Surrey: Painted by Sutton Palmer; Described by A.R. Hope MoncrieffMoncrieff, A. R. Hope (Ascott Robert Hope)
History
Surrey: Painted by Sutton Palmer; Described by A.R. Hope Moncrieff
Moncrieff, A. R. Hope (Ascott Robert Hope)
Surrey (England) -- Description and travel
by adherence to the ancient faith from taking active part in the
world of affairs.
The Wey's next turn is round the village of Send, where its navigable
branch makes eastward, while vagrant channels stray off a little north
to touch Woking. This name may seem familiar to London travellers, yet
few of them will know where and what Woking is. The lively new town that
has grown up so fast on the heaths about Woking Junction, stands nearly
two miles north of the original village, huddled about the tower and
tiled roof of its old church, a landmark conspicuous over the river
flat. Even when Defoe made his tour, this place lay "so out of all Road,
that 'tis very little heard of in England; it claims however some Honour
from its being once the Residence of ... the old Countess of Richmond,
Mother to King Henry VII., who made her last Retreat here," and who, he
might have added, had the singular fortune of being thrice a bride in
her teens. The moated royal manor has long disappeared; but this
back-water village preserves a Market Hall as token of former dignity.
When the branches of the Wey unite about a mile east of Old Woking, it
is only to split up again in vagrant loops, tangled by the taking in of
a tributary from the commons near Aldershot. The knot of tortuous
channels here encloses one of Surrey's rare ruins, the remains of
Newark Priory, of which the south transept walls still stand in broken
state, impressive rather than imposing, to be a favourite rendezvous of
picnic parties. Near the ruins a large old timber mill makes another
landmark of these watery meadows, overlooked from the north by a bank
bearing up the little church of Pyrford, with its faded wall paintings
and like hints of antiquity.
Lying some two or three miles by sandy roads from Woking or from Byfleet
stations, Newark is perhaps oftener visited by way of Ripley, a mile to
the south, a pleasant village about a spacious green, where the "Talbot"
and the "Anchor" have taken a new lease through the favour of cyclists.
With this fraternity the Ripley road came to be a so frequent spin, that
the Vicar, willing to run with the times, opened a free stable for
cycles at his parsonage, and set apart special seats for their riders,
who have repaid such hospitality by contributing a memorial window.
Another hostelry, frequented by golfers, is the "Hautboy" of Ockham,
birthplace of the scholastic theologian of that ilk. This oakland
village is separated from Ripley by Ockham Park, a demesne of Earl
Lovelace, Byron's grandson, who has another seat not far off at East
Horsley, where its Clock Tower may be seen standing up in the woods
along the south side of the Downs, that since we left Guildford have
been drawing away from the course of the river.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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