poulterer. At twenty-four years of age he became a clergyman, and was
appointed to the living of New Brentford, which he held until 1773, when,
clearly seeing how grievously he had missed his vocation, he studied for
the Bar. Thereafter his life was one long series of battles, hotly
contested in Parliament, in newspapers, books and pamphlets, and on
platforms. He was in general a wrong-headed, as well as a hot-headed,
politician; but he was sane enough to oppose the American War when King
and Government were so mad as to provoke and continue it. Describing the
Americans killed and wounded by the troops at Lexington and Concord as
"murdered," he was the victim of a Government prosecution for libel, and
was imprisoned for twelve months and fined L200. He took--no! that will
not do--he "assumed" the name of Tooke in 1782, in compliment to his
friend William Tooke, who then resided here in this delightful old country
house of Purley. The idea seems to have been for them to live together in
amity, and that William Tooke, the elder of the two, should leave his
property to his friend. But quarrels arose long before that, and Horne at
his friend's death received only L500, while other disputed points arose,
leading to bitter law-suits.
In 1801 he was Member of Parliament for Old Sarum; but how he reconciled
the representation of that rottenest of rotten boroughs with his
profession of reforming Whig does not appear.
He was a many-sided man, of fierce energies and strong prejudices, but a
scholar. While his political pamphlets are forgotten, his "[Greek: EPEA
PTEROENTA]; or, the Diversions of Purley," which is not really a book of
sports, is still remembered for its philological learning. It is a
disquisition on the affinities of prepositions, the relationships of
conjunctions, and the intimacies of other parts of speech. His other
diversions appear to have been less reputable, for he was the father of
one illegitimate son and two daughters.
His intention was to have been buried in the grounds of Purley House, but
when he died, in 1812, at Wimbledon, his mortal coil was laid to rest at
Ealing; and so it chanced that the vault he had constructed in his garden
remained, after all, untenanted, with the unfinished epitaph:
JOHN HORNE TOOKE,
Late Proprietor and now Occupier
of this spot,
was born in June 1736,
Died in
Aged years,
Contented and Grateful.
Purley House is still standing, though considerably altered, and presents
few features reminiscent of the eighteenth-century politician, and fewer
still of the Puritan Bradshaw, the regicide, who once resided here. It
stands in the midst of tall elms, and looks as far removed from political
dissensions as may well be imagined, its trim lawn and trellised walls
overgrown in summer by a tangle of greenery.
But suburban expansion has at last reached Tooke's rural retreat from
political strife, and the estate is now "developed," with roads driven
through and streets of villas planned, leaving only the old house and some
few acres of gardens around it.
XIV
Returning to the main road, we come, just before reaching Godstone Corner,
to the site of the now-forgotten Foxley Hatch, a turnpike-gate, which
stood at this point until 1865. Paying toll here "cleared," or made the
traveller free of, the gates and bars to Merstham, on the main road, and
as far as Wray Common, on the Reigate route, as the following copy of a
contemporary turnpike-ticket, shows:
.............................
. Foxley Hatch Gate .
. R .
.clears Wray common, Gatton,.
. Merstham and Hooley lane .
. gates and bars .
.............................
"To Riddlesdown, the prettiest spot in Surrey," says a sign-post on the
left hand. It is not true that it is the prettiest place, but, of course
(as the proverb truly says), "every eye forms its own beauty," and
Riddlesdown is a Beanfeasters' Paradise, where tea-gardens, swings, and I
know not what temerarious delights await the tripper who accepts the
invitation, boldly displayed, "Up the Steps for Home Comforts."
[Sidenote: MILESTONES]
Here an aged milestone, in addition, proclaims it to be "XIII Miles from
the Standard in Cornhill, London, 1743," and "XII Miles From Westminster
Bridge." This is, doubtless, one of the stones referred to in the _London
Evening Post_ of September 10th, 1743, which says: "On Wednesday they
began to measure the Croydon Road from the Standard in Cornhill and stake
the places for erecting milestones, the inhabitants of Croydon having
subscribed for 13, which 'tis thought will be carried on by the Gentlemen
of Sussex."
I know nothing of what those Sussex gentlemen did, but that the milestones
_were_ carried on is evident enough to all who care to explore the old
Brighton Road through Godstone, up Tilburstow Hill, and so on to East
Grinstead, Uckfield, and Lewes, where this fine bold series, dated 1744,
is continued. What, however, has become of the series so liberally
provided in 1743 by the "inhabitants of Croydon"? What indeed? Only this
one, the thirteenth, remains; the other twelve, marking the distance from
the "Standard" in Cornhill, in addition to Westminster Bridge, have been
spirited away, and their places have been taken by others, themselves old,
but chiefly marking the mileage from Whitehall and the Royal Exchange.
We all know that the Brighton Road is nowadays measured from the south
side of Westminster Bridge, but it is not generally known--nor possibly
known to one person in every ten thousand of those who consider they have
worn the Brighton Road threadbare--that it was measured from "Westminster
Bridge" before ever there was a bridge. No bridge existed across the
Thames anywhere between London Bridge and Putney until November 10th,
1750, when Westminster Bridge, after being for many years under
construction, was opened, superseding the ancient ferry which from time
immemorial had plied between Horseferry Stairs, Westminster, and Stangate
on the Surrey side, the site of the present Lambeth Bridge. The way to
Brighton (and to all southern roads) lay across London Bridge.
The old stones dated 1743 and 1744, and giving the mileage from the
bridge, were thus displaying that "intelligent anticipation of events"
which is, perhaps, even more laudable in statesmen than in
milestones--and as rarely found.
To this day no man knoweth the distance between London and Brighton.
Convention fixes the distance as 51-1/2 miles from the south side of
Westminster Bridge to the Aquarium, by the classic route; but where is he
who has chained it in proper surveyorly manner? The milestones themselves
are a curious miscellany, and form an interesting study. They might
profitably have been made a subject for the learned deliberations of the
Pickwick Club, but the opportunity was unfortunately missed, and the world
is doubtless the loser of much curious lore.
Where is he who can, offhand, describe the first milestone on the Brighton
Road, and tell where it stands? It ought to be no difficult matter, for
miles are not--or should not be--elastic.
It stands, in fact, on the kerb at the right-hand side of Kennington Road,
between Nos. 230 and 232, just short of Lower Kennington Lane, and is a
poor old battered relic, set anglewise and with the top broken away,
bearing the legend, in what was once bold lettering:
. . . . . . . MILE
HORSEGUARDS
WHITEHALL
That is the first milestone on the Brighton Road. Sterne, were he here
to-day, would shed salt tears of sentiment upon it, we may be sure. It
says nothing whatever about Brighton, and is probably the one and only
stone that takes the Horseguards as a datum.
About forty yards beyond this initial landmark is another "first"
milestone: a tall, upstanding affair, certainly a century old, with three
blank sides, and a fourth inscribed:
I
MILE
FROM
WESTMINSTER
BRIDGE
This is followed by a long series of stones of one pattern, probably
dating from 1800, marking every _half_ mile. The series starts with the
stone on the kerb close by the tramway office at the triangle, where the
Brixton Road begins. It records on two sides "Royal Exchange 2-1/2 miles,"
and on a third "Whitehall 2 miles," and is followed, opposite No. 158,
Brixton Road, by a stone carrying on the tale by another half a mile.
These silent witnesses may be traced nearly into Croydon, with sundry gaps
where they have been removed. Those recording the 4th, 6th, 8-1/2th,
9-1/2th, and 10th miles from Whitehall are missing, the last of the series
now extant being that at the corner of Broad Green Avenue, making
"Whitehall 9 miles, Royal Exchange 9-1/2 miles." The 10th from Whitehall,
ending the series, stood at the corner of the Whitgift Hospital.
These were succeeded by one of the old eighteenth-century series, marking
eleven miles from Westminster Bridge and twelve from the "Standard," but
neither new nor old stone is there now, and the only one of the thirteen
mentioned by the _London Evening Post_ of 1743 is this near Purley Corner.
This, marking the 13th mile from the "Standard" and the 12th from
Westminster Bridge is common to both routes, but is followed by the first
of a new series some way along Smitham Bottom, on which Brighton is for
the first time mentioned:
XIII
MILES
FROM
WESTMINSTER
BRIDGE
--
38-1/2
MILES
TO
BRIGHTON
The character of the lettering and the general style of this series would
lead to the supposition that they are dated about 1820. There are three
stones in all of this kind, the third marking 15 miles from Westminster
Bridge and 36-1/2 to Brighton, followed by a series of triangular
cast-iron marks, continued through Redhill, of which the first bears the
legend, "Parish of Merstham." On the north side is "16 from Westminster
Bridge, 35 to Brighton," and on the south "35 from Brighton, 16 to
Westminster Bridge." It will be observed that in this first one of a new
series half a mile is dropped, and henceforward the mileage to Brighton
becomes by authority 51 miles. Like the confectioner who "didn't make
ha'porths," the turnpike trust which erected these mile-"stones" refused
to deal in half miles.
XV
The tramway terminus at Purley Corner is now a busy place. Those are only
the "old crocks" who can remember the South Eastern railway-station of
Caterham Junction and the surrounding lonely downs; and to them the change
to "Purley" and the appearance in the wilderness of a mushroom town, with
its parade of brilliantly lighted shops, its Queen Victoria memorial, its
public garden and penny-squirt fountain, and--not least--its hideous
waterworks, are things for wonderment. "How strange it seems, and new," as
Browning--not writing of Purley--remarks. Even the ghastly loneliness of
the long straight road ascending the pass of Smitham Bottom is no more,
for little villas, with dank little dungeons of gardens, line the way, and
tradesmen's carts calling for orders compete with the motorists who shall
kill and maim most travellers along the highway.
The numerous railway-bridges, embankments, cuttings, and retaining-walls
that disfigure the crest of Smitham Bottom are chiefly the results of
latter-day activities. The first bridge is that of the Chipstead Valley
Railway--now merged in the South Eastern and Chatham--from South Croydon
to Chipstead and Epsom, 1897-1900, with its wayside station of "Smitham."
This is immediately followed by the London, Brighton, and South Coast's
station of Stoat's Nest, a transformed and transported version of the old
station of the same name some distance off, and beyond it are the bridges
and embankments of the same company's works of 1896-8; themselves almost
inextricably confused, to the non-technical mind, with the adjoining South
Eastern roadside station of Coulsdon.
The chapters of railway history which produced all this unlovely medley of
engineering works are in themselves extremely interesting, and have an
additional interest to those who trace the story of the Brighton Road, for
they are concerned with the solution of the old problem which faced the
coach proprietors--how best and quickest to reach Brighton.
[Sidenote: RAILWAY POLITICS]
Few outside those intimately concerned with railway politics know that
although the Brighton line was opened throughout in 1842, it was not until
1898 that the company owned an uninterrupted route between London and
Brighton. The explanation of that singular condition of affairs is found
in the curious reluctance of Parliament, two generations ago, to give any
one railway company the sole control of any particular route. Few in those
times thought the increase of population, and still more the increase of
travelling, would be so great that competitive railways would be
established to many places; and thus to sanction the making of a railway
to be owned by one company throughout seemed like the granting of a
perpetual monopoly.
Following this reasoning, a break was made in the continuity of the
Brighton Railway between Stoat's Nest and Redhill, a distance of five
miles, and that stretch of territory given to the South Eastern Railway,
with running powers only over it granted to the Brighton Company.
Similarly, between Croydon and Stoat's Nest, the South Eastern had only
running powers over that interval owned by the Brighton.
In 1892 and 1894, however, the Brighton Company approached Parliament and,
proving the growing confusion, congestion, and loss of time at Redhill
Junction, owing to this odd condition of things, obtained powers to
complete that missing link by the construction of an entirely new railway
between Stoat's Nest and a point just within a quarter of a mile of
Earlswood Station, beyond Redhill, and also to double the existing line
between East and South Croydon and Purley. The works were completed and
opened for traffic in 1898, when for the first time the Brighton Railway
had a complete and uninterrupted route of its own to the sea.
The hamlet of Smitham Bottom, which paradoxically stands at the top of the
pass of that name, in this ancient way across the North Downs, can never
have been beautiful. It was lonely when Jackson and Fewterel fought their
prize-fight here, before that distinguished patron of sport the Prince of
Wales and a more or less distinguished company, on June 9th, 1788; when
the only edifice of "Smith-in-the-Bottom," as the sporting accounts of
that time style it, appears to have been the ominous one of a gibbet. The
Jackson who that day fought, and won, his first battle in the prize-ring
was none other than that Bayard of the noble art, "Gentleman Jackson,"
afterwards the friend of Byron and of the Prince Regent himself, and
subsequently landlord of the "Cock" at Sutton. On this occasion Major
Hanger rewarded the victor with a bank-note from the enthusiastic Prince.
[Sidenote: SMITHAM]
Until 1898 Smitham Bottom remained a fortuitous concourse of some twenty
mean houses on a windswept natural platform, ghastly with the chalky
"spoil-banks" thrown up when the South Eastern Railway engineers excavated
the great cuttings in 1840; but when the three railway-stations within one
mile were established that serve Smitham Bottom--the stations of Coulsdon,
Stoat's Nest, and Smitham--the place, very naturally, began to grow with
the magic quickness generally associated with Jonah's Gourd and Jack's
Beanstalk, and now Smitham Bottom is a town. Most of the spoil-banks are
gone, and those that remain are planted with quick-growing poplars; so
that, if they can survive the hungry soil, there will presently be a leafy
screen to the ugly railway sidings. Showy shops, all plate-glass and
nightly glare of illumination, have arisen; the old "Red Lion" inn has got
a new and very saucy front; and, altogether, "Smitham" has arrived. The
second half of the name is now in process of being forgotten, and the only
wonder is that the first part has not been changed into "Smytheham" at the
very least, or that an entirely new name, something in the way of "ville"
or "park," suited to its prospects, has not been coined. For Smitham, one
can clearly see, has a Future, with a capital F, and the historian
confidently expects to see the incorporation of Smitham, with Mayor, Town
Council, and Town Hall, all complete.
It is here, at Marrowfat, now "Marlpit," Lane, that the new link of the
Brighton line branches off from Stoat's Nest.[8] One of the first trials
of the engineers was the removal of three-quarters of a million cubic
yards of the "spoil," dumped down by the roadside over half a century
earlier; and then followed the spanning of the Brighton Road by a
girder-bridge. The line then entered the grounds of the Cane Hill Lunatic
Asylum, through which it runs in a covered way, the London County Council,
under whose control that institution is carried on, obtaining a clause in
the Company's Act, requiring the railway to be covered in at this point,
in case the lunatics might find means of throwing themselves in front of
passing trains.
Leaving the asylum grounds, the railway re-crosses the road by a hideous
skew girder bridge of 180 feet span, supported by giant piers and
retaining-walls, and then crosses the deep cutting of the South Eastern,
to enter a cutting of its own leading into a tunnel a mile and a quarter
in length--the new Merstham tunnel--running parallel with the old tunnel
of the same name through which the South Eastern Railway passes. At the
southern end of this gloomy tunnel is the pretty village of Merstham,
where the hillside sinks down to the level lands between that point and
Redhill.
At Merstham one of the odd problems of the new line was reached, for there
it had to be constructed over a network of ancient tunnels made centuries
ago in the hillside--quarry-tunnels whence came much of the limestone that
went towards the building of Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster Abbey. The
old workings are still accessible to the explorer who dares the
accumulation of gas in them given off by the limestone rock.
The geology of these five miles of new railway is peculiarly varied,
limestone and chalk giving place suddenly to the gault of the levels, and
followed again by a hillside bed of Fuller's earth, succeeded in turn by
red sand. The Fuller's earth, resting upon a slippery substratum of gault,
only required a little rain and a little disturbance to slide down and
overwhelm the railway works, and retaining-walls of the heaviest and most
substantial kind were necessary in the cuttings where it occurred.
Tunnelling for a quarter of a mile through the sand that gives Redhill its
name, the railway crosses obliquely under the South Eastern, and then
joins the old Brighton line territory just before reaching Earlswood
station.
[Illustration: CHIPSTEAD CHURCH.]
All these engineering manifestations give the old grim neighbourhood of
Smitham Bottom a new grimness. The trains of the Brighton line boom,
rattle, and clank overhead into the covered way, whose ventilators spout
steam like some infernal laundry, and from the 80-foot deep cuttings close
beside the road, steamy billows arise very weirdly. Presiding over all are
the beautiful grounds and vast ranges of buildings of the Cane Hill
Lunatic Asylum, housing an ever-increasing population of lunatics, now
numbering some three thousand. Sometimes the quieter members of that
unfortunate community are seen, being given a walk along the road, outside
their bounds, and the sight and the thoughts they engender are not
cheering.
Along the road, where the walls of the cutting descend perpendicularly, is
the severely common-place hamlet of Hooley, formerly Howleigh, consisting
of the "Star" inn and some twenty square brick cottages. Just beyond it,
where a modern Cyclists' Rest and tea-rooms building stands to the left of
the road, the first traces of the old Surrey Iron Railway, which crossed
the highway here, are found, in the shallower cutting, still noticeable,
although disused seventy years ago. Alders, hazels, and blackberry
brambles grow on the side of it, and its bridges are ivy-grown: primroses
and violets, too, grow there wondrously profuse.
[Sidenote: CHIPSTEAD]
And here we will, by way of interlude, turn aside, up a lane to the right
hand, toward the village of Chipstead, in whose churchyard lies Sir Edward
Banks, who began life in the humblest manner, working as a navvy upon this
same forgotten railway, afterwards rising, as partner in the firm of
Jolliffe & Banks, to be an employer of labour and contractor to the
Government: in short, another Tom Brassey. All these things are recorded
of him upon a memorial tablet in the church of Chipstead--a tablet which
lets nothing of his worth escape you, so prolix is it.[9]
It was while delving amid the chalk of this tramway cutting that Edward
Banks first became acquainted with this village, and so charmed with it
was he that he expressed a desire, when his time should come, to be laid
at rest in its quiet graveyard. When he died, after a singularly
successful career, his wish was carried out, and here, in this quiet spot
overlooking the highway, you may see his handsome tomb, begirt with iron
railings, and overshadowed with ancient trees.
The little church of Chipstead is of Norman origin, and still shows some
interesting features of that period, with some unusual Early English
additions that have presented architectural puzzles even to the minds of
experts. Many years ago the late Mr. G. E. Street, the architect of the
present Royal Courts of Justice in London, read a paper upon this
building, advancing the theory that the curious pedimental windows of the
chancel and the transept door were not the Saxon work they appeared to be,
but were the creation of an architect of the Early English period who had
a fancy for reviving Saxon features, and who was the builder and designer
of a series of Surrey churches, among which is included that of Merstham.
Within the belfry here is a ring of fine bells, some of them of a
respectable age, and three bearing the inscription, with variations:
"OUR HOPE IS IN THE LORD, 1595."
R E
From here a bye-lane leads steeply once more into the high road, which
winds along the valley, sloping always towards the Weald. Down the long
descent into Merstham village tall and close battalions of fir-trees lend
a sombre colouring to the foreground, while "southward o'er Surrey's
pleasant hills" the evening sunlight streams in parting radiance. On the
left hand as we descend are the eerie-looking blow-holes of the Merstham
tunnel, which here succeeds the cutting. Great heaps of chalk, by this
time partly overgrown with grass, also mark its course, and in the
distance, crowned as many of them are with telegraph poles, they look by
twilight curiously and awfully like so many Calvarys.
Beside the descent into Merstham was situated the terminus of the old Iron
Railway, in the great excavated hollow of the Greystone lime-works, where
the lime-burners still quarry the limestone and the smoke of their burning
ascends day and night. The old "Hylton Arms," down below, that served the
turn of the lime-burners when they wanted to slake their thirst, has been
ornately rebuilt in the modern-Elizabethan Public House Style, alongside
the road, to catch the custom of the world at large, and is named the
"Jolliffe Arms." Both signs reflect the ownership of Merstham, for
Jolliffe has long been the family name of the holders of the modern Barony
of Hylton. Formerly "Jolly," it was presumably too bacchanalian and not
sufficiently aristocratic, and so it was changed, just as your "Smythe"
was once Smith, and "Johnes" Jones.
XVI
[Sidenote: MERSTHAM]