The Brighton Road Part 10

It is much more real to them that the tramcars are twopence all the way.

At the beginning of Haling Park, immediately beyond the "Swan and Sugarloaf," the Croydon toll-gate barred the road until 1865. Beyond it, all was open country. It is a very different tale to-day, now the stark chalk downs of Haling and Smitham are being covered with houses, and the once-familiar great white scar of Haling Chalk Pit is being screened behind newly raised roofs and chimney-pots.

The beginning of Purley is marked by a number of prominent public-houses, testifying to the magnificent thirst of the new suburb. You come past the "Swan and Sugarloaf" to the "Windsor Castle," the "Purley Arms," the "Red Deer," and the "Royal Oak"; and just beyond, round the corner, is the "Red Lion." At the "Royal Oak" a very disreputable and stony road goes off to the left. It looks like, and is, a derelict highway: once the main road to G.o.dstone and East Grinstead, but now ending obscurely in a miserable modern settlement near the newly built station of Purley Oaks, so called by the Brighton Railway Company to distinguish it from the older Purley station--ex "Caterham Junction"--of the South Eastern line.

It was here, at Purley House, or Purley Bury as it is properly styled, close by the few poor scrubby and battered remains of the once n.o.ble woodland of Purley Oaks, that John Horne Tooke, contentious partisan and stolid begetter of seditious tracts, lived--when, indeed, he was not detained within the four walls of some prison for political offences.

[Sidenote: HORNE TOOKE]

Tooke, whose real name was Horne, was born in 1736, the son of a 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 200. He took--no! that will not do--he "a.s.sumed" 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 500, 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 relations.h.i.+ps 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 G.o.dstone 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 Suss.e.x."

I know nothing of what those Suss.e.x gentlemen did, but that the milestones _were_ carried on is evident enough to all who care to explore the old Brighton Road through G.o.dstone, 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 cla.s.sic 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 pa.s.s 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 compet.i.tive 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.