Part 7
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.
RIPLEY AND THE SURREY COMMONS
The Londoner of the southern and western suburbs is fortunate in the many breezy and picturesque stretches of wild commons that form a more or less continual girdle around those districts, at a distance of from fifteen to twenty miles from town. The Surrey Commons, more than those of Kent, are secluded and free from the bean-feast parties that render Keston and Hayes Commons somewhat less desirable than they would otherwise be. It is true that in the neighbourhood of Esher and Oxshott those who have the conduct of the extensive Crown lands that border the commons are beginning to exploit their healthy sites for villa-building; but although this red rash of “desirable residences” among the dark green of the pine-woods is looked upon with disfavour by the rambler in these hitherto unfrequented spots, what cannot be cured must be endured with the best grace at command.
Esher Station is the key to this district for those who hail from town, and sets you down on a common to begin with. In fact, the London and South-Western Railway runs along “common or commonable lands”—as the Parliamentary Bills of the railway companies express it—from Surbiton, and practically cuts Ditton Common in half: more shame to the Parliamentary Committees that ever permitted the deed. But then the South-Western has, for some reason or another, always been allowed to cut up and practically destroy the open spaces along its route, so that there is scarce a common in the south-western suburbs but that line has a cutting through or an embankment across it, with level crossings innumerable, at which those who use the roads must needs wait the pleasure of the railway, until the crowded traffic of passenger and goods trains has passed by!
We gain the old Portsmouth road in a few hundred yards from Esher Station, and, turning to the right, climb the hill to the village, through Littleworth Common. Reaching Esher, the way to Oxshott lies to the left, past that old coaching inn the “Bear,” and the old and long-disused parish church that modestly hides itself behind the inn.
The lodge gates of Claremont Park, beside the road, on the lovely common of Esher, are now passed, and within this, perhaps the best-wooded park near London, stands the great classic mansion begun by Lord Clive in 1768. Macaulay tells with dramatic effect how “the peasantry of Surrey looked with mysterious horror on the stately house which was rising at Claremont, and whispered that the great wicked lord had ordered the walls to be made so thick in order to keep out the devil, who would one day carry him away bodily.” Clive made an end by committing suicide in his gloomy mansion in Berkeley Square in 1774. Claremont is now, of course, Crown property; but the arms of Clive still remain on the pediment of the mansion.
From here the road goes straight across Esher and Arbrook Commons, with glimpses into the well-kept park on the way, in sharp contrast with the wilderness of bracken, just turning an “old gold” tint with the first touch of autumn. A rugged, sandy hillock will be noticed on the right hand, amidst the bracken and the blackberry brambles. It is known as Round Hill, and, although apparently and actually of no great height, commands exquisite views. Safely leaving the cycle down below in this unfrequented spot, it is distinctly well worth while to scramble to the summit for the views of the surrounding country. Telegraph Hill—the wooded ridge between Oxshott and Leatherhead—is prominent, and recalls the days before the advent of the electric telegraph in 1838, when this height was one of a series between the Admiralty in London and Portsmouth Dockyard, and fitted with semaphores for signalling. More prominent still, peering over the woodlands of Ruxley Lodge at Claygate, is the castellated outlook tower built by Lord Foley; while dense woods and billowy expanses of gorse-clad commons complete the picture, save on the clearest days, when, faintly to be seen over the ridge of the North Downs, is Chanctonbury Ring, the great hill near Worthing.
From here to Oxshott Station the way still lies through commons. Around the station the builder is busy on the Crown lands, and is creating a modern village. Avoiding a knobbly road on the right, which a sign-post informs us is the way to Stoke D’Abernon, we continue ahead, more by token that in doing so there is a fine road and a good coast downhill. In another mile a sign-post appears directing to Woodlands and Stoke D’Abernon. Here we will leave the Leatherhead road, whose course we have been travelling, and turn to the right, coming in less than a mile, still gently downhill, to another post. Instead of turning to the right here we keep on for half a mile along the road, which now begins to wind about and to take on the character of a country lane. Then look out for a right-hand turning at the corner of a park enclosed by a new red brick wall. This is Randalls Park. Turning down here a hundred yards or so, along a lane where the local authorities delight to blast the scenery by tipping all the potsherds and domestic refuse of the district, the explorer, after enduring much, comes at last to a pretty scene on the river Mole, which here runs in two branches: the first spanned by a substantial bridge, the second bridged by a very long and narrow structure of wood intended for foot passengers only. Wheeled traffic goes through a picturesque water-splash; but the cyclist must perforce dismount and walk his machine over the wooden bridge. From this point, crossing a road running right and left, the way lies ahead, up a sharp rise through Fetcham village and along the road to Great and Little Bookham. At the last-named place we turn off to the right for the four miles’ run to Ockham, famous as being the Waterloo of the Bloomer women; for it was here, at the “Hautboy,” that Mrs. Sprague, the champion of convention, withstood the breeched Lady Harberton, with complete success. Why is there no monument to this historic event?
The route to Ockham is almost wholly through Effingham Common and Blackmore Heath, past solitary Effingham Junction, and thence through woods to Martyr’s Green, where we turn to the left, and so to the “Hautboy” and the village built under the shelter of Ockham Park, the seat of the Earl of Lovelace. The church, standing in the park, is worth seeing. Nailed to the gallery front is the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Purse worn by Lord Chancellor King, who held the office in the reign of Queen Anne.
Among the eccentric epitaphs often quoted, that on John Spong of Ockham should surely be numbered. He died 17th November 1736, aged sixty years. The lines on his tombstone were written by Daniel Wray, F.R.S. Spong was a carpenter—
“Who many a sturdy Oak has laid along, Fell’d by Death’s surer hatchet, here lies SPONG. _Posts_ oft he made, yet ne’er a _Place_ could get, And liv’d by _Railing_ tho’ he was no _Wit_. _Old Saws_ he had, altho’ no _Antiquarian_, And _Stiles_ corrected, yet was no _Grammarian_. Long liv’d he _Ockham’s_ Premier Architect, And lasting as his fame, a tomb t’erect In vain we seek an Artist such as He Whose _Pales_ and _Gates_ are for Eternity. So here he rests from all life’s toils and follies: Oh spare, kind Heaven! his fellow-lab’rer _Hollis_.”
Hollis was a bricklayer friend of Spong’s, and appears, at anyrate, to have been spared long enough to escape being a post-mortem butt for Mr. Daniel Wray’s wit.
From Ockham village, roads lead round either side of Ockham Park into Ripley, a mile distant. It is worth while to linger round Ripley for half a day, for the village itself is pleasing and the surroundings are exquisitely pretty. Ripley is a great deal more interesting now to the cycling tourist than ever it was in the days of its cycling popularity. For there is no doubt whatever that the days are gone, never to return, when cycles were stacked by the hundred in the broad village street on Saturdays and Sundays. Ripley has been called the Mecca of every good cyclist, and for some fifteen years its popularity was great among London clubmen, to whom the twenty-three miles from town, and the run home again across the commons that border the Portsmouth road from London, formed a delightful day’s cycling. Indeed, so exclusively was this a place of pilgrimage that the road to it was generally known among cyclists as the “Ripley road,” although, as a matter of fact, Ripley is but an incident along the old coaching highway that stretches a long course of seventy-three miles between London and Portsmouth. So devoted was this class of cyclist to Ripley that many never ventured beyond it, but made that remarkably picturesque old inn, the “Anchor,” and the village green opposite, their lounging and gossiping places, until it was time to start again for home. Ripley was first “discovered” by cyclists in the dawn of the ’70’s, when the very few who wheeled on what were then called velocipedes found a welcome at the rustic “Anchor” at a time when the riders of such new-fangled contrivances were generally looked upon as pariahs, and refused accommodation or even ordinary civility. Such unwonted consideration made the fortunes of the “Anchor,” of the Dibbles who then occupied it, and of the village of Ripley in general; for it became known that here, at least, was a place where the weary wheelman, who trundled his hundredweight or so of old iron painfully along the roads, and called it “pleasure,” could take his peculiarly well-earned rest. Thus the fame of Ripley grew, and with the growth of cycling clubs attained really great proportions. Such early racing cyclists as Cortis, the Honourable Ion Keith Falconer, and “Jack” Keen were the first comers. They have all passed into the Unknown, and so have “the Dibbles,” as the genial family who once occupied the “Anchor” were collectively spoken of; and to-day the tourist may see the memorial windows to Cortis and the Dibble sisters in the ancient chapel of Ripley, hard by the inn, windows erected by club-cyclists who knew them well.
Now that the cycling club is an unnecessary and rapidly decaying institution, Ripley is almost as deserted as it was before its sudden popularity. Not quite, for of course the roads are more frequented nowadays; but it has taken on again something of the old look it wore when it was just the typical decayed coaching village.
Coming into the old-world street, with that truly countrified scent—the scent of the wood-fuel burnt largely instead of coal—the place is delightful. Away on the north side of the road stretches the so-called “green,” in reality a broad and beautiful common, the ideal spot for many a ramble by the winding Wey, with its picturesque weirs and mills and background of solemn firs. Such rambles to be taken preferably without the cycle, to be left conveniently in the village. Or a pretty cycle ride lies across the village street to Newark Priory and Pyrford, two miles distant. It is an unmistakable route, and, coming to the humpbacked bridge across the Wey at Newark Mill, the grey ruins of the Priory are prominent in a meadow on the right hand. The place is quite solitary. No guide to chatter; most probably not even another cyclist. Nothing to pay; only just to lift your machine over a field-gate, and there you are. The fragment of a bridge or an entrance gate may be seen on approaching; a fine piece of work, with alternations of stone and knapped flints. Beyond stand the ruins in romantic solitude, in that low-lying watery situation the old monks loved so well. Indeed, the Wey and its rush-fringed tributaries, that wander so lazily through the level meads, form a very maze. The monks’ fish-ponds are all uncared for now, and their Priory roofless and stripped of almost every fragment of worked stone; but the tall lancet windows remain to show the Early English character of the building, and the sturdy flint walls may last many centuries yet, if only one great ominous fissure, extending almost to the ground, is looked after. There is a quite wonderfully effective view of the ruins from the road to Pyrford, just where the Wey crosses it; but for a grand comprehensive view of the Priory, and the vale in which it stands, one must climb the slight rise to Pyrford itself.
Good roads lead thence to Byfleet Station, two miles distant, for those who desire to return by train; but the more enjoyable course, should daylight last, is to return to Ripley, and to cycle thence back to Esher through Cobham Street, along that splendid highway, the old Portsmouth road. Commons are almost continuous along this route—Ockham Common, Wisley Common, and that of Fairmile—and the scent of the surrounding pine-woods is over them all.
RURAL MIDDLESEX
How rural and secluded still are some parts of Middlesex let this run show. To roam far from the madding crowd in this essentially “home county” might seem impossible, but those who summon up the not very great amount of energy required for following the course of this tour will see many places sleepier and more retired than in Devon or Cornwall. They will not remain so very much longer; which is an inducement to see them without delay.
There are many ready ways of beginning this trip; from London to one of the Ealing stations by train—Ealing on the District Railway for preference—or the cyclist resident at Richmond, Kew, or Ealing can start without depending upon outside aid. Starting, say, from Kew, the way lies over the bridge, and thence towards Gunnersbury along the wood-paved road. In half a mile look out for what still, at the time of writing, remains a countrified lane on the left—“Gunnersbury lane,” as it is called—where a sign-post directs to Acton. Past market gardens we go, and come, in little over half a mile, to a turning right and left. Here a left-hand turn, and then the first to the right, which is a long, straight road, planted with young trees, leading direct on to Ealing Common, and straight across it to Hanger Hill.
From here it is a steady rise of a mile up the country road, with dairy farms here and there. Then a somewhat steep descent, with one or two tricky curves and loose patches of gravel where rains have made channels across the road. With caution, therefore, the descent should be made to the valley of the Brent, the more particularly as the dairy farms aforesaid are responsible for many strayed cows generally to be found wandering in the road, and as at the bottom, where a rustic inn stands, our route lies off to the left, along a lane to which there is a very acute turning, up a quite short but sharp rise. It is necessary to have the machine well in hand to negotiate this corner without dismounting. A mile and a quarter of narrow, winding lane, quite flat but with tall hedges on either side, like a Devonshire lane, brings us to Perivale.
Now Perivale is one of the queerest little places it is possible to set eyes upon. “Little” is said, and the fullest sense of the adjective is to be understood; for besides the church—one of those claiming that curious wrong-end-of-the-telescope kind of dignity as “the smallest in England”—there is only one other building at hand; and that the rectory! Indeed, in the entire parish of 626 acres there are but five houses and thirty-four inhabitants; and this, let it be impressed upon the reader, well within nine miles of London’s five millions of population. Perivale, save for this church and those scattered farmsteads, is just a geographical expression, nothing more; for there is no village, no hamlet, no village shop, and no public-house. All around are the low-lying water-meadows bordering the river Brent.
There are those who refer to Perivale’s ancient alias of “Greenford Parva,” and say its present name is but a corruption of the “Parva” in its old style; and certainly Parva is a description descriptive enough, even though its neighbour, Greenford Magna, be of scarce sufficient size to warrant that adjective of bigness.
Perivale Church is now well cared for, after a long period of spiritual starvation; a whimsical period when the then rector was in the habit of offering a pot of beer to the two or three rustics who alone used to attend service. “It is scarcely worth while to read service for so few,” he would say; “would you like some beer at the rectory instead?” That formula became so well known that the sole reason why even these few appeared so regularly was the chance of being bribed in this manner with a drink. A little later, however, it became so much a matter of general knowledge that thirsty and impecunious souls began in summer time to make Perivale the goal of a pleasant Sunday morning’s walk from Ealing and the neighbouring villages, and the thing grew scandalous. But at this point the congregation had grown so large that the rector, in defence of his cellar, had to resort to his service again, greatly to the disgust of the thirsty throng.
In winter no one came at all, because the Brent had a habit (and has it still) of flooding roads and meadows alike, and leaving church and rectory isolated. At such times the old parish clerk (whose name was the unusual one of Cain) would take up a commanding position overlooking all approaches, and would call out, “Can’t see no one a-comin’, sir; may I put the books up?”
It was this rector who had an incorrigible habit of transposing portions of words; quite unconsciously, of course, but with the most grotesquely laughable results. Local gossip still keenly relishes the recollection of his announcing a hymn, “Kinkering congs their titles take,” and a little later, in his sermon, saying, “My friends, we all of us have our little bits of cuppiness.” It was presumed from the context of his discourse that he really meant “cups of bitterness.” The story goes that this habit became contagious, and that a lady, finding a stranger in her pew, exclaimed, “Excuse me, but you’re occupewing my pie!”
In those days there was no church organ but only a barrel instrument with twenty mechanical tunes, not so tuneful as they might have been had some of the cogs not been missing off the wheels. Being missing, they gave rather a weird twist to the “Old Hundredth” and the others that made up the repertoire.
The interior of the building was then greatly neglected, and the lighting was accomplished by the aid of candles stuck on pieces of tin nailed to the ends of the pews. The church in those days possessed no font, and when the question of providing one came up at a vestry meeting, it was resolved that one be not ordered, “because there are never any christenings for the parishioners of Perivale, nor likely to be any.” In after years, on renovating the church, the ancient font was discovered among some rubbish. It is inscribed, “The gift of Simon Coston, gent., 1665.”
The pretty little church is now well cared for. Notice the very, very ancient and massive timbering of the belfry, also weather-boarded outside, and looking a very curiously un-ecclesiastical object across the meadows. The rectory is also a timber-framed structure of the fifteenth century.
Having thus recounted the short and simple annals of little Perivale, we will take the first road to the left after passing the church, and, crossing the Brent, turn to the right. This is a remarkably pretty road, with the river on one side, fringed with rushes and pollard willows. Little humpbacked bridges carry the road over it, and the wayside is marked with white posts, graduated up to seven and nine feet, to mark the depth of the floods prevalent here in winter. Now come the beginnings of Greenford—properly called “Greenford Magna,” to distinguish it from “Parva” we have just left, down the road. A sharp rise leads past a left-hand turning, immediately followed by one on the right, where Greenford village will be found scattered sparsely along the sides of a steep descent. At the foot of this, just before coming to the rustic little weather-boarded church, there is a lane on the left for Northolt, a mile and a quarter distant. Northolt, despite its somewhat severely sounding name (which, however, merely signifies “north wood,” just as Southall, originally “Southholt,” stands for a woodland once standing to the south), is one of the prettiest and most delightful villages in Middlesex; if it is, indeed, large enough to be called a village at all. Broad selvedges of common line the road where its scattered cottages do not form a street, and the exquisitely weathered and stained and patched little church stands away on a grassy bank, overlooking the scene from amidst a cluster of windy elms. The church is just in the picturesque condition the artist loves and the restorer wants to sweep and garnish into newness.