At that time it was a difficulty to get to Epsom any other way than
tramping it, as there was no railway, and the lowest fare was ten
shillings, coach or van, and, being anxious for the treat, I had saved up
sixteen shillings and threepence, and by a little diplomacy I had
arranged to be abroad for the day without letting anyone know where I was
going. At about four o'clock on the Wednesday morning I started from
Cheyne for my trip, with my savings and two or three slices of bread and
butter in my pocket, and as I passed old Chelsea Church it was a quarter
to five, and a beautiful bright spring morning. Going over Battersea
Bridge and turning to the right through the Folley, a colony of small
cottages with a private way through them into Church Street with fields
and herb gardens on one side, then passing Battersea Church and the
draw-dock, into Battersea Square, into the High Street and outside the
Castle Tavern. This being open was the first evidence of the road to
Epsom, as there was a donkey cart with five or six gipsy men and women
and one or two children with them. They had a stack of peas and
shooters, back scratchers, paper flowers, plumes of feathers, and small
bags of flour, also wooden dolls to sell to the visitors on the road, as
at that time the favourite amusement was blowing peas through a tin tube
at the people as they drove along, and some of the peas would give one a
very painful experience. Throwing bags of flour was another amusement
indulged in.
Passing along High Street into Falcon Lane--then really a lane with
fields and market gardens on each side, and a small stream where Clapham
Junction now stands, then known as the boling brook, and past some
cottages to Battersea Rise, and then up the hill past the old smithy that
dated from 1626, on to the Common and across it to the end of Nightingale
Lane, and along a footpath across where the Station and the St. James's
School now stand. It was then all common, and down Wandsworth Lane to
the Wheatsheaf on the main road.
Everything here was in evidence of the Derby proper. All the gentlemen's
houses had stands erected inside the front gardens, and the walls
decorated with festoons of scarlet, most of them making it quite a gala
day having dinner parties to see the visitors in their grand equipages,
for the turn-outs of the aristocracy and royalty surpassed everything to
be seen anywhere in Europe. All the shops and private houses had their
windows decorated and full of visitors. It was reported that thirty
thousand horses at that time went to Epsom on the Derby Day along the
road at this point. The wayfarers to the Derby were mostly
horsey-looking tramps with pails on their shoulders in twos and threes,
very shabby and down-at-heel. Both men and women, with almost every toy
or trinket you could mention; tin trumpets, squeakers, masks to sell on
the road, came slouching along; then came barrows, trucks, donkey and
pony carts, with all sorts of eatables, such as sheep's trotters, whelks,
oysters, bread and cheese, fried sausages, saveloys, fish, ham and beef
sandwiches, ginger beer and table beer--at that time it was allowed to be
sold without a license. They would stroll along the road till they found
a suitable pitch, and would there establish themselves. There were
numerous parties of musicians in gangs of three or four, harp, violin and
cornet, or cornet, trombone and French horn; armies of acrobats and
children on stilts, conjuring, Punch and Judy shows; in fact, some on
every open space all down the road to the Downs.
The road through the village of Tooting to the Broadway, where you turned
off in the Mitcham Road, was the most crowded, for some of the traffic
divided and went straight on through Merton and Ewell to Epsom, but the
greater part went by the Mitcham Road, past Daniel Defoe's house and
Fig's Marsh, a long strip of marsh common on one side and the herb and
lavender gardens on the other, and a number of wooden cottages with long
gardens in front, that made quite a harvest by selling nosegays and
refreshments. This extended all the way to the village of Mitcham, the
Upper Green at which the Pleasure Fair is held to the present day, I
believe the only one remaining near the metropolis, and at a stall
outside the Ram I made my first halt for breakfast. I indulged in
coffee, plum cake, fried sausages, and bread and butter, at the cost of
eight-pence, and started on my way at seven by the clock at the Lavender
Distillery, passed through the toll-gate down the road to Mitcham Green,
a large open piece of green sward considered at that time one of the best
cricket fields in Surrey, and producing some of the best cricketers, and
still maintaining that character. I proceeded down the road with several
good residences on each side and almost an avenue of trees and may hedges
in full bloom, the road alive with every kind of vehicle and a large
number of tramps. At the corner of Mitcham Green had collected a large
number of itinerant musicians, and all sorts of diverting vagabonds,
looking very shabby, dusty and down at heel, and as if it was anything
but a prosperous occupation. There were no negro melodies in those days,
but there was the troubadour with his guitar, wearing a broad-brimmed hat
with a large feather and loose coloured slashed coat and short cape or
cloak loose on his shoulders, and singing love songs, and a man with
trestles and a sort of tray strung with wires, played with two short
pieces of cane or whale bone with a knob of leather on the end, with
which he struck the wires and knocked out a tune, and, by the same
process, with bells arranged on a straight bar fixed on high trestles,
tunes were played.
The long, straggling village of Mitcham was the end of the crowded
inhabited part of the road to Epsom; past the old Brewery and one or two
old houses you came to the old mill and bridge crossing the river Wandle,
with a ford by the side where nearly every vehicle drove through water,
and as soon as you crossed, the avenue of fine old elms commenced, and
meeting overhead formed quite a delightful shade. Meadows and park-like
grounds on each side, were well wooded, with only two residences and one
farmhouse, an old house apparently half farmhouse and half residence,
with very pretty gardens in front with a number of shrubs cut and trained
into all manner of grotesque and fantastic shapes. The land on each side
all the way to Sutton was purely agricultural and grazing land.
The first buildings you came to on entering the village were some old
wooden cottages and the smithy, adjoining which was the cage or lock-up,
outside of which was the village constable and his assistants, two or
three labourers sworn in for the occasion. The village consisted of one
long, straggling street of small low cottages and a few mean shops,
hardly a good house, saving the Inns, consisting of the "Angel," the
"Greyhound," and the "Cock." The two latter were large coaching
stations, the "Cock," with a big open space in front. The villagers were
making their harvest by having tables outside and selling milk in small
yellow mugs about the size of a jam pot at a penny each, and small loaves
with currants and home-made cakes. Outside the "Cock" was a Punch and
Judy performing to an admiring crowd, and by the toll-gate at the corner
of the Cheam Road was the first breakdown. An old landau with eight
occupants, drawn by a big cart horse, had parted right in half and shot
all its contents into the road, and a general squabble commenced,
especially among the ladies who, according to their account, had
prophecied the disaster at starting. But the matter was soon settled as
with willing hands the broken carriage was moved into a field by the
roadside and they made themselves comfortable by falling to on the
provisions, and I left them having a picnic in the broken vehicle.
Then along the road till you come to a long open common or waste land
covered with rushes, grass and coarse scrubby growth to another
toll-gate, of which I think I counted seven.