Highways and Byways in Surrey Part 24

Box-trees love chalk, and here they drive their roots into the crown and scar of a cliff of chalk, so steep on one side down to the Mole that a stone could almost be thrown from the path round the ridge into the water. On the gra.s.s outside the box-grove the distance to the level valley below deceives even more strangely. It looks as if you could drive a golf ball straight from the hill on to the green; you may speculate as to the beauty of the arc curved in the sunlight, and the deadness with which the ball would lie after an absolutely perpendicular drop--to the extreme danger of those disinterested in the experiment.

But the hill is not really steep enough. The contours crowd on the map, but they show that you would have to drive nearly a quarter of a mile.

At a distance, in spring and summer, the trees which mark Box Hill are not box or juniper, but the whitebeams that patch the deeper green of the oaks and beeches with glaucous grey. The box-trees, though their thick, snaky stems look as if they might be any age, are not all of them old. The trees have more than once been cut and sold. Sir Henry Mildmay put them up for auction for 12,000 in 1795 and apparently sold them for 10,000 two years later, with twelve years to cut the wood in. In later days, the wisdom of a War Office cleared a wide s.p.a.ce of trees and built a fort there; the wisdom of another War Office abandoned the fort as useless. There it remains, behind spiked railings, the idlest monument of a whim.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _View of Box Hill, Misty Day._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Dorking._]

CHAPTER XXIX

DORKING

Mr. Stiggins at the Marquis of Granby--A Ruin.--The battle of Dorking.--Real fighting.--The Table and Cellar.--Water-souchy, a delicious dish.--Wild cherries.--Dorking snails.--Sandy kine.--Women without roses.--Shrove Tuesday football.--Dorking's glory.--Jupp at Cotmandene.--An earthquake.--Giant and Dwarf.

Dorking has twice had history made for it, and travellers come to visit the scenes. It was in the bar of the Marquis of Granby at Dorking that Sam Weller met his mother-in-law, and watched the reverend Mr. Stiggins make toast and sip the pineapple rum and water, and advised Mr. Weller senior as to the best method of treating Shepherds with cold water.

Pilgrims cross the Atlantic to visit the Marquis of Granby. No Dorking inn bears the name, nor ever has; but Americans will tell you that the Marquis is only a name d.i.c.kens invented to cover the ident.i.ty of the White Horse, which fronts the cobbles of Dorking High Street with its gables and white and green paint much as it must have done in the time of d.i.c.kens. d.i.c.kens himself, in _All the Year Round_--he did not sign the article, but in that paper none but he might have written of that inn--conceived "the Markis" to be the King's Head, in the old days a great coaching house on the Brighton Road. It stood at the corner of High Street and South Street, and in South Street to-day you may still gaze at its unhappy walls and windows. The old lattices are boarded up, smashed with stones; the rooms are empty. When the post office came to stand at the corner, the King's Head became a tenement house; afterwards a ruin.

The Battle of Dorking took place on the ridge north of the town in 1871, and resulted, after the invasion, in the conquest of Great Britain by Germany. It all came about perfectly simply. A rising in India had taken away part of our army; war with the United States over Canada had taken another 10,000 troops, and half of what were left were dealing with a Fenian revolution in Ireland. Germany put to sea and sank our fleet with torpedoes, a new and dreadful engine of war; then the German army landed and the end came at once. At least, it would have come, if Sir George Chesney, who described the battle of Dorking in _Blackwood's Magazine_, had prophesied truly. He lived till 1895, to see more than twenty years after his battle pa.s.s without an invasion; but the battle, for some of his readers, became a very real thing. The late Louis Jennings, in his _Field Paths and Green Lanes_, tells us that he had a friend who, believing most people to have very hazy notions of history, was in the habit of saying, "Of course you remember the battle of Dorking? Well, this was the very place where it was fought!" He was seldom contradicted.

The real history of Dorking has traditions of the table and the cellar.

Dorking fowls perhaps first came to the neighbourhood with the Romans, and poultry and Dorking have been a.s.sociated ever since. The true Dorking fowl is a large, well-feathered bird, and walks on five toes instead of lesser fowls' four. He has always been a great fowl for the table and historians have written about him since the days of Columella. Thus a contributor to the _Gentleman's Magazine_, in 1763:--

"An incredible quant.i.ty of poultry is sold in Dorking, and it is well known to the lovers of good eating for being remarkably large and fine. I have seen capons about Christmas which weighed between seven and eight pounds each out of their feathers, and were sold at five s.h.i.+llings apiece; nor are the geese brought to the market here about Michaelmas less excellent in their kind. The town is supplied with sea-fish from Brighthelmstone and Worthing, in Suss.e.x."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Dorking._]

The Dorking cooks knew well what to do with the sea-fish when they got them from Brighton. Dorking was famous for a particular way of making water-souchy, a delicious dish of various fishes, of which Mr. J.L.

Andre in the _Surrey Archaeological Collections_, has preserved the recipe rescued from an 1833 cookery book 'by a Lady':--

"Stew two or three flounders, some parsley roots and leaves, thirty peppercorns, and a quart of water, till the fish are boiled to pieces; pulp them through a sieve. Set over the fire the pulped fish, the liquor that boiled them, some perch, tench, or flounders, and some fresh roots or leaves of parsley; simmer all till done enough, then serve in a deep dish. Slices of bread and b.u.t.ter are to be sent to table to eat with the souchy."

It looks rather vague, but the "Gentlemen's Dorking Club" used to a.s.semble every other Thursday from June to November to discuss the tench and flounders at the Red Lion, and the King's Head used even to attract diners-out from London, especially Dutch merchants, who were particularly fond of the admirable dish. Wine, too, was grown in the town. There was a particular kind of wild cherry, of which Aubrey was told by John Evelyn that it made a most excellent wine, little inferior to the French claret; it would even keep longer. With the cherry wine, perhaps, you would have eaten Dorking snails. They were large, white snails, which some said were brought to the Downs by the pilgrims, others thought were introduced from Italy by the Earl of Arundel, Lord Marshal of England; Lady Arundel used to cook and eat them. They roamed the Downs by Box Hill and other chalky places, and are still to be found there. Perhaps the Romans brought them, but they are not peculiar to Surrey and Suss.e.x; I have found them on chalk in Hertfords.h.i.+re, and I have heard of them on the Cotswolds.

Such good fare should have built up the const.i.tutions of Dorking people.

But it was not so in Aubrey's time, for he picks out the Dorking men and women as weaker and paler than others. He liked to see women with rosy faces:--

"Handsome women (viz. sanguine) as in Berks, Oxon, Somerset, &c. are rare at this market; they have a mealy complexion, and something hail like the French Picards; light grey eyed, and the kine hereabout are of sandy colour, like those in Picardy. None (especially those above the hill) have roses in their cheeks. The men and women are not so strong or of so warm a complexion as in Wilts.h.i.+re, Gloucesters.h.i.+re, Herefords.h.i.+re, &c."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The White Horse, Dorking._]

One, at least, of the old customs of the town survived until very recent memory. Now it has died out with the rest. From Mr. J.S. Bright's _History of Dorking_ I learn that the office of constable has lapsed; the places of the 'Beggar-poker' and the 'Ale Taster' have been taken by the local police. Parish funds are no longer dispensed at the close of church service. The poor on St. Thomas's Day used to go out 'Gooding'; to-day they plead no more. The Ditchling Singers, which were the Dorking Waits, no longer keep Christmas. On the 29th of May, sacred to King Charles II of blessed memory, an oak bough used to hang from the church tower; the tower is bare throughout the year. Guy Fawkes has been burned for the last time; the Jack in the Green dances no longer in cowslips and b.u.t.tercups on the first of May. One ancient rite alone persisted until the other day. Every Shrove Tuesday, in dim remembrance of the great carnival which in ancient, pre-Reformation days, preceded the rigours of Lent, mummers made the circuit of the town. In the afternoon all the shops were shut and boarded up, and a game of football, started at the church gates, rioted up and down the main street. In the _Southern Weekly News_, an account describing the game of 1888 says that just before midday a procession of men grotesquely attired was formed, headed by a man bearing three footb.a.l.l.s on a triangular frame, over which was the motto:--

"Kick away both Whig and Tory, Wind and water Dorking's glory."

The Town Crier started the game, kicked off the first ball at two o'clock, and stopped it at six. But that was in 1888. Twenty years have changed the Crier's duties. Fines and the police have stopped the old custom altogether.

Fifty years ago the Dorking cricket ground at Cotmandene was hardly less well known than the Oval. Two Dorking cricketers belong to the glorious days of Cotmandene. Henry Jupp was born in the town, and Tom Humphrey at Mitcham, but both kept public-houses in Dorking, and both played great cricket for the county. Many stories are told of Jupp, who was a favourite with the crowd, but one of the oldest belongs to Cotmandene.

The match was for his benefit, and he was batting. Playing back at a ball, he trod on his wicket, and a bail fell. He picked up the bail, replaced it, and was reminded that he was out. "Out! At Dorking! Not me!" Nor did he go out, but made a hundred instead.

Another of Dorking's inhabitants made history in a different way.

Brayley's _History of Surrey_ was printed throughout in Dorking, and Ede, the printer, is said to have spent over 10,000 in the printing.

What he made out of it is doubtful; he had made the 10,000 by his three businesses as printer, chemist, and perfumer.

The real Dorking, apart from its battles over and to come, is sufficiently happy to have had very little history. The Danes sacked it, tradition says: they cannot have had much plunder. Julius Caesar marched through it, perhaps, if there was a Dorking then; the Roman road, at all events, the great Stone Street, which is still an English road by Ockley to the south, drove through the corner of Dorking churchyard. Another event of the dark days was an earthquake in 1551, in which, according to Henry Machyn's _Diary_, "pottes, panes, and dysys dounst and mett fell downe abowt howse and with many odur thyngs." But an earthquake which could do nothing more than make pots, pans and dishes dance is hardly an earthquake at all.

Perhaps its greatest event of historical times was a funeral. On the 23rd of December, 1815, Charles Howard, eleventh Duke of Norfolk, was buried at Dorking with the pomp and pageantry of a king. The procession left St. James's Square in London at nine in the morning; the coach and six horses of the Duke of Suss.e.x and twenty carriages followed it; they reached Dorking at five. Deputy Garter King of Arms, Norroy King of Arms, three heralds and three pursuivants attended in tabards of state; Deputy Garter, after the service, proclaimed the Duke's styles and t.i.tles:--

The Most High, Mighty, and Most Potent Prince, Charles Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal, And Hereditary Earl Marshal of England, Earl of Arundel Castle, Earl of Surrey, Earl of Norfolk, Earl of Norwich, Baron Mowbray, Baron of Howard, Baron of Segrave, Baron Brurese of Gower, Baron Fitzalan, Baron Warren, Baron Clun, Baron Oswaldestre, Baron Maltravers, Baron Greystock, Baron Furnival, Baron Verdon, Baron Lovetot, Baron Strange, And Premier Baron Howard of Castle Rising, Premier Duke, Premier Earl, Premier Baron of England, And Chief of the Ill.u.s.trious Family of the Howards.

The parish registers add little that can have stirred the world. Eleven years after the earthquake, on February 28, 1562, "Owyn Tonny was christened; who (a later hand adds), scoffing at thunder, standing under a beech was stroke to death, his clothes stinking with a sulphurious stench, being about the age of twenty years or thereabouts."

Another entry is more personal. De Foe, perhaps, who lived near Dorking, and knew two Dorking giants, might have liked to see the parish register side by side with a note in his "Tour." The "Tour" gives two measurements of the giants:--

"At this place lived another ancient gentleman and his son, of a very good family, Augustine Bellson, Esq.; the father measured seven feet and a half, and allowing that he might have sunk for his age, being seventy-one years old; and the son measured two inches taller than his father."

From the Parish Register, 1738, May 16: "Richard Madderson, aged 29 years, and was not above three feet and three inches high; but in thickness grown as much as any other person. He was all his life troubled with an inward griping distemper, of which he at last died very suddenly."

Thus the quiet life of Dorking in the quiet centuries. The days before the repeal of the Corn Laws, with the introduction of machinery for hand labour, saw the usual terror and the usual threats. "Captain Rock" and "Captain Swing" signed the letters which were sent to Dorking farmers; special constables were sworn, the windows of the Red Lion were broken, and once, on November 22, 1830, a van drawn by four horses took Dorking prisoners to the county gaol. Cavalry patrolled the town by night; but that November saw the end of Dorking's nearest knowledge of modern war.

CHAPTER x.x.x

WOTTON AND LEITH HILL

Denbies.--Tea veniente die.--A Temple of gloom.--Wotton House.--John Evelyn.--A child of five.--The Crossways.--Dabchicks in the Tillingbourne.--Friday Street.--A Swiss tarn.--Leith Hill.--The Day of Days.--Forty-one spires unseen.--Anstiebury Camp.--The Black Adder of Leith Hill.

North-west of Dorking, and overlooking the wide greenness of the Weald away to Leith and Holmbury Hills, is Denbies, now the residence of the Lord Lieutenant of the County, and once the property of Mr. Jonathan Tyers. Jonathan Tyers was the Kiralfy of a less aspiring age. He was the founder of Vauxhall Gardens, where, as Boswell puts it, you had a form of entertainment "peculiarly adapted to the taste of the English nation; there being a mixture of curious show--gay exhibition--music, vocal and instrumental, not too refined for the general ear, for all which only a s.h.i.+lling is paid; and, though last, not least, good eating and drinking for those who choose to purchase that regale." The founder of Vauxhall Gardens was also the father of Tom Tyers, the wit who parodied Virgil over Dr. Johnson's tea-cups--

"Tea veniente die, tea decedente"

--a phrase which has been of incalculable service to tea-drinking undergraduates. It was Tom Tyers who summed up Dr. Johnson, to the Doctor's liking: "Tom Tyers described me the best: 'Sir,' said he, 'you are like a ghost: you never speak till you are spoken to.'"

Jonathan Tyers reserved a private gloom for his own garden at Denbies.

He named one of his plantations _Il Penseroso_ and in it built a small temple which he bespattered with dismal texts. A clock struck every minute, to remind the visitor of the constant approach of death, and in an alcove were two life-size paintings of a Christian and an Unbeliever in their last moments. At the end of a walk stood a pair of pedestals, one of which carried a "Gentleman's Scull" and the other a "Lady's Scull" with appropriate verses; upon all of which melancholy properties Mr. John Timbs in his _Picturesque Promenade Round Dorking_, printed in 1823, meditates thus:--

"Such eccentric imageries, making irrefragable appeals to the feelings of the dissolute debauchee, might form a persuasive penitentiary, and urge the necessity of amendment with better effect than all the farcical frenzies of mere formalists and fanatics."

A later owner removed temple and all. Denbies of to-day offers the traveller a kindlier welcome by allowing access to more than one private roadway, from which the outlook over the country to the south is more than worth the steady climb from Dorking.

The road runs on to Ranmer Common, where Mr. John Timbs was able to look north to the dome and pinnacles of St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, but I was not lucky enough with the weather. Ranmer has a church more finely placed, I think, than any in the county, except perhaps St.

Martha's; but St. Martha's has no spire like Ranmer. Ranmer spire is a landmark: you take your bearings from that graceful needle for many miles in central Surrey, as you may from Crooksbury Hill in the west.

East Surrey has no landmark quite so friendly.