CHAPTER VI

OUTLYING LONDON IN NORTH-EAST SURREY

[Sidenote: Dulwich]

Of the many villages of Northern Surrey that have during the last half-century been converted into popular suburbs of London, few have had a more interesting history than Dulwich, which has, moreover, in spite of all the changes that have taken place in it and its surroundings, retained something of the sylvan character that distinguished it when it was a mere outlying forest hamlet of the monastery of Bermondsey. On the dissolution of the religious houses the manor of Dulwich was given by Henry VIII. to Thomas Calton, from whose descendants it was bought in 1606 by the famous actor and Lord Mayor of London, Edward Alleyn, who on his retirement from the stage took up his residence in the ancient mansion belonging to it, from which he watched the rising up of the 'Chappell, Schoole House and Almshouses' that formed the nucleus of the celebrated college founded by him, to which he gave the beautiful name of God's Gift.

In his delightful retreat the generous patron worked out the details of his scheme with the aid of his architect and other helpers, and in its grand {132} old hall he probably received the first master and warden of his new foundation, and nominated the earliest recipients of his bounty. From the Dulwich manor-house, too, are dated many of the letters still preserved, that reveal the difficulties with which Edward Alleyn had to contend before he could obtain the royal sanction necessary to the permanent success of his enterprise, his chief opponent, strange to say, having been the enlightened Lord Bacon, then Lord Chancellor of England, who was anxious that he should endow learning rather than relieve poverty. In 1619, however, the victory was finally won, for on the 21st June of that year the Great Seal of England was affixed to letters patent granting leave to Edward Alleyn 'to found and establish a college in Dulwich to endure and remain for ever to the glory of Almighty God.' God's Gift College, thus started on its long and useful career, originally consisted of a master and a warden, both to be of the same name as the founder, four fellows, six poor brethren, six poor sisters, and twelve poor scholars to be selected from four London parishes. Later, however, the founder somewhat extended his scheme, admitting eighty instead of twelve students, and allowing the children of non-resident parents to share in the benefits of the college on the payment of a small fee.

The land included with the 'Chappell, Schoole House and Almshouses' in Edward Alleyn's munificent gift extended from the heights now covered with houses, known as Champion and Denmark Hill, across the valley in which nestled the village of Dulwich, {133} to the lofty ridges now occupied by Sydenham and Forest Hill, the value of which has increased more than a thousandfold since the death of the donor, so that it became absolutely necessary to modify the original rules, which, in spite of Alleyn's earnest desire to provide for future contingencies, were from the first wanting in the elasticity necessary to meet the inevitable changes that time brings about. Not until 1857, however, was any radical transformation effected, but at that date an Act of Parliament was passed fully meeting the necessities of the case.

The buildings erected under the superintendence of Alleyn fell into decay soon after their completion, and those replacing them suffered much during the Civil War, when troops were quartered in the chapel, who not only defaced the walls and desecrated the altar, but melted down the leaden coffins enshrined in it to convert the material into bullets. After the death of Charles I., whose cause had been espoused by the fellows, all the revenues and lands of the college were confiscated by Cromwell, but on the accession of Charles II. they were restored to their owners, and they have never since been tampered with.

The ancient college buildings have been well restored, and retain the old entrance-gates of finely wrought iron surmounted by the crest and motto of the founder. They are grouped about a central square, and consist of a chapel, in the chancel of which Edward Alleyn is buried, a dining-hall, and an audit room, in which is an interesting collection {134} of portraits, a library containing more than five thousand volumes, a schoolroom, and a kitchen. Adjoining the quadrangle, on the south-west, is the comparatively modern picture-gallery, built after the designs of Sir John Soane for the reception of a fine collection of pictures bequeathed to the college in 1811 by Sir Francis Bourgeois, on the singular condition that he and his friends, Monsieur and Madame Desenfans, from whom he had inherited the paintings, should be buried near them. Their remains rest in a mausoleum connected with the gallery, that was thrown open to the public in 1817, and contains, amongst many other priceless treasures, masterpieces by Rembrandt, Murillo, Velasquez, Gainsborough, and Sir Joshua Reynolds. The new school buildings at Dulwich were built under the superintendence of Sir Charles Barry after the radical change in the constitution of the college, and were opened in 1870. They include a noble central block with a spacious hall, a lecture-theatre and library, whilst two wings connected with them afford accommodation for a large staff of masters and some eight hundred boys.

[Sidenote: Sydenham]

Although the fame of its college and gallery has long since eclipsed that of its spa, Dulwich was at one time much frequented by the wealthy citizens of London, who resorted there to drink the waters of a spring near the Green Man Inn, the site of which was later occupied by the private school of Dr. Glennie, pulled down in its turn in 1825, in which Lord Byron was a pupil for two years. There was a rival well in the neighbouring hamlet of Sydenham {135} that was even more popular, but all traces of both are now lost, and there is absolutely nothing about the densely populated neighbourhood dominated by the Crystal Palace, to recall the days when Campbell lived in the old house still standing on Peak Hill, where he wrote 'Gertrude of Wyoming,' 'O'Connor's Child,' and the 'Battle of the Baltic.' The view from the terrace of the palace itself is of course much the same in its general features as that upon which the poet looked down, but the forest in which he used to wander, that gave its name to Forest Hill, is replaced by a sea of villas with no special character about them. Fortunately the palace, in spite of the north wing having been destroyed by fire in 1866, is a dignified-looking structure. It was built with the materials and partly on the plan of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the public are to be congratulated on the fact that its three hundred acres of grounds preserve some of their original rural character when the district was one of the most beautiful near London.

Anerley, once famed for its tea-gardens; Gypsy Hill, long the haunt of Zingari squatters; Norwood, or the wood north of Croydon; Streatham, long the home of Mrs. Piozzi, with whom Dr. Johnson often stayed; and Penge, that appears in an early nineteenth-century map as a town with one inn, the Crooked Billet, were all for many centuries outlying settlements, each with a distinctive charm of its own, the last-named set in the midst of a wide-stretching common crossed by the Croydon Canal with many picturesque locks, now replaced by the {136} iron road, the levelling influence of which is apparent on every side.

[Sidenote: Hayes]

From the somewhat melancholy fate that has overtaken so much of Kent and Surrey, the wildly beautiful Keston Common has so far escaped, and the villages of Hayes and Keston, both on its north-western edge, are still unspoiled. The former has a well-restored Early English church, its Georgian rectory is a fine example of the domestic architecture of its period, and near to it is the celebrated Hayes Place, built in 1757 by the great orator and statesman, Lord Chatham, whose favourite home it was. In it, two years after its completion, was born his even more famous son, William Pitt the younger, whose childhood was passed in a small house connected with Hayes Place by a covered-in passage, for his father was already suffering from the depression which so often clouded his happiness, and, as related by Horace Walpole, who was a frequent guest of Lord Chatham, the harassed statesman 'could not bear his children under the same roof, nor communication from room to room, nor whatever he thought promoted noise.' When in 1766 the elder Pitt inherited another property elsewhere Hayes Place was sold to the Honourable Thomas Walpole, but its previous owner was taken ill soon afterwards, and entreated the purchaser to let him have it back. He was convinced, he said, that he could recover nowhere else, and his whim was humoured, with the best results. Lord Chatham returned to his old home, which was his chief residence until his death. There he received George II. {137} and George III., as well as the leading politicians of the day; and there the young General Wolfe dined with him on the eve of sailing for Canada. The younger William Pitt was now the constant companion of the 'oracle of Hayes,' as his father was affectionately called by his intimates, imbibing from him no doubt much of the practical wisdom that from the first distinguished him; and he it was who had the melancholy privilege of carrying the stricken minister from the House of Lords when he fell down insensible after his noble speech against the unworthy terms of peace proposed by the Duke of Richmond. The dying statesman was taken back to Hayes Place, where in a small room on the ground floor he breathed his last four weeks later.

After the death of Lord Chatham, Hayes Place was sold, and since then it has changed hands many times, but fortunately its various owners have respected it for the sake of its memories, and but for the addition of a new entrance-hall it remains practically what it was during the occupancy of its first owner. It is the same with the stables, that are some little distance from the house, which have been kept as they were when the old earl and his sons used daily to go down to inspect the horses, and in one corner of the yard is a platform from which, according to tradition, William Pitt the younger used to rehearse his speeches in the presence of his father and the rest of the household.

Keston village, originally a dependency of the manor of the same name that was once the property {138} of Bishop Odo of Bayeux, consists of a few old houses and cottages, some grouped about the Red Cross Inn, also known as Keston Mark, possibly because it is situated on an ancient boundary, others on the common near a picturesque windmill. Its church, a humble little sanctuary, with a nave and chancel only, contains a fine Norman arch, possibly a relic of an earlier building, and in its quiet graveyard rests the novelist Mrs. Craik, better known as Miss Muloch.

[Sidenote: Holwood House]

On Keston Common, in a spring known as Cæsar's Well, rises the Ravensbourne, which widens close by into a series of ponds overshadowed by venerable trees, and near to them, within the grounds of Holwood House, are the remains of a Roman camp in which, according to some authorities, Aulus Plautius awaited the coming of the Emperor Claudius to receive the homage of the conquered Britons. Whether there be any foundation for this belief or not, there appears at one time to have been an important Roman settlement on Holwood Hill, a complete villa, the foundations of a temple, and many bricks and tiles having been unearthed at different times. Keston is, however, now chiefly celebrated for its connection with William Pitt, who lived for many years in a house that occupied the site of the present mansion in Holwood Park. Even when still a child living on his father's estate at Hayes, Pitt longed, as he often told his friends, 'to call the wood of Holwood his own,' and great was his delight when, in 1785, two years after he became Prime Minister, he was able to purchase it. The table at {139} which he used to write is still preserved in Holwood House, and the park was laid out by him. Many of its trees were planted by his own hand, and others, already venerable when he became their owner, are associated with interesting incidents of his career. One noble wide-spreading oak near the chief entrance to the park is specially revered, because of the tradition that Pitt and William Wilberforce were seated beneath it when they arranged the opening of the campaign against slavery, a fact commemorated by a quotation from one of the latter's letters that is cut in the back of a stone seat marking their resting-place, placed in position by Lord Stanhope in 1862. 'I well remember,' said the philanthropist, 'after a conversation with Mr. Pitt, in the open air, on the root of an old tree at Holwood, just above the steep descent into the vale of Keston, I resolved to give notice, on a fit occasion, to bring forward the abolition of the slave-trade.' The important meeting probably took place in 1787, and Wilberforce was often at Holwood House during the first few of the nineteen years' struggle thus inaugurated, finding distraction from his ever accumulating worries in aiding his host in his amateur woodcraft. In his diary for April 7, 1790, for instance, he records how he sallied forth with Pitt and Grenville, then Speaker of the House of Commons, 'armed with bill-hooks, cutting new walks from one large tree to another through the thickets,' neither of them dreaming how soon the beautiful estate would cease to belong to their host who, a little later, was compelled to part with it. It was {140} sold for £15,000, a very large sum for those days, and, after changing hands more than once, was bought by a Mr. John Ward, who, with little respect for its memories, pulled down the old house to make room for an ornate villa in the Italian style, and cleared away much of the woods that had been the Prime Minister's especial pride.

[Sidenote: West Wickham]

Though not quite so picturesquely situated as Keston, the neighbouring villages of Farnborough and Downe--the former associated with the name of Sir John Lubbock, who lived for some years at High Elms, the latter with that of Charles Darwin, who long resided at Downe House--have something of its quiet charm. West Wickham, too, though it has unfortunately recently been discovered by the jerry-builder, is still a pretty place, the older cottages and farms clustering about Wickham Court, erected on the site of the original manor-house in the reign of Edward III. by Sir Henry Heydon, but almost entirely rebuilt in the time of Henry VIII. The Heydons were near relations of Anne Boleyn, who is said to have passed some of her happiest days at Wickham Court when her royal suitor was courting her, a tradition confirmed by the true-lovers' knot in which her initials and Henry's are intertwined, engraved on one of the windows in the dining-hall. Very often, probably, the enamoured pair paced to and fro on the smooth bowling-green or on the long grass walk, still known as Anne Boleyn's, between the dense yew hedges, that remain unchanged to this day. Sometimes, too, it is related, the fair Anne would await the coming of her lover in a little Gothic {141} tower, to which a subterranean corridor gave access, and the two may possibly have explored together the secret passages that led beneath the grounds of the mansion to Hayes Common and elsewhere. A new entrance was made to Wickham Court by Sir Charles Farnaby, the ancestor of the present owner, but the rest of the house is much what it was when completed in the sixteenth century, and is a fine example of Tudor domestic architecture. The massive oaken door, with its huge iron bolt, may be the very one that was so often flung open to admit the guests of the Heydons, including Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, to pass through to the banquets held in the great hall. It bears the marks of many a siege, and must have received very rough usage in the troublous times of the Stuarts, when the gloomy dungeon beneath the north-west turret served sometimes as a prison to the enemies, sometimes as a hiding-place to the friends of the owner of the property.

The church of West Wickham, which, with the creeper-clad turrets and chimneys of the court form a charming group when seen from a distance, was rebuilt at the same time as the latter by Sir Henry Heydon, and owns some fine sixteenth-century windows, including one representing scenes from the legend of St. Catherine. There are also some well-preserved monuments and brasses in the nave and chancel, and in the churchyard, entered by an ancient lych gate, with a tiled roof, are some interesting old tombs.

In a wood not far from West Wickham is the grand old hollow oak painted by Millais as the {142} hiding-place of his 'Proscribed Royalist,' and the village itself is associated with the memory of many other famous men. Before Lord Chatham bought the mansion at Hayes in which his celebrated son was born, he lived for some years at South Lodge, and in a smaller house dwelt the Latin chronicler Gilbert West, who was often visited in his retreat by William Pitt the younger, Lord Lyttelton, and the eccentric merchant poet Richard Glover.

[Sidenote: Addington]

Another ancient and still picturesque village of Surrey is the beautifully situated Addington, the name of which is supposed to signify the town of the Edings, though who these Edings were history does not say. The manor is referred to in Doomsday Book as being held under the king by Tezelm, a cook in the royal service, and from that time to the accession of George III. the owners of the property were bound to observe the quaint custom of preparing a dish, or providing a substitute to do so, for the monarch's consumption on the day of his coronation. The last time the strange ceremony was performed was in 1760, when Mr. Spencer, then lord of the manor, presented to the newly crowned monarch a dish of pottage made according to an ancient recipe, and containing an extraordinary number of ingredients.

Early in the fifteenth century a manor-house that was more of a stronghold than a private home, was erected at Addington, on what is still known as Castle Hill, but it was pulled down in 1780 and replaced by a less ambitious building on another site, that later became a summer residence of the Archbishops of {143} Canterbury, to whom the property passed by purchase in 1807. With the chapel and library, added in 1830, it now presents a very dignified appearance, and is surrounded by a beautiful park.

The parish church of Addington, though it has been much modified by restoration, retains a fine Norman arch dividing the nave from the chancel, some early Gothic arcades and three very ancient windows, with a good modern one to the memory of Archbishop Tait, who with his wife and one of his sons lie buried in the churchyard, close to Archbishop Longley. In the chancel are some quaint old monuments, notably one to some members of the Leigh family, and several interesting brasses, including that to the memory of Thomas Hatteclyff, who was one of the Masters of the Household of Henry VIII., and died in 1540.

There is little very distinctive about the modern village of Addington, though it retains a few quaint old cottages, and is celebrated for its inhabitants' love of flowers. It is, however, set down in very beautiful scenery, that seems likely long to remain unspoiled. Within easy reach of it and of Croydon, the former residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, are several other pretty villages and hamlets, including Shirley, with a good modern church, finely situated on the edge of a breezy common; Woodside, that is rapidly losing its rural character through its proximity to the racecourse and railway; and Addiscombe, once famous for a fine old mansion, long the residence of Lord Liverpool, which was pulled down in 1863. When Lord Liverpool, who {144} became Prime Minister in 1809, was at Addiscombe, his predecessor in that office, William Pitt, was often his guest, and the story goes that on one occasion the latter had a narrow escape from sudden death, for he and a party of politicians, who had been dining with the Tory statesman, dashed through the turnpike gates, without paying the toll. The keeper, supposing them to be highwaymen, fired his blunderbuss at the offenders, but with such bad aim that no one was hurt--somewhat, it was rumoured at the time, to the regret of Pitt's many enemies, who would gladly have heard of his removal from their path.

In a charming district east of Croydon are several other still picturesque villages that are gradually being drawn into the ever-widening circle of outlying London, amongst which must be specially noted Sanderstead, perched on the brink of the chalk-downs some 550 feet above the sea level. Mentioned in the will of its Anglo-Saxon owner in 871 as Sansterstede, the manor was in the possession one hundred and ninety-five years later of the abbey of St. Peter's, Westminster, and in the family of the Wigsells, to whom it now belongs, is preserved an interesting memorial of that ownership in the form of a deed bearing the abbey seal, recording the exchange of half a hide of land for a piece of equal value at Papeholt.

[Sidenote: Purley]

Although it has unfortunately been somewhat spoiled by restoration, the general appearance of the fifteenth-century parish church of Sanderstead, with its square tower and shingled spire, is much what it {145} was when, in 1676, the mansion replacing the old manor-house--that is said to have been constructed of the materials of a twelfth-century monastery--was completed, and amongst the monuments preserved in it are three of considerable antiquarian interest: that of Joanna Ownstead, who died in 1587; that of her brother, John Ownstead, who was for forty years in the service of Queen Elizabeth, and passed away in 1601; and that to Mary Bedell bearing the date 1655. Within a short walk of Sanderstead is the village of Purley, generally believed to be named after William de Pirelea, who bought the land on which it and the mansion known as Purley Lodge are built, some time in the twelfth century, from the abbot of the neighbouring Monastery of Hide, of which no trace now remains. The date of the building of Purley Lodge is not known, but it is famous as having been the residence of John Bradshaw, who was President of the High Court of Justice that condemned Charles I. to death. Later it was the home of William Tooke, who often received in it his more celebrated friend, the Rev. John Horne, who took the name of his host in gratitude for the kindness shown to him in the long struggle with the Government during the War of Independence. After the imprisonment of Horne for getting up a subscription for the widows and orphans of those who fell at Lexington, or, as he expressed it, were murdered by the king's troops, Tooke gave him an asylum at Purley, and it was there that he completed the quaint _Epea Ptroenta_, to which he gave the sub-title of the 'Diversions of Purley.' On his {146} death William Tooke bequeathed £8000 and Purley Lodge to Horne, who, though he had a house at Wimbledon, where he died in 1812, was often at Purley. He wished to be buried in the garden of the Lodge, and had prepared his grave and tombstone, the latter bearing the inscription--'John Horne Tooke, late Proprietor and now occupier of this spot, born in June 1736, died in--aged--contented and grateful'--but his relatives disregarded his instructions, and he rests in the parish where he breathed his last.

Other still secluded hamlets of north-east Surrey are Farley, with a very interesting Norman and Early English church, and a quaint old moated manor-house, now a farm, and Warlingham, long celebrated for its beautiful common, that was, alas, enclosed in 1864 with the exception of five acres that were reserved for a recreation-ground, the latter with a well-restored old church of uncertain date, the first, according to tradition, in which the service of Edward VI. was used.

[Sidenote: Caterham]

Warlingham was one of the four hams or homes on the hill occupied before the Conquest by the Saxon tribe known as Wearlingas, the other three having been Woldingham, Chelsham, and Caterham, near to all of which extensive remains have been found of early encampments and defences. Woldingham, that gives its name to a new suburb close by, is still a village, though its doom is evidently sealed, and it is the same with Chelsham, but Caterham has already grown into a town. Picturesquely built, partly in a beautiful valley and partly on the {147} slope of a hill, it retains, however, some interesting relics of the long-ago, including a well-restored fourteenth-century church, and all four of the ancient hams are in touch with beautiful scenery, lofty and breezy commons commanding fine views alternating with well-wooded undulating districts.

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