Part 8

Here indeed a conscientious guide must hesitate how to counsel the pilgrim of the picturesque as to his progress among an embarrassment of scenic riches. There is hardly such another walk in England as that dozen miles or so along the top of the Downs between Guildford and Dorking. From St. Martha's Hill, one ascends to the stretch named the Roughs, a beautiful wilderness of beeches, yews, thorns, holly and other chalk-loving copsewood tangled in bracken and bramble. On the further side of this ridge there is a straight way up from Clandon station, coming out at Newlands Corner (567 feet). Thence, keeping eastwards along the wooded edge, one might in a mile or so drop down again into the valley by a deep coombe leading to Shere. But all along one can hold on by what is often a broad turf-way set in woods, with tracks going off south to the Tillingbourne villages and the Dorking line, north to the stations of the railway between Guildford and Leatherhead, each of them base for rare rambles. One has only to keep the crest of the ridge, taking the successive names of Netley Heath, Hackhurst Downs, and White Downs, till the way opens out on the expanse of Ranmore Common, stretching over the end of this block of the Downs above the gap made by the Mole. Here, by Denbies Park, there is a charming descent to Dorking; or northwards one finds a network of grassy and leafy lanes leading across the ridge towards Leatherhead. But ridge has ceased to be the fittest term for a table-land of chalk opening out beyond Guildford to a belt several miles broad, dotted here and there by islands of other formation, and often roughened by patches of the wildest ground within a couple of hours' walk of London tramway lines. As to the rutted sward-way along the Downs, usually a little back from the edge, its merit is romantic loneliness, hardly a house coming to view between Newlands Corner and Ranmore Common, where the crash of a woodman's axe may recall American backwoods; but it has the defect of a want of prospects, shut out by lush greenery that suggests a valley rather than a height of several hundred feet.

The pilgrims of old days seldom took more trouble than they could help, and their way lay below, near the foot of the Downs, where, after Chilworth, Albury is the next village in the Tillingbourne valley. There is much to be said, and something to be seen, at this old _bury_ on the heath, to the south of which is the site of an ancient camp occupied by the Romans. The Way, after running along the north of a wooded swell in the valley, on the other side of which lies the village, enters Albury Park at an ornate pinnacled fane popularly known as the Irvingite Cathedral. For Albury was the cradle of the sect known to itself as the Catholic Apostolic Church, of which the eloquent enthusiast Edward Irving was not the only or the chief begetter. That distinction rather belonged to Henry Drummond, banker, squire, and Tory M.P., a curious amalgam of business ability and fanatical fancies. At his Albury mansion he was in the way of gathering like-minded friends for study of the Scriptures, and among them, by much brooding over the prophecies, was hatched the new communion that claimed to be a return to gifts and hopes of the Primitive Church. The parson of Albury in those days was the Rev. Hugh McNeile, afterwards well known at Liverpool as a champion of sound Evangelical teaching, who sympathised with the early efforts of the movement, but withdrew from it when it began to take shape apart from the Church as by law established; and poor Irving was deposed by his own Presbyterian Church, while he fell into some suspicion even among his brother sectaries. Through the marriage of his daughter, Drummond came to be represented by the Duke of Northumberland, a family that inherited his part as patron of the body, gathering humbler adherents in a neighbourhood where Cobbett had found fault with the number of its "meeting-houses" and the proportion of its people gone crazy through religion. The elaborate services of the "Cathedral" are said to be still well attended. The parish church, near the mansion, was turned into a mortuary chapel and mausoleum by Mr. Drummond, who built a new one on a site more convenient for the village, itself mainly transplanted by him to a site more aloof from his house. Through the groves of the park, past the house, with its famous yew hedge, terrace, and the gardens, originally laid out by John Evelyn, ran the Pilgrims' track, here losing its common character as a lonely hillside lane.

[Illustration: AUTUMN WEEDS, CHILWORTH.]

Another notable resident of Albury was Martin Tupper, that once widely-read proverbial philosopher whose fame enacted the tragi-comedy of the rocket and the stick. His name hardly got fair-play in a generation when to sneer at it became a commonplace with every criticaster, a kind of gentry apt to follow Mr. Pickwick's advice as to shouting with the crowd. But to this much-bleating rhymester, thus shorn of his glory, the wind of criticism was tempered by most robust self-applause, as amusingly appears in his literary memoirs, illustrated by rills of the torrents of prose and verse flowing from a truly fountain pen. Some of his verses, indeed, as John Bull's address to Jonathan, deserve not to be forgotten; and, while he had no patience with his neighbours the Irvingites, he is always warmly on the side of Protestantism, patriotism, and heart-of-oak sentiments. He claims, with reason, to have been a precursor of the volunteer movement, not only by his dithyrambic tootlings but by the practical foundation of an Albury rifle club. He especially "fancied himself" as trumpeter of this Holmesdale Valley and its history, as set forth in his romance, _Stephen Langton_; and he was the _vates sacer_ of Albury's "Silent Pool," as he christened the Sherbourne Pond of rustics, haunted by the spirit of a bathing maiden to whom King John played Actæon, with the effect of drowning that scared Diana.

This deep chalk basin of crystal water prettily set in a wooded dingle is now one of the lions of the place, yet so secluded that many seekers pass it by unseen. It lies at the foot of the Downs beside Sherbourne Farm, to the left of the road coming down from Newlands Corner and forking on the right for the Irvingite Church; just short of the fork a lane turns left to a cottage where the key of the enclosure may be had. It has been lately stated in the newspapers that the Silent Pool was being sucked dry by water-works on the Downs; but since then I found it deep and clear and cool as ever. Can it be that all we read in newspapers is not always true?

Past the Silent Pool, the road leads between the Downs and Albury Park to beautiful Shere, with its lime-tree avenue, its quaint cottages, whose gables, brackets, and barge-boards make such tempting "bits" for the sketcher, its good old "White Horse" inn, and its picturesque church on the bank of the Tillingbourne, which offers here the unusual village luxury of a small swimming-bath. This village is associated with memories of the county historian, Bray, and of Grote, the more famous historian of Greece. Its charming environs have been so attractive to artists that a "Shere School" is noted among them. There is a house hereabouts that made the home of three R.A.'s successively. Vicat Cole was one of the early discoverers, also Mr. B. W. Leader, who still lives at Burrows' Cross a little way towards the sand ridge.

A short mile on from Shere is Gomshall, whose "Black Horse" stands close to the station for both villages, as for the more distant charms of Abinger and Holmbury St. Mary. From the Tillingbourne, here harnessed to industry, also giving a subject to art in an often-painted mill, the Pilgrims' Way now mounted on to the Downs, looking across to the park of Wotton and the sloping woodlands of Leith Hill. I have usually left the reader to imagine for himself the views from these heights; but here I may quote the description by that expert Mr. Baddeley, which figures in more than one guide-book.

Take the lane going off from the mill (near the _Black Horse_) up the hill. When the lane expands take path on left through the wood to a field with path going right up its steep incline. At top of field, before again entering the woods, a superb view eastward is obtained. Through a gap in the hills, between Box Hill and Deepdene, we look far away over the Weald of Kent. The crowning height of Leith Hill with its tower lies south-east, then the eye ranges over the valley between the Chalk and Greensand ranges to Holmbury and Ewhurst Mill. The South Downs appear in the blue distance to the left of the Hambledon Hills, and the irregular crest of Hindhead west of them. The whole is framed by the woods on either side of the field in which we stand. Entering the wood at top of this field, the path soon rejoins the cart-track from the lane that we left, and we reach the open meadows on the hill-top. Here the woods shut out any view. Proceeding westward along two meadows, at some farm buildings we take a path leading left into the woods over Shere, and in a few yards after entering these, obtain a view south and west that is even more beautiful than the one just described. From no point does the Vale of Chilworth appear to such advantage. Albury Park and the village of Shere are immediately below us, and far away we trace the vale past Chilworth to Shalford. Ewhurst Mill is again prominent due south, and the sweep round to Hindhead, already described, is continued to the Hog's Back, seen stretching westward like a long green gable roof. The prominent feature is St. Martha's Hill, with its chapel standing out as a lonely beacon in the distance. Charter House is seen to the south-west, the Devil's Jumps being to the right of it, and the hills of Hants beyond.

Without troubling oneself why the pilgrims now sought a more airy road, one may get on to the Downs and follow the crest. Or a little farther along the Dorking road, opposite a pond, goes off a pleasant way behind Abinger Hall and across the stretch of wild common known as Evershed Rough, at the edge of which a cross marks the spot where Bishop Wilberforce of Winchester, riding across the Downs, was killed by a fall from his horse. Farther on, past the Deerleap Wood and Wotton Church, there is a rough scramble up the wooded coombe of Pickett's Hole, or a more gradual road leads through Denbies Park, the drives of which are formally closed on the last day of the year, else open to pilgrims on horse or foot, but not to cyclists.

Thus we come to the final lofty expanse of Ranmore Common, where a graceful spire makes a far-seen beacon beside the upper edge of Denbies Park, whose mansion was the home of Mr. Cubitt, builder of Belgravia. Beyond this, the Downs are cut by the Mole valley, across which rises the bold promontory of Box Hill. How the Pilgrims' Way crossed this gap makes again matter of question. Mr. Belloc is positive that the old road must have gone straight over the mouth of the valley, perhaps by that very lane in which the narrator of the "Battle of Dorking" had his baptism of fire. But tradition, supported by such names as Pray Meadow and Paternoster Lane, and by the ruins of a chapel in West Humble Lane behind the Box Hill station, avers that here the pilgrims turned to the north side of the Downs, making thus for Burford Bridge, a mile down the river.

By Burford at all events is our best way up to the top of that Cockney paradise, Box Hill. Lucky are the citizens with such a scene within reach of their picnic excursions, and luckiest those sound enough in wind and limb to make the straight ascent from the hotel up the steep chalk slope, reached also by a zigzag road from Juniper Hall. The face towards Dorking is covered by an enclosure of rich wood, open to any one taking refreshment at the Swiss Cottage just within its gate. Beyond this one is free to roam over turf slopes and among the groves, where indeed of late years part of the land has been acquired by the War Office for fortifications to figure in any future Battle of Dorking; so here and there the forbidding initials W. D. remind us not to trespass upon the demesne of a power that is master of twenty legions. It appears, indeed, that this plan of fortification is not to be carried out. Keeping as near the edge as possible, one comes round to a brow looking over the next stretch of the Holmesdale Valley, where the Downs are cut by an enormous chalk pit, the largest I know in the county, taking its name from the village of Betchworth below.

This yawning mouth has swallowed up the Pilgrims' Way. To keep along the Downs, curving as an amphitheatre of some half-dozen miles on to Reigate, is no easy task. I have done it, and again I have failed to find a practicable path, since "W. D." has in part closed the woods. A friend of mine who repeatedly achieved the adventure, reports that he never twice took quite the same line. Perhaps the stranger would save himself time and trouble if, at the "Hand in Hand," he struck into the road that runs behind the ridge to fall into the London highway piercing its height through Pebble Coombe; then, from the edge of Walton Heath beyond, he may get back on to the Downs, in front of their coronet of woods. The Way, beyond that coombe, is traced by Mr. Belloc on rough high ground; but a line of yews slanting up from the picturesque village of Buckland with its church and court, a mile on in the valley, has been taken to mark its ascent to Colley Hill and the lofty park of Margery Grove. A mile farther on, it comes behind a beech wood on the brow overlooking Reigate, the view from which was dubbed by Cobbett's dogged patriotism the finest in the world. This is now a public demesne of Reigate, a town lying just off the Way, though no doubt intimately connected with it, as shown by the Chapel of St. Thomas, once to be visited where now stands its old Town Hall. A little farther, immediately above Reigate, among the copses of the height lurks a new fort, inconspicuous as is the nature of such latter-day strongholds; and where the Way passes through War Office property as a shady lane, it has been clearly labelled by name so as to point it out to the meanest topographical capacity. It crosses the Brighton road by another modern feature, a suspension bridge, from the seats beside which the prospect is most often enjoyed by cyclists.

Here is reached Gatton Park, where the Way, after rising to 700 feet, betakes itself to the north slope of the ridge. Tradition and the O. S. map make it coincide with the byroad leading beside the north edge of the park; but Mr. Belloc maintains that it must have presently run through this enclosure. One may enter at the lodge gate and walk among its lakelets and timbered knolls to the east side, where are the mansion, the church, and the "Town Hall," a sort of garden temple on a little mound, in which till 1832 one person proceeded to the election of two members of parliament. This notorious rotten borough, as

[Illustration: A SUMMER'S EVE, MILFORD COMMON.]

Mr. Belloc suggests, may have owed its privilege to former importance as crossing-place of roads north and south. The small church is a museum of ecclesiastical decoration, collected from far and wide by a former owner, Lord Monson, buried in the mausoleum adjoining the house. His mansion was designed on a lavish scale, carried out so far as the hall goes, which makes a rich show of coloured marbles, terra-cotta reliefs and frescoes, in imitation of a chapel at Rome; but it looks to be an artistic Tower of Babel, as if the builder's ambitious plans had been nipped by the Reform Bill when it took away the special value of what Cobbett styled a "very rascally spot of earth." A successor of this peer unfortunately lent his name to a too well-known financier; with the result that Gatton passed into the hands of a gentleman who boasts how he made his money from the mustard people superfluously leave on their plates, and of whom his Redhill neighbours have cause to think that he spends it with like liberality.

Beyond Gatton comes a descent into another gap of the Downs, filled by the pretty and prosperous village of Merstham, with its "Feathers" Inn, and its old Church on a knoll. In the valley, the high-road of Redhill and two railway lines have obliterated the crossing of the Pilgrims' Way on to the next face of the Downs, which now sweep back a little farther north. For a short mile, we may be content to take a road along the foot; then a path slanting up the slope brings us back to the crest, where the Pilgrims' track has been transformed as approach to new houses. Near these turns north a byway to the Church of Chaldon, lying a mile or so behind our route.

This secluded Church is notable for the best of such fresco wall-paintings as were a feature of other churches in Surrey. The work seems to date from the generation after Becket, but became overlaid by plaster and white washing, under which it was discovered on the Church being restored a generation ago. Since their exposure, the colours have somewhat faded, so the short-sighted visitor, unversed in mediæval symbolism, may be told how the lower part displays the torments of the wicked at the hands of hideous devils, beside a serpent writhing among the fruit:--

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world and all our woe.

From this grotesquely dismal scene, happier souls struggle up the Ladder of Salvation to where on one side Christ is seen triumphing over the powers of Evil, and on the other St. Michael weighing souls in his balance. One of the figures below, holding a bottle, is interpreted as a temperance lesson, no doubt needed by some of the pilgrims, who must often have turned aside to profit by this pictorial sermon. The worst torment seems to be that of a millionaire of the period, who had perhaps not opened his money bags to relieve poor pilgrims.

For the Pilgrims' Way we have only to keep the brow of White Hill, looking over to the southern ridge on which Bletchingley stands. After crossing the road from Caterham to Bletchingley, it is continued by a lane turning off beside a tower and past the mansion called Arthur's Seat, to the War Coppice, once an ancient camp, but now, like the Cardinal's Cap on White Hill, offered as a too eligible building site. Except by peeps, the view to the south becomes obstructed; and we look over the Harestone Valley, down which a pleasant path runs northward to Caterham. At Gravelly Hill and its Water Tower, new road-making seems to transmogrify the Way, that on the slope beyond must have taken a scramble into the deep hollow through which runs the high-road to Godstone. Perhaps the original track is represented by a narrow lane descending on the south face of the Downs.

Across that quarried hollow, we again ascend the Downs for their last half-dozen miles in Surrey. A little below the milestone goes off a charmingly devious lane up Winder's Hill and along the south side of Marden Park, past its white shooting "Castle" so conspicuous on the brow, then the lodge gate, through which there is a bridle-way running to Caterham or on to the farther end of the park, two miles north. Evelyn tells us how this fine demesne was made from a "barren warren" and a poor farm in a hardly populated parish, by that "prodigious rich scrivener" of his own time, Sir Robert Clayton, a Lord Mayor of London, whose virtues, or at least his fortunes, are attested by the monstrous monument covering a whole chancel wall of Bletchingley Church on the ridge to the south. Here, admiringly says our authority on such matters, the wealthy citizen so changed the face of hill, valley, and "solitary mountain," that before long Marden looked like "some foreign country" which would "produce spontaneously pines, firs, cypress, yew, holly, and juniper," not to mention "an infinite store of the best fruit."

The sylvan riches of Marden Park may be sampled from a lovely lane winding round the outside of its enclosure to gain the open edge of the heights. The Pilgrims' Way here dropped to a lower level, passing by what is still called Palmer's Wood and another wood on the face of the Downs, again hugely scarred by chalk cuttings. It next runs right through the middle of Titsey Park, where a Roman villa was discovered near its course. Titsey Place was the old seat of the Greshams, a name well known in City annals, whose monuments are preserved in the new church on the east side of the park. From this point eastwards the Way is a modern lane easily followed for miles.

The modern pilgrim may as well leave this lower road to be looked down on from the edge, along which he can hold on from Marden Park, by hints of War Office possession, and some lonely houses that mark an attempt at a new London settlement meant to take its name from Woldingham on the lower ground behind. Thus is gained the inconspicuous swell of Botley Hill, which appears to be the highest ground on the Surrey Downs (882 feet) but has no markedly prominent point to command a view, looking north across a somewhat featureless table-land to the towers of the Crystal Palace, and south over a more pleasing expanse of hills, dales, woods, and villages. Presently this prospect is interrupted by woods, behind which five roads meet to make the perilous descent by Titsey, as other arduous lanes and paths have been seen dropping down towards Oxted and Limpsfield. Still we may keep the edge, taking the Westerham road, almost half a mile along which, at Cold Harbour Green, the highest face of the Surrey Downs (880 feet) is marked by a clump of beech trees above a farm named Pilgrims' Lodge. A little farther along the high ground stands the last Surrey Church, Tatsfield, looking far over the vale by which the Way now enters Kent.