SHERE TO REIGATE
The Pilgrims' Way ran through Albury Park, passing close to the old
church and under the famous yew hedge, and crossed the clear trout
stream of the Tillingbourne by a ford still known as "Chantry Ford."
Here a noble avenue of lime trees brings us to Shere church, a building
as remarkable for the beauty of its situation as for its architectural
interest. The lovely Early English doorway, the heavy transitional
arches of the nave and the fourteenth-century chancel are still unhurt,
and among the fragments of old glass we recognise the flax-breaker,
which was the crest of the Brays, one of the oldest families in the
county, who are, we rejoice to think, still represented here. Shere
itself is one of the most charming villages in all this lovely
neighbourhood. For many years now it has been a favourite resort of
artistic and literary men, who find endless delight in the quiet beauty
of the surrounding country. Subjects for pen and pencil abound in all
directions; quaint old timbered houses, picturesque water-mills and
barns, deep ferny lanes shaded by overhanging trees, and exquisite
glimpses of heather-clad downs meet us at every turn. Fair as the scene
is, travellers are seldom seen in these hilly regions; and so complete
is the stillness, so pure the mountain air, that we might almost fancy
ourselves in the heart of the Highlands, instead of thirty miles from
town. Here it was, in the midst of the wild scenery of these Surrey
Hills, that a sudden end closed the life of a great prelate of our own
days, Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester. A granite cross at
Evershed's Rough, just below Lord Farrer's house at Abinger Hall, now
marks the spot where his horse stumbled and fell as he rode down the
hill towards Holmbury on that summer afternoon.
[Illustration: SHERE.]
[Illustration: CROSSWAYS FARM, NEAR WOTTON.[9]]
About a mile beyond Abinger we reach the home of John Evelyn, and see
the grey tower of the church where he is buried. This is Wotton--the
town of the woods, as he loved to call it--"sweetly environed" with
"venerable woods and delicious streams;" Wotton where, after all his
wanderings and all the turmoil of those troublous times, Evelyn found a
peaceful haven wherein to end his days. There are the terraces, the
"fountains and groves," in which he took delight; there, too, are the
pine-woods which he planted, not only for ornament, and because they
"create a perpetual spring," but because he held the air to be improved
by their "odoriferous and balsamical emissions." Not only these trees,
but the oak and ash, and all the different species which he studied so
closely and has written about so well, were dear to him as his own
children, and he speaks in pathetic language of the violent storm which
blew down two thousand of his finest trees in a single night, and almost
within sight of his dwelling, and left Wotton, "now no more Woodtonn,
stripped and naked, and almost ashamed to own its name. Methinks that I
still hear, and I am sure that I feel, the dismal groans of our
forests, when that late dreadful hurricane, happening on the 26th of
November, 1703, subverted so many thousands of goodly oaks, prostrating
the trees, laying them in ghastly postures, like whole regiments fallen
in battle by the sword of the conqueror, and crushing all that grew
beneath them." Evelyn's descendants have bestowed the same care on the
woods and plantations, and in spite of the havoc wrought by wind and
tempest, Wotton is still remarkable for the beauty of its forest-trees
and masses of flowering rhododendrons.
[Illustration: WOTTON.]
The red-brick house has been a good deal altered during the present
century, but is still full of memorials of Evelyn. His portrait, and
that of his wife and father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne, are there, and
that of his "angelic friend," Mistress Blagge, the wife of Godolphin,
whose beautiful memory he has enshrined in the pages of the little
volume that bears her name. The drawings which he made on his foreign
travels are there too; and better still, the books in which he took such
pride and pleasure, carefully bound, bearing on their backs a device and
motto which he chose, a spray of oak, palm, and olive entwined
together, with the words, "Omnia explorate; meliora retinete." But the
most precious relic of all is the Prayer Book used by Charles I. on the
morning of his execution. It was saved from destruction by a devoted
loyalist, Isaac Herault, brother of a Walloon minister in London, and
afterwards given by him to Evelyn's father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne.
The fly-leaf bears a Latin inscription with this note:--This is the
Booke which Charles the First, _Martyr beatus_, did use upon the
Scaffold, XXX Jan., 1649, being the Day of his glorious martyrdom."
The exact course of the Pilgrims' Way here is uncertain. After leaving
Shere church it disappears, and we must climb a steep lane past Gomshall
station, to find the track again on Hackhurst Downs. The line of yews is
to be seen at intervals all along these downs, and as we descend into
the valley of the Mole, opposite the heights of Box Hill, we pass four
venerable yew trees standing in a field by themselves. One of the group
was struck by lightning many years ago, but still stretches its gaunt,
withered arms against the sky, like some weather-beaten sign-post
marking the way to Canterbury.
[Illustration: BOX HILL AND DORKING CHURCH SPIRE.]
The town of Dorking lies in the break here made in the chalk hills by
the passage of the river Mole; Milton's "sullen Mole that windeth
underground," or, as Spenser sings in his "Faërie Queen,"--
"Mole, that like a mousling mole doth make
His way still underground, till Thames he overtake."
[Illustration: THE WHITE HORSE, DORKING.]
The Mole owes its fame to the fact that it is so seldom seen, and
several of the swallows or gullies into which it disappears at intervals
along its chalky bed are at Burford, close to Dorking. The ponds which
supplied the perch for that _water-sousie_ which Dutch merchants came to
eat at Dorking, are still to be seen in the fields under Redhill, and
near them many an old timbered house and mill-wheel well worth
painting.
[Illustration: BETWEEN DORKING AND BETCHWORTH LOOKING WEST.]
To-day Dorking is a quiet, sleepy little place, but its situation on the
Stane Street, the great Roman road from Chichester to London, formerly
made it a centre of considerable importance, and the size and excellence
of the old-fashioned inns still bear witness to its departed grandeur.
Whether, as seems most probable, the old road ran under the wall of
Denbies Park, and across the gap now made by the Dorking lime works, or
whether, as the Ordnance map indicates, it crossed the breezy heights
of Ranmore Common, pilgrims to Canterbury certainly crossed the Mole at
Burford Bridge about half a mile from the town. The remains of an
ancient shrine known as the Pilgrims' Chapel are still shown in
Westhumble Lane. The path itself bears the name of Paternoster Lane, and
the fields on either side are called the Pray Meadows. From this point
the path runs along under Boxhill, the steep down that rises abruptly on
the eastern side of Dorking, and takes its name from the box-trees which
here spring up so plentifully in the smooth green turf above the chalk.
Boxhill is, we all know, one of the chief attractions which Dorking
offers to Londoners. The other is to be found in the fine parks of
Deepdene and Betchworth, immediately adjoining the town. The famous
gardens and art collections of Deepdene, and the noble lime avenue of
Betchworth, which now forms part of the same estate, have often been
visited and described. The house at Deepdene is now closed to the
public, but the traveller can still stroll under the grand old trees on
the river bank, and enjoy a wealthy variety of forest scenery almost
unrivalled in England. A picturesque bridge over the Mole leads back to
the downs on the opposite side of the valley, where the old track
pursues its way along the lower slope of the hills, often wending its
course through ploughed fields and tangled thickets and disappearing
altogether in places where chalk quarries and lime works have cut away
the face of the down. But on the whole the line of yews which mark the
road is more regular between Dorking and Reigate than in its earlier
course, and at Buckland, a village two miles west of Reigate, a whole
procession of these trees descends into the valley.
[Illustration: ON "THE WAY" ABOVE BETCHWORTH.]
All this part of the road is rich in Roman remains. Of these one of the
most interesting was the building discovered in 1875, at Colley Farm, in
the parish of Reigate, just south of the Way. Not only were several
cinerary urns and fragments of Roman pottery dug up, but the walls of a
Roman building were found under those of the present farmhouse. Some
twenty years ago a similar building was discovered at Abinger, also in
the immediate vicinity of the track, but unfortunately it was
completely destroyed in the absence of the owner, Sir Thomas Farrer.
Another Roman house came to light in 1813, at Bletchingley, and one
chamber, which appeared to be a hypocaust, was excavated at the time.
Lastly, considerable Roman remains have been discovered and carefully
excavated by Mr. Leveson-Gower in the park at Titsey. Of these the most
important are a Roman villa, which was thoroughly excavated in 1864,
together with a group of larger buildings, apparently the farm belonging
to the ancient house. These are only a few of the principal links in the
chain of Roman buildings which lie along the course of this ancient
trackway, and which all help to prove its importance as a thoroughfare
at the time of the Roman occupation.
Another point of interest regarding this part of the Pilgrims' Way is
its connection with John Bunyan. When his peculiar opinions and open-air
preachings had brought him into trouble with the authorities, he came to
hide in these Surrey hills, and earned his living for some time as a
travelling tinker. Two houses, one at Horn Hatch, on Shalford Common,
the other at Quarry Hill, in Guildford, are still pointed out as having
been inhabited by him at this time; and a recent writer[10] has
suggested that in all probability the recollections of Pilgrimage days,
then fresh in the minds of the people, first gave him the idea of his
"Pilgrim's Progress." Certainly more than one incident in the history of
the road bears a close resemblance to the tale of Christian's
adventures. Thus, for instance, the swampy marshes at Shalford may have
been the Slough of Despond, the blue Surrey hills seen from the distance
may well have seemed to him the Delectable Mountains, and the name of
Doubting Castle actually exists at a point of the road near Box Hill.
Lastly, the great fair at Shalford corresponds exactly with Bunyan's
description of Vanity Fair, no newly erected business, but "a thing of
ancient standing," where "the ware of Rome and her merchandise is
greatly promoted ... only our English nation have taken a dislike
thereat." In the days when Bunyan wrote, the annual fair had degenerated
into a lawless and noisy assembly, where little trade was done, and much
drinking and fighting and rude horseplay went on, as he may have found
to his cost. The wares of Rome, in fact, were commodities no longer in
fashion, and soon the fair itself came to an end and passed away, like
so many other things that had been called into being by the Canterbury
Pilgrimage.
[Illustration: WINDMILL ON REIGATE COMMON.]