Surrey

other on short cross-roads, so as to pick out the best stretches of each. In Paterson's road-book (1792) the Brighthelmston Road is indicated as going by Croydon, Godstone Green, East Gri

save a mile or so, came in our time to bear the name of the Brighton Road par excellence

URNE,

te, even at the cost of facing th

fter, reaches Brighton not very late at night." If 7 A.M. would answer to this matutinal worthy's idea of a not very early start, that allows five hours for a journey recorded to be done once, under William IV., in the exceptionally short time of three hours forty minutes. A more precise writer of Cobbett's date gives six hours as a good rate for sixteen regular coaches plying all the year-besides eight "butterflies" in summer-the "Times," the "Regulator," the "Rocket," the "Patriot," the "True Blue," and so forth. In our own day of coaching revival a record run has been a little under eight hours to Brighton and back, with the disadvantage of more thronged thoroughfares to be traversed at either end. The cyclists' record seems to be about seven hours for the double

rustic character, showing clumps of cottages, old inns, and patches of open ground not yet squeezed out of existence, while it has a fame of its own for the manufacture of tobacco and for the culture of aromatic herbs, that are distilled at Carshalton not far off. About several villages around, indeed, the air is perfumed

for m

lton f

for a pr

ham for

the gypsies that long hung about it, and other undesi

have mourned more loudly had he lived to see its well-timbered park invaded by the builder. Carshalton-spelt Casehorton in Georgian books, Cash-Haulton by Fuller-is one of those places that has a wilful pronunciation of its name, this and the spelling perhaps worn down from Cross Old Town; and it is old enough to figure in King Alfred's will. Eastwards, by Wallington and Beddington, this choice place of residence almost runs into Croydon, to which a pretty walk may be taken by the bank

building farther on to the chalk heights. Coming by Carshalton, one strikes Sutton in its centre, where beside the railway station the road, till not long ago, was spanned by the sign of the "Cock," that held out longer than the turnpike gate below it. The high-road runs right through this long place, for two miles or so,

re below which stands the chancel of the old Church, enshrining some stately monuments; then from this village one can walk on through Nonsuch Park to Ewell on the Epsom road. Cheam is perhaps best known by what seems the oldest

hey are now to be devoted to the care of more afflicted wards of our local government. Beyond, on the right, is seen the outlying place called Belmont, that hardly justifies its name. The unshackled wayfarer might bear over the Downs to the left, making for the spire of the pretty village of Banstead, hidden among fine trees. Those who keep the high-road

e low tu

berried jun

owth of glossy

urrowing rabbit

appled deer del

ns of Banstead,

wery v

the Downs, is the park called the "Oaks," seat of that Lord Derby who founded the race so named. On either side there are alluring byways, like that leading by Banstead along the ridge to Woodmansterne, at whose little Church guide

in distinction from Walton low-lying on the Thames. Here there is a wide stretch of real stubbly heath, such as Cobbett would abuse as "villainous," but the Romans had not such bad taste, who left the remains of a considerable villa to be unearthed on it. Walton Place is said to have been the retreat of Anne of Cleves after he

HEATH,

many footpaths. From this may soon be gained the Roman Road; and southwards, from Walton or Headley, there are

exe of Reigate. A footpath runs along the cutting to the end of the Suspension Bridge, where are seats for enjoying the celebrated view from this brow; but from the open turf by the roadside the prospect is hardly diminished, embracing the whole south of the county. The Holmesdale Valley lies at our feet, with Reigate spread out in the foreground, backed by the sand ridge; far away to the east stretches the Weald o

lice, who have made themselves a terror to scorchers. In the valley, beyond the railway station, the road pierces into the heart of Reig

Castle of the De Warennes, a rival to that of Bletchingley on the sand ridge beyond Redhill. Till the last Reform Bill Reigate had a member of its own, and two in olden days. When membership of Parliament was often felt a burden rathe

tephen Langton, makes the secret meeting-place of the barons conspiring to bring King John on his knees for the signing of Magna Charta. Still older legends haunt these caves, where rude carvings have been attributed to Roman soldiers quartered in them. Under other houses in or about the town there are caves or excavations said to

the timbered Downs to Box Hill. Up the valley runs the road to Dorking, going out by Reigate Heath, where on a byway to Leigh is found the curious feature of a windmill turned into a little church. Beyond the town the sand ridge leads eastward to the broken expanse of Earlswood Common; o

eformer. By path to Redhill along the top of the ridge, or over Earlswood Common on its south side, one can now in a couple of miles strike across to the road through Croydon, soon to converge with that we have followed through Reigate. From Woodhatch, the latter drops on to the

ine diversion among the branches of the Mole to the west, crossing over to the line of Stone Street. But our theme is the Brighton road, on which let us now ski

antiquity. To carry out the sporting character of the neighbourhood, Horley is headquarters of the Surrey staghounds, and at Burstow, to the east, are the kennels of one of three packs of foxhounds that hunt this edge of the county, where Mr. Jorrocks must have had many a day before he came to his mastership at Handley Spa. To the east he

palace of the idiot asylum. Thus it mounts the sand ridge, stretching towards Reigate in boldly broken scars and tangled hollows of the red sandstone that gives Redhill its name, here crowned by a circular clump to commem

oad almost into Reigate. When the high-road gets out of Redhill, it is climbing the Downs, reached at Merstham below Gatton Park, and passed by a valley making the course of the Bourne, one of those English wadys so common in chalk countries, which, filled by the overflowing of s

swell of the Farthing or Fairdene Downs, which, with Coulsdon Common beyond, are a pleasure-ground of the City of London, as seems too little known to Londoners, unless it be the Guardsmen from Coulsdon Barracks, whose uniforms may appear as showy dots on the turf slopes, where sometimes hardly a human figure comes in sight over a mile of open prospe

ust take the consequences of such a situation. It leads us humbly on to the

HFORD

Purley; but contemporary Radicals seem not much disposed to seek either amusement or instruction from the works of that philosophic grammarian and agitator. What

passed that way, on a fine Sunday evening, I came upon a band of "burly chiels and clever hizzies" from the North, actually dancing about a piper-"to give them music was his charge," as more rigid Scots might quote grimly. The waters by which these cheerful exiles thus forgot the Sabbath songs of their Zion show, in the reservoirs of Kenley and Purley, a strikingly blue tint one guesses to be due to some process for softening their chalky impregnation; and this valley also has a subterranean bourne, to wh

s, for one of the first in the country was made hence to Wandsworth, the very first, in 1800, belonging to Derbyshire, the contrivance of Benjamin Outram, from whose name Outramways is said to have been playfully derived; but the word tram is of course an old one. There is now only one hia

in our day; and with other old taverns has gone the "King's Head," kept by Ruskin's grandmother. But Croydon has still relics of the past among its smart modern features displayed by electric light round the tower of its Town Hall. At the corner where the chief street is gained from the Central station stands Whitgift's Hospital, a "haunt of ancient peace" since it was founded by Elizabeth's archbishop; but it is now threatened with removal or alteration as standing too much in the way of the busy tram line, that seems already to have pushed the Brighton coaches off this road, wher

ecalling Scotland, with the softer features of an English demesne; so one hoped for it to escape the fate of being broken up for building lots, as seems now the doom of its seclusion. But the Addington Hills on the Croydon side, and the bare brow of Shirley, are open, giving a wide view over South London, with the Crystal P

bank called Crohamhurst is now a public park, about which pleasant footways lead over a country too rapidly being built over. On the other sid

wns to Godstone Green, with its good old inns, then by Tilburstow Hill, a bold knob of the sand ridge, on to a stretch of the Weald, from which once more it rises to the Forest Ridge of Sussex. But we have already crossed this road at its

bring us to Warlingham above the Caterham valley, where the Church, with its ancient yews, has among other old features a faded fresco of St. Christopher. A mile or two farther on, the chalk is broken by gravel pits and traces of ancient excavation on Worms Heath; then the road rises to 800 feet on Nore Hill, and still higher as by

t the farther slope, where the common makes a favourite golf ground. Village is hardly the word for what seems a roomy suburb, spreading itself on the broken ground that has given fine sites for such institutions as the Church Missionary Home and the Caxton Convalescent Home for printers; but here is well shown that scene so frequent around London, a quiet ro

re he entertained James Mill and his well-taught son. By Oxted, an hour or so's walk leads westward to Godstone, past or not far from Tandridge and Godstone Churches, both finely restored by Sir Gilbert Scott, who lived here under the brow of Marden Park. His alabaster monument to his wife in Tandridge churchyard, an

BLUEBELLS

ll slopes suddenly to the Kentish Weald. A most beautiful round might be made of this excursion into Kent, by taking the path through Squerryes Park, behind Crock

anding up among the remains of Wealden woods. The restored Church has two brasses, and one of the cast-iron tomb-stones common in this Black Country of old days; but its lion is the churchyard yew, taken as the oldest and largest in Surrey, thirty-two feet in girth, its fame sometimes confused with that other great yew's, that distinguishes likewise the Sussex Crowhurst. The yew-hedged farm close by was the manor-house of the Angell family, whose

hostelry now rare about London. The noble Church, formerly a collegiate one, is to be visited for its show of Cobham monuments and brasses, and other old features. The old College has disappeared; but a modern foundation here is the "Homestead" colony for the afflicted in mind, body, or estate, a praiseworthy effort of the Christian Union

standing in its own grounds round the tower of a club-house. The enterprise did not succeed very well; and the place has sought to gain a fresh start under the name of Dormans Park, the club being turned into an hotel, that does good business at the race meetings, and at other times would make a centre f

Defoe's time, could be spoken of as one line of gentlemen's houses between Guildford and Leatherhead. I have not said enough of the stretch of broken land between the Wey valley and Leith Hill, nor of picturesque old villages and "greens" hidden among its wild commons and copses. Other points may have been unwillingly o

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