Newland's Corner, and on by the line of the Pilgrims' Way. On the opposite block of the Downs, above Guildford, the cemetery affords another good prospect point, reached by taking the steep rise of the old Hog's Back road leading up from the bridge below the station. Near the entrance of this finely displayed burial-ground, a marble cross marks the grave of the author of _Alice in Wonderland_, with whom Guildford was a favourite sojourn. "There must have been something remarkable about that gentleman," an official of the place opined to me, "for a good many has asked me where he lies." One spectacle is no longer available on this stiff ascent, at the top of which, as Defoe states admiringly, the gallows used to stand so plain in view "that the Towns People from the High Street may sit at their Shop Doors and see the Criminals executed."

Fair scenes about Guildford will be spoken of under another head. Let us here hold on down the Wey, which henceforth takes two forms, now coinciding, then going apart, the canalised Wey Navigation, and the wilful loops that could not be made to fit the course of this water-way, for which they have suffered depletion, but in flood time can yet assert themselves by turning the low meadows into lakes. As in the case of Hogarth's "Industrious Apprentice," the canal has thriven so that it may be called the main stream, while it is seldom so straight-lined or business-minded but that its tow-path makes a pleasant riverside walk. This canalisation was carried out as far back as the middle of the seventeenth century, just after the Civil War, locks being then first introduced into England; and the opening of such a convenience for carrying corn and timber to London helped to bring back Guildford's old prosperity.

Over flat meadows, the river goes out to the north, bending round the suburb of Stoke Park, then takes its course by a series of locks, bridges, and mills that make goals for boating parties. The first name of fame it reaches, some three straight miles from the town, is Sutton Place, standing back in its park that stretches down to the left bank. Loseley, above Guildford, is Sutton's only rival as at once the stateliest and loveliest mansion in Surrey, taking a high place among the lordly halls of England. In the Reformation days, when donjon keeps could give place to orieled and gabled mansions, this was built by Sir Richard Weston, ancestor and namesake of the Wey's canaliser. A peculiar feature is the use made of terra-cotta, on which, as on the windows of the Hall, is repeated the builder's _rebus_, a bunch of grapes and a tun. It need hardly be said that such a house is rich in relics of the past. But indeed one cannot here speak worthily of what has had a whole sumptuous quarto devoted to it by Mr. Frederic Harrison,

[Illustration: PYRFORD CHURCH, NEAR WOKING.]

who may well call it a landmark of English architecture, one of the earliest great houses not built with a design of defence.

The house is almost contemporary with some of those exquisite châteaux of the age of Francis which are still preserved on the Loire. Like them, it possesses Italian features of a fancy and grace as remote from the Gothic as from the classical world. Like them, as was every fine work of that age, it is the embodiment of a single idea, of a personal sense of beauty of some creative genius; and thus it stands apart in the history of house-building in Europe, a cinque-cento conception in an English Gothic frame.... The house, too, has had the singular fortune to retain, at least on the outside, its original form, and to be quite free from later additions. Save that one side of the court has been removed, the principal quadrangle, as seen from within, is in every essential feature exactly as the builder left it. Nor, except by the removal or the renewal of some mullions, has the exterior on any side suffered any material change. It is not, like so many of our ancient mansions, a record of the caprice, the ambition, the decay or the bad taste, of successive generations. No Elizabethan architect has added a classical porch; no Jacobean magnate has thrown out a ponderous wing with fantastic gables and profusion of scrolls; no Georgian squire has turned it into a miniature Blenheim, or consulted his comfort by adding a square barrack.... This unity and peace, which seem to rest on the old house almost as on a ruin or a cloister whence modern improvements are shut out, are doubtless due to this: that from its building till to-day the place has remained in the same family, and that a family debarred by adherence to the ancient faith from taking active part in the world of affairs.

The Wey's next turn is round the village of Send, where its navigable branch makes eastward, while vagrant channels stray off a little north to touch Woking. This name may seem familiar to London travellers, yet few of them will know where and what Woking is. The lively new town that has grown up so fast on the heaths about Woking Junction, stands nearly two miles north of the original village, huddled about the tower and tiled roof of its old church, a landmark conspicuous over the river flat. Even when Defoe made his tour, this place lay "so out of all Road, that 'tis very little heard of in England; it claims however some Honour from its being once the Residence of ... the old Countess of Richmond, Mother to King Henry VII., who made her last Retreat here," and who, he might have added, had the singular fortune of being thrice a bride in her teens. The moated royal manor has long disappeared; but this back-water village preserves a Market Hall as token of former dignity.

When the branches of the Wey unite about a mile east of Old Woking, it is only to split up again in vagrant loops, tangled by the taking in of a tributary from the commons near Aldershot. The knot of tortuous channels here encloses one of Surrey's rare ruins, the remains of Newark Priory, of which the south transept walls still stand in broken state, impressive rather than imposing, to be a favourite rendezvous of picnic parties. Near the ruins a large old timber mill makes another landmark of these watery meadows, overlooked from the north by a bank bearing up the little church of Pyrford, with its faded wall paintings and like hints of antiquity.

Lying some two or three miles by sandy roads from Woking or from Byfleet stations, Newark is perhaps oftener visited by way of Ripley, a mile to the south, a pleasant village about a spacious green, where the "Talbot" and the "Anchor" have taken a new lease through the favour of cyclists. With this fraternity the Ripley road came to be a so frequent spin, that the Vicar, willing to run with the times, opened a free stable for cycles at his parsonage, and set apart special seats for their riders, who have repaid such hospitality by contributing a memorial window. Another hostelry, frequented by golfers, is the "Hautboy" of Ockham, birthplace of the scholastic theologian of that ilk. This oakland village is separated from Ripley by Ockham Park, a demesne of Earl Lovelace, Byron's grandson, who has another seat not far off at East Horsley, where its Clock Tower may be seen standing up in the woods along the south side of the Downs, that since we left Guildford have been drawing away from the course of the river.

Following the Wey from Newark Priory, again we find its industrious and its idle channels at cross purposes with each other, the latter making one particularly extravagant bend eastward, so as to infect with its own devious character the roads that must tack towards bridges. At the Anchor Lock, and its quaint old inn, one might turn off to the right, across a feeble branch, for the little church of Wisley, and by it push on to Wisley Common, with its fir-girdled lakelet on the Ripley road, and its "Hut" hostelry, a combination of a snug hotel and of a "Trust" model public-house. Beside this road, on the west edge of the common, a board shows the way among pine woods to a new feature of the Wey valley, the Horticultural Society's Gardens, transplanted from Turnham Green, already a sight worth seeing, but not open without an order from a Fellow. The nearest stations are Effingham and Horsley, each about three miles off to the south-east; and over the common the high-road leads on in a couple of miles to Street Cobham, near which the Mole comes within a mile or so of the Wey.

Striking off from the Wey Navigation on the other side, for instance by a footpath from a bridge half a mile beyond the Anchor Lock, one could soon reach Byfleet station on the main line, beyond which are the golf links of New Zealand and the woods of Anningsley. Now the straggling river waters the scattered hamlets of Byfleet, in which parish Henry VIII. is said to have been nursed at Byfleet Park. The main village, half an hour's walk from the station, lies below the wooded ridge of St. George's Hill, that now stands up to the right as a last stronghold of the heaths and pines of Surrey on the edge of the Thames valley.

Here the Wey Navigation seems to swerve needlessly to the left, meeting the branch with which it makes a junction beside the railway line. This branch is the Basingstoke Canal, of late years fallen into disuse, and in parts almost dried up, or choked with weeds; but there have been rumours of its being restored to activity. The tow-path of the united canal gives hence a plain walk to Weybridge, safe from the "Gadarene grunt" of the motor-car. The old channel takes an extremely crooked course nearer the flank of St. George's Hill, which at its southern end one might mount to pass through the private grounds as the pleasantest path to Weybridge station, a mile beyond which the Wey makes its last twist into the Thames. Thus ends a river that has led us through the heart of Surrey, itself a goodly stream, and often decked out in such rich green attire as would beautify the most frumpish canal.

IV

UP THE MOLE

The second river of Surrey is the Mole, a more untamed stream than the Wey, not harnessed to any occupation unless angling and pleasure-boating by stretches, or here and there the turning of a mill. The name has been taken for a little joke of our ancestors, as denoting the way in which at one part of its course this river tries a trick of burrowing in hot seasons--

That, like a nousling Mole, doth make His way still underground, till Thames he overtake.

But it seems doubtful whether the name of this retiring animal be as old in English as that of Molesey, the Mole island, where the river enters the Thames at what is now rather a chain of shady islands, a noted port of pleasure-boats; and the name Tagg, that has taken such banyan-like root here, seems also to have a smack of Saxon origin. The Emlyn is the Mole's old _alias_, which has been connected with a Celtic word for "mill"; and when we compare the Latin _Mola_ and _Molina_ a more probable origin of the name may be suggested. But such a derivation also is scouted by one of the chief pundits of English etymology, who guesses rather that "Mole has been manufactured by backward inferences out of Molesey, and that this contains the genitive of a personal name"--perhaps some Tagg of primitive days.

To its obscure name poets have added such epithets as the "sullen" Mole, the "soft and gentle" Mole, and the "silent" Mole. The "sulky" Mole sometimes suggests itself; and the "wild" Mole would be not out of place in flood time. In its upper course it has ripples and rushes; and as it pushes through the chalk it may give itself up to the freaks of its "swallows"; but in general this "wanton nymph" takes a rather tame career on a flat arena, showing its friskiness chiefly by curving turns, or by cascades too neat to be natural; often, too, it varies its mood between weedy shallows and curdling pools; now it seems to sleep under a crumbling meadow bank; now it tries a run beneath a wooded slope, or steals out of a vault of trees to be half-buried in "weeds of glorious

[Illustration: WATER LANE, NEAR EAST HORSLEY.]

feature"; then at last it creeps slowly over the Thames plain, like an idle scholar who knows what tasks await the end of its holiday independence. In the final mile or two it makes an attempt at a delta of two branches, that to the right styled the Ember river.

The Mole justifies its name in seeming shyer than the Wey, keeping clearer of towns, and being not made familiar to wayfarers by a tow-path. Much of its stealthy course, indeed, is imprisoned in private grounds, whose owners may be jealous of angling rights; the Mole has even been chained and brought into law courts. In following it upwards, we must often be content to keep near its bed, sometimes only to be stuck to by ordeals upon muddy banks, in thorny gaps, over barbed wire fences, or in face of threatening notices to trespassers; and even the footpaths that lead from church to church, or cut off angles of high-roads, are seldom so far left to themselves as to follow the windings of this vagrant river.

If, like the author of "The Farmer's Boy," he would spend--

One dear delicious day On thy wild banks, romantic Mole--