Surrey

em are known, either as straight stretches of modern highway, or fallen into miry and grassy desuetude, or only guessed at as having shaped parish boundaries. Least forgotten are the main roads con

llowed Ermyn Street, the Great Northern line of the Romans. They had

NEAR GO

this or from Ermyn Street, or rather as a continuation of both, "Stane" Street went south towards Chichester, the Roman Regnum, with a branch that might be styled the Brighton line of the period, when indeed Pevensey was the important terminu

bedded in sand and gravel or cement. As in the case of the Pilgrims' Way, part of its line has been more or less closely followed by an actual road; part has become obliterated, the course only to be guessed by the rule of general straightness, unless where turned askew by insurmountable obstacles; but one stretch still remains clearly marked out,

and proudly is the residence here of Nelson with his too intimate friends the Hamiltons, in a house the identification of which was made matter of recent newspaper controversy, so blurred are the records of a century back. Confusion seems to have arisen from the fact that the Hamiltons temporarily occupied Merton Abbey House; but their fixed home was Merton Place, to the south of the Abbey, which has disappeared along with the stream in the grounds, by Lady Hamilton christened the Nile, in honour of her hero. The "Nelson's Arms" and Nelson Grove Road preserve his m

Tudor and Stuart days. Nonsuch Palace became a favourite residence of Elizabeth and James I., and seems to have set a fashion of the day in names. The Virginian colonists christened Powhattan's lodge Nonsuch, as "the strongest and most pleasant place in the country," when John Smith also complimented Pocahontas with the title "Nonpareil of Virginia." The present mansion keeps no more than the name of Nonsuch, the site of which was near the modern mock antiquity styled Ewell Castle and the ivied tower of the old chu

be, and one through the houses of Worcester Park: there has, indeed, been so much building hereabouts of late, that I should fear now to find the paths turning to streets. This way is mainly up the course of the Hogsmill River to Chessington, the

Common, named Leatherhead Common on a map of a century ago, before it became a resort of school-feasting Londoners. A conspicuous building on the Downs side is Epsom College, founded for the sons of medical men. That tall tower at Horton makes a landmark on the flat to the other side. The London end of the town is more commonplace, but farther on, about the Clock Tower that replaces the old watch-house, roomy o

e is said to have been the excuse for that gathering of Cavaliers that ended so ill outside of Kingston, when they would have revived the

ngs, handsome

virgins' kisses;

cing forth th

t they

himself was "of nothing but the great foot-race run this day on Banstead Downs between Lee, the Duke of Richmond's footman, and a tyler, a famous runner," and how the a

merable Company of Horsemen, as well Gentlemen as Citizens, attending the Sport; and then, adding to the Beauty of the Sight, the Racers flying over the Course, as if they neither touched not nor felt not the Ground they run upon: I think no sight except that of a Victorious Army, under a Protestant King of Great Britain, could exceed it." That unlamented Prince Fred, "who was alive and i

to have been discovered early in the seventeenth century, through a countryman noticing how his cows-or his ass in a variant story-would not drink it, a rev

OSSOMS NE

have been under Queen Anne, whose husband came to drink the waters. Nearness to London must have helped Epsom's favour; and its people were not backward in laying themselves out to accommodate strangers, for whose entertainment were provided the usual gaieties of a watering-plac

who sought serious treatment found it by walking out to the wells of Dulwich and Streatham, so much beset on holidays by "an unruly and unmannerly" crowd that the "better sort" kept aloof from such Cockney haunts. One notes how a contemporary French Guide du Baigneur advertises Dulwich and Streatham as well a

the main street, with the paved Terrace, Assembly Room, and two rival bowling-greens as centres of intercourse

, and Behaviour (not to mention Age) ordain'd to quench the cruel Flames, or to damp the inordinate Desires, which the Young, the Handsom, and the Accomplish'd, might undesignedly kindle.... The Rude, the Sullen, the Noisy, and the Affected, the Peevish, the Covetous, the Litigious, and the Sharping, the Proud, the Prodigal, the Impatient, and the Impertinent, become visible foils to the Well-bred, Prudent, Modest, and Good-humour'd, in the Eyes of all impartial Beholders. Our Doctors, instead of prescribing the Waters for the Vapours, or the Spleen, order their Patients to be assiduous at all publick Meetings, knowing that (if they be not themselves of the Number) they'll find abundant Occasion to laugh at bankrupt Fortune-Hunters, crazy or superannuated Beaus,

to close it by way of protecting his own dishonest enterprise. Then Epsom fell off as a resort; and though attempts were made to galvanise its repute, it never got back those throngs of visitors, while the artificial Epsom salts came to be a popular remedy. The once famous well is now obscurely enclosed in the ground

t seems anything but stony in our macadamising days. An easy and pleasant way of striking into it from the town is to turn up left at the "Spread Eagle," then presently right by a flagged path and a lane forking to the right, which brings one below Lord Rosebery's seat, the Du

Ashstead and Leatherhead, on the other to Headley and Walton, by which one might cut across to the Reigate road. Pebble Lane is a local name, suggested by traces of the Roman construction that have been exposed to view; and there are hints of the old emba

oft walking it grows narrower, rougher, and shadier, crooking its way through a wood as it comes upon the yew-dotted and tumulus-swollen slopes of the Downs above Leatherhead. All this part of Surrey is particularly rich in yews, such as we saw in the Druid's Grove of Norbury across the Mole, which our road now approaches. Benea

the lovely valley of the Mole, with Norbury Park on its opposite slope. The Roman Road seems to have dropped down into the hollow below Juniper Hill before crossing the Mole; but then its line becomes lost, though fragments of it are said to h

a moral and adorn a tale from Blackwood, was suggested by the position of Dorking at the foot of the steep Downs, making a natural line of defence for the south side of London. In Domesday the town figures as Dorkinges, a name authentically famed through a breed of fowls said to have been introduced by the Romans. There can be no doubt about its antiquity, and its importance in good old days is vouched for by the size and number of its inns, the "

d earlier at Kingston and other towns. Here lasted longest in Surrey what seems a survival of Carnival roistering, a triple game of football played

LE OF

grand final struggle, hundreds strong, began with the white ball, going on till the chimes rang at 6 P.M. These Saturnalian scrimmages proved as hard to extinguish as the bonfire-revels at Lewes on Guy Fawkes Day; but this year a dozen extra policemen appear to have

the place, being stocked with perch, carp, and tench, that supplied the dish called "water souchy," a stew of fish in esteem with London citizens. Sanitarians now shake their heads over this damp and misty flat, and Dorking's recent growth is rather

s, visited with due admiration by his neighbour John Evelyn, and also by Aubrey, who declared the sight "worthy of Cowley's Muse." At the beginning of last century the estate was bought and extended by "Anastasius" Hope, author of a celebrated Eastern romance, and liberal patron of such artists as Flaxman and Thorwaldsen, with whose works he stored the mansion begun by him. As a guest here, Disraeli is understood to have written Coningsby. Another owner of note was Mr. Beresford Hope, the proprietor of the Saturday Review. In the hands of his heirs the estate fell among the Philistines, a

en occurring on or near an old road, is believed to denote an inn, like the caravanserais of the East, that supplied only bare walls. Evelyn reviles a poor Alpine inn as a "cold harbour, though the house had a stove in every room." It is not improbable that a deserted Roman villa or military station would be turned to account as such a place of more or less imperfect shelter. Ruskin, in one of his rashest excursions ultra crepidam, opined that the

er, into the valley of the Arun. As a practicable path, however, it seems to have fallen much out of use, overlaid by the woods and grounds of this generation. In the fork one can see no trace of it now, but, if one here take the right-hand road crooking up to the hamlet of Oakwood Hill, below this an inscription, Shut the Gate, shows the bridle-way preserved as drive of a modern mansion. Beside this house it passes as a gre

d to the sequestered chapel of Oakwood and on to Oakwood Hill, whence, half a dozen miles south-west, might be reached in Sussex the Baynards or the Rudgwick station of a line from Guildford, near the new quarters of the Bluecoat School converging with that other from Dorking, on which Warnham, the home of Shelley's youth, has a station about as far to the south-east of Ockley. Eastward, one can seek the secluded Wealden village