CHAPTER V

SHALFORD TO ALBURY

The line of the Pilgrims' Way may be clearly followed from the banks of the Wey up the hill. It goes through Shalford Park, up Ciderhouse Lane, where the ancient Pesthouse or refuge for sick pilgrims and travellers, now called Ciderhouse Cottage, is still standing, and leads through the Chantrey Woods straight to St. Martha's Chapel.

The district through which it takes us is one of the wildest and loveliest parts of Surrey. "Very few prettier rides in England," remarks Cobbett, who repeatedly travelled along this track, and the beauty of the views all along its course will more than repay the traveller who makes his way on foot over the hills from Guildford to Dorking. One of the most extensive is to be had from St. Martha's Hill, where the prospect ranges in one direction over South Leith Hill and the South Downs far away to the Weald of Sussex and the well-known clump of Chanctonbury Ring; and on the other over the commons and moors to the crests of Hindhead and the Hog's Back; while looking northward we have a wide view over the Surrey plains and the valley of the Thames, and Windsor Castle and the dome of St. Paul's may be distinguished on clear days.

The ancient chapel on the summit, which gives its name to St. Martha's Hill, was originally built in memory of certain Christians who suffered martyrdom on the spot, and was formerly dedicated to all holy martyrs, while the hill itself was known as the Martyrs' Hill, of which, as Grose remarks,[8] "the present name is supposed to be a corruption." In the twelfth century it became peculiarly associated with the Canterbury pilgrims, and a new chancel was built for their use, and consecrated to St. Thomas à Becket in the year 1186. In 1262 this chapel was attached to the Priory of Newark, an Augustinian convent near Ripley, dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury by Ruald de Calva in the reign of Richard Coeur de Lion. The Prior already owned most of the hill-side, and the names of Farthing Copse and Halfpenny Lane, through which the pilgrims passed on their way to St. Martha's Chapel, remind us of the tolls which he levied from all who travelled along the road. We have already seen how in the earlier portions of the Way the Prior of Newark disputed the rights of the Abbot of Waverley. Here he reigned supreme. A priest from Newark Priory served St. Martha's Chapel, and is said to have lived at Tyting's Farm, an old gabled house with the remains of a small oratory close to the Pilgrims' Way. In latter days a colony of monks from Newark settled at Chilworth, where the present manor-house contains fragments of monastic building, and the fishponds of the friars may still be seen near the terraced gardens. During the troubled times of the Wars of the Roses the Chapel of St. Martha fell into ruins, and owed its restoration to Bishop William of Waynflete, who in 1463 granted forty days' indulgence to all pilgrims who should visit the shrine and there repeat a Pater Noster, an Ave, and a Credo, or contribute to its repair. After the dissolution of the monasteries both Newark Priory and St. Martha's shrine fell into ruins, and the chapel was only restored of late years. At Chilworth, south of St. Martha's Hill, lies the once fair valley which has been defaced by the powder-mills, first established there three centuries ago by an ancestor of John Evelyn, and now worked by steam. This is the place which Cobbett denounces in his "Rural Rides" with a vigour and eloquence worthy of Mr. Ruskin himself:

"This valley, which seems to have been created by a bountiful Providence as one of the choicest retreats of man, which seems formed for a scene of innocence and happiness, has been by ungrateful man so perverted as to make it instrumental in effecting two of the most damnable of purposes, in carrying into execution two of the most damnable inventions that ever sprang from the mind of man under the influence of the devil! namely, the making of gunpowder and of bank-notes! Here, in this tranquil spot, where the nightingales are to be heard earlier and later in the year than in any other part of England; where the first budding of the buds is seen in spring; where no rigour of season can ever be felt; where everything seems formed for precluding the very thought of wickedness; here has the devil fixed on as one of the seats of this grand manufactory; and perverse and ungrateful man not only lends his aid, but lends it cheerfully. To think that the springs which God has commanded to flow from the sides of these happy hills for the comfort and delight of man--to think that these springs should be perverted into means of spreading misery over a whole nation!"

One of these "inventions of the devil" has been removed. The paper-mills which made the bank-notes in Cobbett's time are silent now, but the powder-mills are in full activity, and Chilworth, with its coal-stores and railway-crossing, has a blackened and desolate look which not all the natural beauties of its surroundings can dispel.

Once more upon the hills, we can follow the line of yews which are seen at intervals along the ridge from St. Martha's Chapel by Weston Wood and the back of Albury Park, turning a few steps out of our path to visit Newland's Corner, the highest point of Albury Downs, and one of the most beautiful spots in the whole of Surrey. The view is as extensive as that from St. Martha's Hill, and is even more varied and picturesque. Over broken ridges of heathery down and gently swelling slopes, clad with beech and oak woods, we look across to Ewhurst Mill, a conspicuous landmark in all this country, and farther westward to the towers of Charterhouse and the distant heights of Hindhead and Blackdown; while immediately in front, across the wooded valley, rises St. Martha's Hill, crowned by its ancient chapel. Here we can watch the changes of sun and shower over the wide expanse of level country, and see the long range of far hills veiled in the thin blue mists of morning, or turning purple under the gold of the evening sky. Some of the oldest and finest yew trees in all Surrey are close to Newland's Corner--the ancient yew grove there is mentioned in Domesday--and their dark foliage offers a fine contrast to the bright tints of the neighbouring woods and to the snowy masses of blossom which in early summer clothe the gnarled old hawthorn trees that are studded over the hill-side. We can follow the track over the springy turf of the open downs and up glades thick with bracken, till it becomes choked with bushes and brambles, and finally loses itself in the woods of Albury.

Here, in the middle of the Duke of Northumberland's park, is the deep glen, surrounded by wooded heights, known as the Silent Pool. A dark tale, which Martin Tupper has made the subject of his "Stephen Langton," belongs to this lonely spot. King John, tradition says, loved a fair woodman's daughter who lived here, and surprised her in the act of bathing in the pool. The frightened girl let loose the branch by which she held, and was drowned in the water; and her brother, a goat-herd, who at the sound of her scream had rushed in after her, shared the same fate. And still, the legend goes, at midnight you may see a black-haired maiden clasping her arms round her brother in his cowhide tunic under the clear rippling surface of the Silent Pool.

A little farther on is the old church of Albury--Eldeburie, mentioned in Domesday, and supposed to be the most ancient in Surrey. The low tower, with its narrow two-light windows, probably dates back to very early Norman times, but the rest of the church is considerably later. The south chapel was richly decorated by Mr. Drummond, who bought the place in 1819, and is now used as a mortuary chapel for his family. Albury formerly belonged to the Dukes of Norfolk. The gardens were originally laid out by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, the accomplished collector of the Arundel marbles, and whose fine portrait by Vandyck was exhibited at Burlington House in the winter of 1891. His friend and neighbour, Mr. Evelyn, helped him with his advice and taste, and designed the grotto under the hill, which still remains. "Such a Pausilippe," remarks the author of "The Sylva," "is nowhere in England besides." But the great ornament of Albury is the famous yew hedge, about ten feet high and a quarter of a mile long, probably the finest of its kind in England. So thick are the upper branches of the yew trees that, as William Cobbett writes, when he visited Albury in Mr. Drummond's time, they kept out both the rain and sun, and alike in summer and winter afford "a most delightful walk." The grand terrace under the hill, "thirty or forty feet wide, and a quarter of a mile long, of the finest green-sward, and as level as a die," particularly delighted him; and the careful way in which the fruit trees were protected from the wind, and the springs along the hill-side collected to water the garden, gratified his practical mind. "Take it altogether," he goes on, "this certainly is the prettiest garden that I ever beheld. There was taste and sound judgment at every step in the laying out of this place. Everywhere utility and convenience is combined with beauty. The terrace is by far the finest thing of the sort that I ever saw, and the whole thing altogether is a great compliment to the taste of the times in which it was formed." The honest old reformer's satisfaction in these gardens was increased by the reflection that the owner was worthy of his estate, seeing that he was famed for his justice and kindness towards the labouring classes--"who, God knows, have very few friends amongst the rich;" and adds, that he for one has no sympathy with "the fools" who want a revolution for the purpose of getting hold of other people's property. "There are others who like pretty gardens as well as I, and if the question were to be decided according to the laws of the strongest, or, as the French call it, _droit du plus fort_, my chance would be but a very poor one."