The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries Part 7

"Every week-day of this spring-time the 'Tally-ho' leaves the 'Mitre,' at Hampton Court, for Dorking. At eleven o'clock everything is in readiness save the driver, who puts in a staid and majestic appearance on the box only at the last moment. All around are ostlers and stablemen and men who, although they have nothing whatever to do with the coach, and do not even intend to go by it, are yet drawn here to admire the horses and to surrept.i.tiously pat them after the manner of all Englishmen, who, even if they know nought of the n.o.ble animal's 'points,' at least love to see good horse-flesh. Vigorous blasts from 'yards of tin' arouse alarums and excursions, and bring faces to the hotel-windows, reminding one, together with the gold-laced red coat of the guard, of the true coaching age, so eloquently written of by that mighty historian of the road, C. J.

Apperley, whom men called 'Nimrod.'

"The appointments and the horse-flesh that go to make a first-rate modern turn-out are luxurious beyond anything that 'Nimrod' could have seen, splendid as were some of the crack coaches of his day. Were he here now, he could but acknowledge our superiority in this respect; but we can imagine his critical faculties centred upon what he would have called the 'tooling' of the drag, and his disappointment, not in the workmans.h.i.+p of the driver, but in the excellence of the highways of to-day, which give a coachman no opportunities of showing how resourceful he could be with his wrist, nor how scientific with his 'springing' of his team. Let us compa.s.sionate the critic whose well-trained faculties are thus wasted!

[Sidenote: _TO DORKING_]

"But it is full time we were off. A final flourish of the horn, and away we go, our coach making for the heart of Surrey. 'Southward o'er Surrey's pleasant hills,' as Tom Ingoldsby says, we go, to Leatherhead, beside Drayton's 'mousling Mole'; and so, with a clatter and a cheery rattle of the harness, past Mickleham, with its wayside church, and Juniper Hall, red-faced, green-shuttered; perched above the roadside, redolent of memories of the French refugees,--of whom M. D'Arblay, the husband of f.a.n.n.y Burney, was one,--and still wearing a fine and most unmistakable eighteenth-century air, even though, as we pa.s.s, an equally undoubted nineteenth-century telegraph-boy comes walking, with the leisurely air peculiar to telegraph-boys, out of its carriage-drive into the road.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MICKLEHAM CHURCH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BURFORD BRIDGE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "WHITE HORSE," DORKING.]

"Now we are nearing our journey's end. The glorious woodlands of Norbury Park--that old-time resort of literary ladies and gaping gentlemen, who stapped their vitals and protested monstrously that the productions of those blue-stockings were designed for immortality, long before the modern woman was thought possible--the woods of Norbury come in view, and the great swelling side of Box Hill rises in front, with the Burford Bridge Hotel beneath, shaded by lofty trees which take their nourishment from the Mole, bridged here by a substantial brick-and-stone structure that gives that hostelry its name.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Road to Dorking.]

[Sidenote: _BURFORD BRIDGE_]

"No more pleasant week-end resort than the Burford Bridge Hotel--'providing always,' as the lawyers might say, that you do not make your week-end coincide with one of Sir John Lubbock's popular carnivals.

Then----! But enough, enough. Hie we onwards, casting just one backward glance towards that hotel which was just a decent road-side inn when Keats wrote 'Endymion' there, coming in from moonlit walks across Box Hill, inspired to heaven knows what unwritten poesy. Also, the Burford Bridge Hotel has a claim upon the patriotic Englishman, who, thank goodness, is not extinct, although Mr. Grant Allen thinks the generous feeling of patriotism is unfas.h.i.+onable. For here Nelson slept during his last night on English soil. The next day he embarked from Portsmouth, and--the rest is history!

"Dorking at last! We pull up, with steaming cattle, at the old 'White Horse,' where lunch is spread. We speculate upon the theory (one of many) that the real original Weller inhabited here, but come, of course, to no conclusion, where so many learned doctors in d.i.c.kens disagree. We adventure down to Castle Mill; yea, even to the picturesque Brockham Bridge below the town, beyond the foot of Box Hill. The town of Dorking stretches out its more modern part in this direction, halting within sight of Castle Mill, whence its _avant-garde_ is seen stalking horribly across the meadows. For the rest, Dorking is pleasant enough, though containing little of interest; and the parish church of St. Martin has been rebuilt.

Yet the long High Street still contains a few quaint frontages of the seventeenth century, and our halting-place has a curious sign of wrought ironwork. Those who do not pin their faith to the 'White Horse' as the original of the 'Marquis of Granby' in the 'Pickwick Papers,' elect to swear by the 'Red Lion,' once owned by a coach-proprietor who _might_ have sat for Samivel's father.

[Sidenote: _LITERARY LIGHTS_]

"The town and district have, indeed, many literary a.s.sociations. Some of these authors are now forgotten, or were never of more than local celebrity; but what generation will that be which forgets old John Evelyn, the diarist and author of 'Sylva,' and many other works, who must often have ridden into the town from Wotton House, near by? He was a friend of another congenial worthy, John Aubrey to wit. That amusingly quaint, but not strictly reliable, old chronicler, says of this town:--'Dorking is celebrated for fowls. The kine hereabout are of a sandy colour; the women, especially those about the hill, have no roses in their cheeks.' I do not notice that, however true may be his remarks about the fowls.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BROCKHAM BRIDGE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Castle Mill.]

"Defoe, among others, lived here; and Benjamin Disraeli at Deepdene conceived the idea of 'Coningsby,' and wrote part of that work under its roof, as may be seen set forth in his dedication. The fame of Madame D'Arblay belongs more correctly to Mickleham. Then there were at Dorking many disciples of the Aikins and Barbaulds, those Clarissas and Laet.i.tias of a pseudo-cla.s.sic age whose dull wit was as forced as were the turgid sentiments of the eminently proper characters in their writings. Theirs was an age whose manners were as superficial as was the stucco upon the brick walls of their neo-cla.s.sic mansions and quasi-Greek conventicles; and, for frankness' sake, I think I prefer our own times, when we have no manners and make no pretensions that way.

"However, time is up. The guard winds his horn up the street, and we take our seats again. The coachman gathers up his reins and shakes squarely down into his seat; the ostlers step back. 'Good-bye, good-bye,' and we are off at a quarter-past three on the return journey. We halt our team by the way at a cheerful inn. The air bites shrewdly, and----'Well, yes; I don't mind if I do!' 'Here's confusion to the Apostles of the Pump; a health to our driver; prosperity to the "Tally-ho," and----' 'Hurry up, please, gentlemen!' We take our seats once more with alacrity, and another hour sees us again at Hampton Court."

To show the manner in which coach accounts were kept in the coaching age, I append a copy of an old statement now in my possession. It is a "sharing account," and details a month's takings and expenses in the expiring days of road travel.

Meanwhile we resume our itinerary of the Portsmouth Road where we broke off, at Esher.

[Sidenote: _COACH ACCOUNTS_]

_Dr._ _Cr._

LONDON AND _Dorking_ COACH.

_Account for 4 Weeks, ending the 5th Day of_ August _1837, both inclusive._

RECEIPTS. DISBURs.e.m.e.nTS. MESSRS. HORNE 82 17 6 _Mr. Walker_ 75 12 -- MESSRS. HORNE. Duty 16 17 -- Mileage Tolls and Wages Booking and Settling Accounts 3 3 -- Was.h.i.+ng and Greasing 1 1 -- 21 1 -- --- --- --- --- -- -- Dr. Mr. _Walker_ To Receipts _of_ Mr. _Walker_. _Messrs. Horne_ Wages and Tolls 13 4 -- 24 11 4 Booking -- -- -- Do. _of_ Was.h.i.+ng and Greasing -- -- -- _Mr. Walker_ _Mileage_ 7 -- -- 75 12 -- _Touter_ -- 16 -- 21 -- -- ----- 100 3 4 ================ --------------------- Cr. SHARES. By shares Miles. 79 3 4 8 Messrs. Horne 37 5 2 Disburs.e.m.e.nts 17 _Mr. Walker_ 79 3 4 116 8 6 21 -- -- --- --- --- --- --- -- -- 100 3 4 _25 Miles_ @4 13 ================ 1-1/2 18/25 _a --- --- -- mile_. --- -- -- 158 9 6 158 9 6 =========================================================================

At Esher the fallen Cardinal Wolsey lived awhile when Providence frowned upon him--and for Providence in this connection read Henry VIII., who filled that position towards the great prelate, with great _eclat_ and an altogether overwhelming success. When the king commanded Wolsey to retire hither, the Cardinal lived in the old building of Esher Place, whose only remains are seen at this day in the Gatehouse standing in the damp and watery meadows beside the Mole. He found the place little to his liking, and displayed his sorrows in a letter to Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, wherein he complains of the "moist and corrupt air." That he was quite in a position to appreciate the dampness of his residence, we may well believe when we read that he was "without beds, sheets, table-cloths, or dishes"; and that he presently "fell sore sick that he was likely to die"

creates, under the circ.u.mstances, no surprise.

The place of Wolsey's compulsory retirement was almost completely destroyed when the modern mansion of Esher Place was built, and the chief historic house of Esher is now Claremont.

XII

Claremont is a house of sad memories, destined, so it might seem to the superst.i.tious, to witness a succession of tragedies and sorrows.

Neither the house nor the estate are of any considerable age; the estate originating in a fancy of Sir John Vanbrugh,--that professional architect and amateur dramatist of Queen Anne's time,--for a suburban retreat. He purchased some land at Esher, between the village and the common, and, foregoing his usual ponderous style of piling up huge ma.s.ses of stone and brickwork, put up quite a small and unpretentious brick house upon it.

Sir John Vanbrugh died in 1726, and posterity seems still in doubt as to whether he excelled in writing comedies or in designing ponderous palaces of the type of Blenheim and Castle Howard. Certainly his writings are as light as his buildings heavy, and though a wit might justly compose an epitaph for him as an architect,

"Lie heavy on him, Earth, for he Laid many a heavy load on thee,"

the application can extend no further.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ruins of Wolsey's Palace Esher]

Before he died, Vanbrugh's estate was sold to the Earl of Clare, who added a banqueting-hall to the architect's modest dwelling, purchased additional land, and, after the custom greatly honoured in the observance during the eighteenth century, stole much more from the neighbouring common, until he brought the palings of the park coterminous (as the political geographers might say) with the Portsmouth Road. In midst of the land he had thus filched from the commoners of Esher, the Earl of Clare built a kind of belvidere on a pleasant eminence overlooking the country-side, and called it Clare Mount. Thus arose the name of the house and park. Soon afterwards, however, the Earl was created Duke of Newcastle, and, to honour his new pomp and circ.u.mstance the more, employed Kent, the celebrated landscape gardener, to re-arrange the grounds and gardens, until their magnificence called forth this eulogium from Sir Samuel Garth, a dabbler both in medicine and metre:--

"Oh! who can paint in verse those rising hills, Those gentle valleys, and their silver rills; Close groves and opening glades with verdure spread, Flow'rs sighing sweets, and shrubs that balsams bleed?"

Ah! who indeed? Not Sir Samuel Garth, though, if this be a representative taste of his quality.

The Claremont that we see now was built by the "heaven-born general,"

Clive, who purchased the estate upon the death of the Duke of Newcastle in 1768. He built, with the aid of Lancelot Brown (Capability Brown his contemporaries eke-named him), in a grand and ma.s.sive style that excited the gaping wonder of the country folk. "The peasantry of Surrey," says Macaulay, in his "Essay on Clive," "looked with mysterious horror on the stately house which was rising at Claremont, and whispered that the great wicked lord had ordered the walls to be made so thick in order to keep out the devil, who would one day carry him away bodily." This unenviable reputation for wickedness was the work of Clive's enemies, of whom, perhaps, from one cause and another, no man has possessed so many. The men above whose heads his genius and daring had carried him, and the Little Englanders of that day, both hated the hero of Pla.s.sey with a lurid and vitriolic vehemence. They circulated strange tales of his cruelty and cupidity in India, until even well-informed people regarded Clive as an incarnate fiend, and "Capability" Brown even came to wonder that his conscience allowed him to sleep in the same house with the notorious Moorshedabad treasure-chest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LORD CLIVE.]

Clive ended his brief but glorious career, slain by his own hand, in November 1774, but none the less murdered by the ingrat.i.tude of his country, a country so prolific in heroes that it can afford, for the sport of factions, to hound them occasionally to ruin and to death, coming afterwards in recriminating heart-agony to mourn their loss. Clive died, not yet fifty years of age, killed by const.i.tutional melancholia, aggravated by disease and the yelpings of politicians, eager to drag down in the mire the man who gave us India. The arms of Clive still decorate the pediment of Claremont, the only house, so 'tis said, that "Capability"

Brown ever built, though he altered many.

[Sidenote: _PRINCESS CHARLOTTE_]

In the forty years that succeeded between the death of Clive and the purchase of the estate by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, Claremont had a succession of owners; and upon the marriage of the Prince Regent's only daughter, the Princess Charlotte, in 1816, it was allotted to her for a residence. It was in May of that year that the Princess Charlotte of Wales was married to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the petty German Duchy that has furnished princelings innumerable for the recruiting of kingdoms and princ.i.p.alities, and has given the Coburg Loaf its name.

But within a year of her marriage the Princess died in child-birth, and was buried in a mausoleum within the park. Then Claremont was for long deserted. There is a much-engraved portrait of the Princess, painted by Chalon, R.A., which shows a pleasant-faced girl, with fine neck and full eyes,--the characteristic eyes of the Guelphs,--and a strong facial resemblance to her father and grandfather, the Third and Fourth Georges.

She is represented as habited in the indecent dress of the period, with ermined robe, and wearing a velvet hat with an immense plume of ostrich feathers. But a much more pleasing portrait is that by an unnamed artist, "a Lady," reproduced here, which gives a representation of the Princess without those elaborate feathers and showy trappings of Court ceremonial.

[Sidenote: _CHRONIQUES SCANDALEUSES_]

The circ.u.mstances that attended the death of this Princess, to whom the nation looked as their future Queen, were not a little mysterious, and gave rise to many sinister rumours and scandals. Sir Richard Croft, a fas.h.i.+onable _accoucheur_ of that time, was in attendance upon her with other physicians. He was one who signed the bulletins announcing her steady progress towards recovery after the birth of a dead child; but on the following day the news of the Princess's death came as a sudden shock upon England, whose people had but recently shared in the joy and happiness of her happy marriage, doubly welcome after the sinister quarrels, estrangements, and espionages that marked the wedded life of the Regent. Scarce had the tidings of the Princess Charlotte's death at Claremont become public property than all manner of strange whispers became current as to the causes of it. The public mind was, singularly enough, not satisfied with the medical explanations which would ordinarily have been accepted for very truth; but became exercised with vague suspicions of foul play that were only fanned into further life by the mutual recriminations of medicos and lay pamphleteers. Even those who saw no shadow of a crime upon this bad business were ready to cast blame and the bitterest reproaches upon Sir Richard Croft, in whose care the case chiefly lay, for his mistaken treatment. And this was not the first occasion upon which Croft's conduct had been looked upon with suspicion, for, years previously, a scandalous rumour had been bruited about with regard to two of his n.o.ble patients,--the d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re and an unnamed lady of t.i.tle,--by which it would seem that he was privy to a supposit.i.tious change of children at the d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re's accouchement, when it was believed that the d.u.c.h.ess exchanged a girl for her friend's boy.