CHAPTER VII

CROYDON, CARSHALTON, EPSOM, AND OTHER SUBURBS IN NORTH-WEST SURREY

[Sidenote: Croydon]

Situated near the source of the Wandle at the entrance to a beautiful valley that is shut in on the east by wooded hills, and on the west and south-west by breezy uplands, the prosperous modern town of Croydon occupies the site of a very ancient settlement that owned before the Conquest a church and a mill, as proved by the detailed description given of it in Doomsday Book. Now one of the largest and most important, though by no means the most picturesque of the Surrey suburbs of London, Croydon, the name of which is variously interpreted to mean the chalk hill, the crooked or winding valley, and the village of the cross, is associated from very early times with the history of the Church in England. Its manor, the value of which was assessed at the Conquest at sixteen hides and one virgate, was given by William I. to Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury, to whose successors it long belonged, though the palace that in course of time replaced the ancient manor-house was deserted by them in the middle of the eighteenth century and {149} was later altogether superseded by that at Addington already referred to.

Combining, as did most of the episcopal residences of mediæval times, the strength of a fortress and the latest refinements of domestic architecture, the palace of Croydon before its partial destruction must have been a kind of epitome of the various styles that succeeded each other between the eleventh and eighteenth centuries, or, to quote the words of Archbishop Herring writing in 1754, 'an aggregate of buildings of different castes and ages.' Fortunately it still retains its three most distinctive features, the banqueting-hall, the guard-room, and the chapel, with some few relics of the many outbuildings for the use of its owner's retainers, and those of his guests, that once covered a vast area. In spite of all its manifest advantages, however, it was never a favourite residence of the archbishops, who, though many of them spent large sums upon it, are said to have complained constantly of its unhealthy situation. Henry VIII., too, often spoke of it in a disparaging way, and Lord Bacon once declared it to be 'a very obscure and dark place.'

Of the existing buildings the oldest is the guard-chamber, with a fine stone ribbed roof and a beautiful oriel window, a true gem of Gothic architecture. Built between 1396 and 1415 by Archbishop Arundel--who is chiefly remembered for his devotion to Henry Bolingbroke, at whose coronation as Henry IV. he officiated in 1399, and for his bitter hostility to the Lollards--the guard-chamber was the scene, in 1587, of the stately ceremony when {150} Queen Elizabeth gave to Sir Christopher Hatton the seals of office of Lord Chancellor of England, that dignity having been refused by the then reigning Archbishop Whitgift, whose memory is held in high honour at Croydon as the founder of the famous hospital and other charities bearing his name.

Of somewhat later date than the guard-chamber, for it was built by Archbishop Stafford between 1443 and 1452, and restored in the seventeenth century by Archbishops Laud and Juxon, the great hall is still, in spite of much defacement, a noble structure, with a fine timber roof and a beautiful late Gothic porch. It is associated with many important historic memories, for in it, when in residence at Croydon, the archbishops held their court, receiving visits from the reigning sovereign and the great nobles and statesmen. It was there that Archbishop Cranmer, in 1553, condemned the heretic John Firth to the stake, at which he was himself to suffer three short years afterwards; there that Queen Mary, with Cardinal Reginald Pole as her adviser, presided over her first council after her beloved husband had left her and she had realised how hopeless was the task of winning his affections; and there her successor, Elizabeth, gave frequent audience to Archbishop Parker, whom she had made primate soon after her accession, and whom she sorely embarrassed by expecting him to give her and her whole court hospitality for several days at a time. In the great hall at Croydon, too, the virgin queen received the French ambassador after the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, taking his breath away by {151} introducing him to his fellow-guests as the man who had plotted to bring about her own death; and it was there, perhaps, that the doomed Archbishop Laud penned much of the journal that reveals the secret springs of his severely criticised actions.

To Croydon, after the see of Canterbury had been vacant for fifteen years, came the newly appointed Archbishop William Juxon, the faithful friend who had ministered to Charles I. to the bitter end, in spite of the contempt the ill-fated monarch had shown for his wise counsels; and later the palace was tenanted for a few weeks at a time by Archbishop Sheldon, builder of the theatre named after him at Oxford, and by his successors: Sancroft, suspended in 1689 for his refusal to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary; Tillotson, the famous preacher who attended Lord Russell on the scaffold; Tenison, Herring, Hutton, and Dr. Cornwallis; none of whom, except Archbishop Herring, who wrote of it in loving terms, showed any affection for their Surrey home.

The chapel of Croydon Palace, built under Archbishops Laud and Juxon between 1633 and 1663, occupies the site of a much earlier place of worship that is often referred to in ecclesiastical records. No trace of it, however, remains, and its successor has suffered much in the various vicissitudes through which it has passed. It was divided from the see of Canterbury in 1780, and secularised in 1807, after which it served for some time as an armoury for the local militia, and was put to other even less dignified usages. In 1887 it was bought, with the {152} banqueting-hall, by the Duke of Newcastle, who presented both to the sisters of the Church Extension Society, and it is now an orphanage under the care of the Kilburn sisters.

The Saxon church of Croydon, or Croidene, as it was then spelt, referred to in the Doomsday Survey--whose priest, Ælffic by name, was one of the witnesses to a will still extant dated 960--probably rose, as did its Norman successor, from an islet in the midst of the head-waters of the Wandle, which united to form that tributary of the Thames in what was known as My Lord's or Laud's Pond in the palace grounds. Near to this church were a great water-mill and a huge dam, but this was not the mill of Doomsday Book, all trace of which is lost. The huts of the original settlement, of which a few interesting relics were discovered when the excavations were made for the railway, probably extended from the church in the direction of Beddington, but those that formed the nucleus of the new town, and were chiefly occupied by charcoal-burners, were grouped near the church on the Haling side. Until the completion in 1850 of the admirable modern system of drainage, the whole of the now healthy district of Croydon was frequently flooded, and for several centuries the inundations were looked upon as supernatural visitations that could not be averted, but were tokens of impending evil or good fortune. References to this strange belief are of frequent occurrence in the contemporary press, the seventeenth-century antiquary John Aubrey, to quote but one {153} case in point, writing: 'Between this place (Caterham) and Coulsdon ... issues out sometimes a bourne which overflows and runs down to Croydon. This is held by the inhabitants to be ominous, and prognosticating something remarkable approaching, as it did before the happy restoration of Charles II. in 1660; also before the Plague of London in 1665.'

The walls of the church in which the priest Ælffic officiated were skilfully incorporated in the Gothic building that was begun in 1382, completed in 1442, and well restored in the sixteenth century; but unfortunately the latter, with the exception of the Norman walls and Early English tower, was destroyed by fire in 1869. A new building, however, soon rose out of the ruins of its predecessor, in which these two distinctive features were skilfully retained, and the lines of the ancient fabric were followed; but, strange to say, little attention was given to the old monuments, amongst which those to Archbishops Grindal, Whitgift, and Sheldon were the most remarkable, all of which were seriously damaged by the fire, which also destroyed several interesting epitaphs and some quaint frescoes that were discovered in 1845 beneath the whitewash disfiguring the walls.

The only other building of note in modern Croydon is the Whitgift Hospital, erected between 1596 and 1599 by the archbishop after whom it is named, for the reception of twenty-two old men and sixteen old women, and for the education of twenty poor children, ten boys and ten girls, who were under the care of a warden and schoolmaster, the latter also {154} acting as chaplain. Well restored in 1860, and supplemented later by a modern college that receives as many as three hundred boys at a time, the actual hospital still presents very much the appearance it did during its founder's lifetime, and is a good example of Elizabethan architecture. In its hall, a spacious apartment with some fine stained glass, is preserved a black-letter Bible, said to have been given to the school by Queen Elizabeth; and in the room known as the treasury above the entrance-gate are several valuable MSS., including the letters-patent granted to Whitgift.

[Sidenote: Carshalton]

To the extensive parish of Croydon belong a number of outlying villages that were not long ago picturesque riverside hamlets, but are now rapidly developing into populous suburbs, with little to distinguish them from each other. There is still, however, a certain rural charm about Waddon, with its ancient mill, and Beddington, with its well-restored fourteenth-century church, in which are some interesting monuments to the Carews, retains something of the dignity that characterised it when its hall was the seat of that famous family. The history of Beddington can be traced back to Roman times, for near to it have been found the remains of a villa and foundry, with other relics left behind them by the conquerors from Italy; its manor is referred to in Doomsday Book as owning a church and two mills, and it was the property in the early fourteenth century of Sir Nicholas Carew. Forfeited in the reign of Henry VIII. by another Sir Nicholas, who was beheaded in 1539 for his {155} supposed share in the Cardinal Pole conspiracy, it was restored to his son by Queen Elizabeth, who was often the guest of the new owner. The manor-house was either rebuilt or added to for her reception, and is said to have been a grand example of the architecture of the time, but it was unfortunately pulled down in 1709, with the exception of the great hall that was preserved in its successor, and now forms the nucleus of an orphanage for girls that was completed in 1866, its site, with the still existing buildings of the Carew mansion and twenty-two acres of its grounds, having been bought by the corporation of that institution in 1857. Not far from Beddington is the still pretty village of Wallington, famous for the beautiful gardens laid out in the low-lying meadows in which it is situated by the enthusiastic botanist Alfred Smee; and adjoining it is the more important Carshalton, that, in spite of much building in the neighbourhood, retains several picturesque features, notably one or two old mills on the Wandle. Known before the Conquest as Oulton, or the Old Town, a name implying great antiquity, Carshalton is supposed to have received the prefix now distinguishing it because of its position on cross-roads. In the Doomsday Survey no less than five manors are mentioned as included in Oulton that were later consolidated into one, and were owned until the time of Stephen by the powerful De Mandeville family. Confiscated then because of its owner's devotion to the cause of the Empress Maud, it has since changed hands many times, and of the ancient manor-house, {156} associated with many memories of Norman times, not a trace now remains. To atone for this, however, in Carshalton Park--soon, alas! to be built over--is a fine eighteenth-century mansion, now a Roman Catholic convent, in which long lived the great lawyer Lord Hardwicke, replacing a much earlier building that was for some years the home of Dr. Ratcliffe, founder of the library at Oxford bearing his name. Another interesting old house in Carshalton is Stone Court, now the rectory, that once formed part of a much larger mansion, pulled down in 1800, that belonged at one time to Nicholas Gwynesford, Sheriff of Surrey in the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Henry VII., and who was also Esquire of the Body to the two latter monarchs.

The church of Carshalton was founded in the fourteenth century, but with the exception of the lower part of the tower, it has been entirely rebuilt. It contains, however, a very fine fifteenth-century brass to the memory of Thomas Ellymbridge, a servitor of Cardinal Morton, and several interesting old monuments, including one to the Nicholas Gwynesford mentioned above, and one to Sir William Scawen, the devoted friend of William III., who owned Stone Court from 1729 to his death. Close to the churchyard is another relic of the long-ago, a railed-in and arched-over spring, known as Queen Anne Boleyn's well, because of a tradition that its water suddenly gushed forth beneath the feet of her horse as she was riding with her husband from Nonsuch Palace to Beddington, a legend not borne {157} out by historical fact, for the palace was not begun until three years after Henry VIII.'s second wife was beheaded. Probably the spring was in use long before the sixteenth century, as it is but one of several feeders of the Wandle that flows through Beddington, widening in the centre of the old village into a pond, that is referred to by Ruskin in the _Crown of Wild Olives_, near to which there used to be several picturesque old inns that were much frequented in coaching days by Londoners on their way to and from Epsom races.

[Sidenote: Sutton]

Some three miles from Carshalton, on the edge of the undulating downs, that under different names extend for many miles on every side, is the now populous town of Sutton, the last halting-place on the way to the world-famous racecourse, that still owns the ancient though modernised Cock Inn that is associated with so many memories, and the approaches to which are still crowded with vehicles of every variety during the race-weeks. The property in Saxon days of Chertsey Abbey, Sutton, has a long and well-authenticated history. Its manor remained in the hands of the monks until 1538, when it was given with those of Epsom, Coulsden, and Horley to Sir Nicholas Carew, who, as related above, already owned the neighbouring Beddington. Since then it has changed hands many times; in 1845 it was bought by a certain Thomas Alcock, who was in a great measure responsible for the conversion of a secluded hamlet, deserted by all but the resident farmers and their dependants, into a busy and prosperous suburb.

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Two still beautiful though rapidly growing villages, within easy reach of Sutton, are Cheam and Ewell, both of which were long in close touch with the famous Nonsuch Palace, part of the site of which is now occupied by a nineteenth-century castellated mansion in the Elizabethan style, the only relics of its predecessor being the foundations of the banqueting-hall, that still remain in an orchard, near the long avenue of trees leading up to the entrance of the new house, that was once part of the now built over park.

The village of Cheam, situated on high ground commanding a fine view of the Downs, clusters about a modern church with a good spire, close to which is preserved the chancel of a much more ancient place of worship, containing some interesting monuments, including one to Lord John Lumley, the famous book collector, whose library was bought by James I. on the death of its owner in 1609, and is now in the British Museum, whilst in the care of the rector of Cheam parish are some exceptionally fine brasses, that were removed to preserve them from injury when the old church was destroyed.

The manor of Cheam belonged at the Conquest to the see of Canterbury, but it was divided somewhat later into two parts by Archbishop Lanfranc, who retained the eastern half himself, giving the western to the abbot of Canterbury Monastery. Both were, however, confiscated by Henry VIII., and granted by Queen Elizabeth to Lord John Lumley, who held them till his death, when they {159} passed to his nephew, Henry Lloyd. The two old manor-houses were pulled down in the eighteenth century, but one of them is represented by a modern residence, known as Lower Cheam House. More interesting, however, is, or rather was until quite recently, the early Tudor homestead, bearing the name of Whitehall, containing a room called the council-chamber, because Queen Elizabeth is said to have once presided in it over her council when she was resident at Nonsuch Palace, which, according to local tradition, was connected with Cheam by an underground passage that had an entrance from a cellar beneath Whitehall. In this cellar, that probably served as a larder, the persecuted Protestants used to meet for worship in the reign of Queen Mary, and later, by a strange irony of fate, it was turned to account for the same purpose by the Roman Catholics of the neighbourhood.

[Sidenote: Ewell]

Ewell, the name of which is a corruption of the Saxon Ætwelle, signifying the village on the well, so called because it is close to the springs forming the source of a stream known as the Hogsmill, that joins the Thames at Kingston, was but a short time ago a secluded village, but is now rapidly growing into a popular suburb. Unfortunately its characteristic old market-hall has been pulled down, and of the ancient church the tower alone remains, but in its modern successor are preserved several old monuments, tablets, and brasses commemorating residents of days gone by, and in the churchyard are some ancient tombs with curious {160} inscriptions. [Sidenote: Nonsuch Palace] Ewell, however, owes its chief distinction to its nearness to the site of Nonsuch Palace, and the whole surrounding district is full of memories connected with the Tudor sovereigns. Situated in the still sparsely populated parish of Cuddington, that owned a manor-house and church at the time of the Doomsday Survey, the history of which can be traced down to the sixteenth century, the property was acquired in 1539 by Henry VIII., who added it to his Hampton Court estate. With his usual reckless lavishness he resolved to clear away all the existing buildings to make room for a palace that should excel all his other residences. He enclosed sixteen hundred acres as pleasure grounds, and brought down from London a whole army of architects and workmen, under whose auspices quickly rose up a truly beautiful structure, to which the name of Nonsuch was given, because, said its proud owner, it had no equal. It was not quite completed when Henry's career was cut short by death, and his son, Edward VI., seems to have cared nothing for it. He simply handed it over to the care of the then Master of the Revels, Sir Thomas Carwardine, who evidently appreciated it greatly, for the story goes that when Queen Mary came to the throne and instructed him to vacate her palace at Nonsuch, he at first refused to leave it. Indeed, he remained till the royal retainers arrived, and many unseemly quarrels took place between them and their servants about trivial details such as the division of the produce of the royal gardens. There were armed encounters in the park {161} before her majesty took over the custody of the property, to which, however, she was really as indifferent as her brother had been. She actually decided that the best way to save herself from further trouble connected with it would be to pull down the palace and sell the materials. It was saved from this untimely fate only through the generosity of the Earl of Arundel, who for love of his former master, who had taken such pride in it, persuaded the queen to exchange it for certain fair lands in his possession elsewhere. The transfer having been duly arranged, the new owner, as related by his biographer Lyons, proceeded 'fully to finish the house in building, reparations, pavements, and gardens in as complete and perfect sort as by the first intent and meaning of the King.' In it, thirty years after the first stone was laid, the Earl of Arundel entertained Queen Elizabeth and her court for a week, presenting her before she left with a costly set of plate. So greatly, indeed, did the maiden queen enjoy herself at Nonsuch that she longed to become its owner, and when a few years later it passed from the possession of her host to that of his son-in-law, Lord Lumley, she made overtures to the latter for its purchase, which had, of course, the force of a command. During the rest of her life Elizabeth was often at the palace, and from it many important state papers, and even more interesting private letters, were dated. It was there that took place the remarkable interview with her disgraced favourite, the Earl of Essex, after his return from Holland on Michaelmas Eve 1599, that {162} is so vividly described by Rowland Whyte in an oft-quoted letter to Sir Robert Sydney, in which he says: 'At about ten o'clock in the morning my Lord of Essex lighted at Court Gate in post, and made all hast up to the Presence, and so to the Privy Chamber, and stayed not till he came to the Queen's Bedchamber, where he found the Queen all newly up, the hair about her face; he kneeled unto her, kissed her hands, and had some private speech with her, which seemed to give him great contentment for coming from her Majesty to go shift himself in his chamber, he was very pleasant, and thanked God, though he had suffered much trouble amid storms abroad, he found a sweet calm at home. 'Tis much wondered at here,' comments the writer, 'that he went so boldly to her Majesty's presence, she not being ready, and he so full of dirt and mire, that his face was full of it.' It was this very boldness, as Essex knew full well, that was his one chance with his angry mistress, but this time it did not serve him long. The memory was still fresh with them both of the bitter quarrel six months before, when Elizabeth, stung to the quick by his insolent assertion that 'her conditions were as crooked as her carcase,' had boxed his ears and told him to go and be hanged, and on the very night of his arrival at Nonsuch, after the apparent reconciliation, the earl was ordered to consider himself a prisoner. A few days later he left the palace in custody, and the next year he was beheaded in the Tower, all the appeals he had addressed to the woman, to whom, in spite of all his plots against {163} her, he pretended to the last to have been devoted, having been in vain.

On the death of Queen Elizabeth James I. gave Nonsuch Palace to his consort, Queen Anne, and later Charles I. and Henrietta Maria were often there, but its days of glory were already over. It was confiscated by Parliament after the death of the king, but restored to the Crown on the accession of Charles II., who, when his widowed mother had passed away, gave it and the park in which it stood to his mistress, Lady Castlemaine, whom a little later he made Duchess of Cleveland. She, alas, valued not at all the memories of the historic building, but as soon as it was legally secured to her, she had it pulled down, let out much of the park in plots for building, and sold the deer that used to wander about in it. Thus suddenly ended the brief career of Henry VIII's dream palace, that is but poorly represented by its successor, a building erected in the early nineteenth century after the designs of the then popular architect, Sir Jeffrey Wyattville. Part of the once beautiful park is now occupied by the suburb of Worcester, but the grounds immediately surrounding the new residence, through which there is a public footpath to Cheam and Ewell, still retain much of their original charm, and some of the older trees may possibly have been amongst those beneath which Queen Elizabeth delighted to walk.

[Sidenote: Epsom]

Although it can scarcely, strictly speaking, be said to form a part of outlying London, the town of Epsom is so intimately associated with the {164} metropolis, to which it has from first to last owed its prosperity, that an account of it may well be included in a book dealing as much with the memories of the past as with the attractions of the present. Its history can be traced back to the seventh century, when it is said to have been the residence of the holy abbess, St. Ebba, after whom it is named, the daughter of King Ethelred the Avenger, and sister of Kings Oswald and Oswy, whose story is very variously told, certain chroniclers declaring that she suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Danes after disfiguring herself to escape a worse fate; others that she died peacefully at a great age, surrounded by her devoted nuns. However that may be, no trace now remains of the home of St. Ebba at Epsom, though some are of opinion that its site is occupied by the farm now known as the Court, replacing the manor-house that is referred to in the Doomsday Survey as an appanage of Chertsey Abbey, which also owned in the same district the manor of Horton, the homestead of which is now represented by an eighteenth-century mansion called Horton Place, two churches and two mills, with many acres of land. To these a park, now known as that of Woodcote, with 'right of free chase and free warren,' was added in the twelfth century, the whole property remaining in the hands of the abbot of Chertsey until 1538, when it was bought from him by Henry VIII., who, strange to say, actually paid for it. A few months afterwards it was given to Sir Nicholas Carew, who already owned so much real {165} estate in Surrey, and on his execution for treason in 1539 it reverted to the Crown. In 1589 it was bestowed by Queen Elizabeth on Edward D'Arcy, one of the Grooms of the Chamber, passing after his death through many different hands, at one time being owned by Mrs. Richard Evelyn, sister-in-law of the famous diarist.

For many centuries Epsom remained a secluded hamlet scarcely known to any one but the owners of the great houses in the neighbourhood, who delighted in its charming situation at the edge of the breezy Banstead Downs. The discovery early in the seventeenth century, however, of medicinal springs on the adjacent common inaugurated a complete change, and Epsom Spa soon became a formidable rival to Tunbridge Wells and Hampstead as a favourite resort of the _beau monde_ of the capital, who flocked to it in crowds to drink its waters and amuse themselves. In that entertaining storehouse of local information _The Worthies of England_, published in 1662, the Rev. Thomas Fuller gives a very graphic description of the finding of the springs at Epsom in 1618: 'One Henry Wicker,' he says, 'in a dry summer and great want of water for cattle, discovered in the concave of a horse or neat's footing some water standing ... with his pad staff he did dig a square hole about it and so departed. Returning the next day, with some difficulty he discovered the same place, and found the hole running over with most clear water. Yet,' he adds, 'the cattle, though tempted with thirst, would not drink {166} thereof, it having a mineral taste therin.' He then relates the gradual growth in popularity of the spring thus accidentally discovered, but he himself evidently had his doubts as to the real efficacy of the waters, for he remarks that he does not wonder the citizens coming to Epsom from the 'worst of smokes into the best of airs find in themselves a perfective alteration.'

In 1621 the lord of the manor had a fence put round the well and a rough shelter erected for the use of those who came to drink from it; but in spite of many efforts made by those interested in advertising its merits Epsom did not become really fashionable for another forty years, probably because the people of London were too much occupied by the political troubles of the day to be able to give much attention to other things. Soon after the Restoration however, the golden age of the Banstead Wells began: a great hall for balls and other entertainments, houses, inns, and shops sprang up as if by magic: regular services of coaches were established between London and the rapidly growing town on the downs; and all through the summer the approaches to the latter were crowded with the equipages of those in search of health or pleasure. Charles II. was very fond of going to Epsom with his court, and one special occasion was long remembered when he was accompanied by his consort Caroline of Braganza, his mistress, Lady Castlemaine, and his illegitimate son, the future Duke of Monmouth, then a handsome boy of twelve years old, who was born the very year of his grandfather's {167} death on the scaffold. The neglected queen, it is said, looked really beautiful for once, but for all that she was quite eclipsed by her rival in her husband's affections, who was triumphantly lovely. The king won all hearts by his gracious manner, and it was indeed impossible to help sympathising with him in his evident delight in the noble child, who kept close to him all day, and would have been a noble heir to the throne.

The popularity of Epsom was maintained throughout the whole of the seventeenth century, as proved by many references to its attractions in the contemporary press. John Toland, for instance, in a work published in the reign of Queen Anne, speaks of it as 'an enchanted camp ... where,' he quaintly observes, 'the rude, the sullen, the noisy, the affected, the peevish, the covetous, the litigious, the sharping, the proud, the prodigal, the impatient, and the impertinent become visible foils to the well-bred, prudent, modest, and good-humoured.' In the early years of the reign of George III., however, the efficacy of the Banstead waters began to be doubted, and changing fashions resulted in the abandonment of Epsom by the _beau monde_. All efforts to revive interest in the once beloved resort were unavailing, and though the mineral spring still exists in a private garden, its existence was soon practically forgotten. By a strange turn of the wheel of fortune, however, what the fickle goddess took away with one hand she gave back with the other, for thanks to Banstead Downs being the scene of what is looked upon as a national {168} event, the running of the annual races known as the Derby and the Oaks, Epsom has long occupied a more important position than it did even in the eighteenth century.

[Sidenote: Epsom Races]

According to local tradition James I., when resident at Nonsuch Palace, was the first to introduce horse-racing on the downs, but the earliest competitions referred to in the contemporary press were apparently between men, not horses. Pepys, writing as late as 1663, describes a foot-race between Lee, the Duke of Richmond's footman, and a certain Tyler, a famous runner. That horse-racing was practised in the reign of Charles I. is however, proved by the fact that in 1648 a meeting was held by the Royalists on Banstead Downs under pretence of looking on at it, on which occasion, as related by Clarendon in his _History of the Rebellion_, '600 horses were collected and sent to Reigate for the use of the King's adherents.'

Writing five years later, the dramatist Thomas Heywood says, 'Epsom is a place of great resort and commonly upon the market days all the countrye gentlemen appoint a friendly meeting ... to match their horses.' Charles II. was as fond of watching the racing as of attending the festivities at the spa, and it is generally supposed that it was his patronage that enabled Banstead to rival Newmarket in popular favour. However that may be, before the end of the eighteenth century the fame of the Epsom races had spread throughout the length and breadth of England, and advertisements {169} of the principal events appeared in all the principal newspapers of the day. In an August number of the _London Gazette_ for 1698, for instance, it is announced that the Banstead Downs Plate of £20 value will be run for on the 24th inst., being St. Bartholomew's Day; and the information is added that any horse may run for the said plate that shall be at Carshalton and certain other places specified, fourteen days before the Plate Day. Before many years of the eighteenth century had passed by Epsom had become practically the capital of the racing world, but the famous Derby and Oak Stakes were not instituted until 1779 and 1780. Both were founded by the then Earl of Derby, and were named, the former after him, the latter after his seat at Woodmansterne, a picturesque little village on the highest point of the Banstead Downs. As is well known, the May meeting, which lasts from the Tuesday to the Friday before Whitsuntide, during which these two great races are run, is the chief event of the racing year, and Derby Day is looked upon as a national festival, even members of Parliament taking a holiday in order to be present at the great event. A vast concourse of people assembles on the downs, and the scenes witnessed there and on the road to and from Epsom, that have been again and again eloquently described in poetry and prose, are without a parallel elsewhere. Scarcely less popular is the Oaks, often called the Ladies' Race, when only filly-foals are allowed to run, and the fair sex is always much in evidence among the spectators, but the {170} excitement is generally less than on the Derby Day. The grand-stand of Epsom, the finest in England, commands a magnificent prospect, extending across the beautiful undulating downs beyond Windsor Castle on one side and London on the other. There are, moreover, many other fine points of view from the higher portions of the common, and the town itself, though deserted by all but its comparatively few residents except in race week, retains even now a certain picturesque appearance, with its clock tower rising up in the main street. The once much frequented assembly-rooms are now divided up into shops, and of the ancient church, in which the aristocratic drinkers of the waters used to worship, the tower alone remains. There are, however, several well-preserved eighteenth-century mansions in the neighbourhood, including Woodcote House, in which is a room with a ceiling painted by Verrio, and Pitt Place, in which Thomas, the second Lord Lyttelton, died suddenly on November 27, 1779, at the very time, it is popularly believed, predicted by the ghost of a girl he had wronged, who appeared to him as he was going to rest three days before the end.

[Sidenote: Banstead]

The village of Banstead, that gives its name to the famous downs, and is associated with the memory of Hubert de Burgh, is finely situated 536 feet above the sea-level and commands a view even finer than that from the grand-stand on the racecourse. Its history can be traced back to Norman times, but it retains scarcely any relics of the past, its {171} ancient church having been almost entirely rebuilt and most of its old houses pulled down. It is, however, in touch with much charming scenery, and from it may be reached many beautiful hamlets still far beyond the furthermost limits of outlying London.

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