Surrey: Painted by Sutton Palmer; Described by A.R. Hope Moncrieff — John Shaqi
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
Some brooklets of the Weald run southward to the English Channel, else,
nearly the whole of Surrey drains into the valley of the Thames, a river
to make the landscape fortune of any county. If ever its scenes have a
fault, from the artist's point of view, this may appear to be the
absence of water; yet some of its noblest prospects are where the Mole
and the Wey break through the sand or chalk ridges to reach the river
plain. Surrey has smaller streams less widely known. Ruskin, to deaf
ears, lamented the defilement of the Wandle, its source, its curving
course, and its mouth all now within the limits of Greater London. Do
Putney boys trace to its head the Beverley Brook, as Charles Lamb's
companions tried to play explorer up the New River? How many of the
most schooled Londoners could tell through what parishes and by what
suburban settlements flows the Hogsmill River, or the Bourne, or the
Burway Ditch? A Brixton householder may hear the name of the Ephra
without guessing how its course is below his feet. There are veteran
ramblers in Surrey who know not the Deanoak Brook, nor the Blackwater.
The motorist scorching along the Tillingbourne Valley road comes home
ignorant what beautiful banks he has skirted, while one goggled eye was
all upon his gear, and the other on the look-out for police traps.
The fact is that Surrey has plenty of water, often lost in the
picturesque roughness of its contours. In smoother counties any hillock
may disclose some Ouse or Avon shining miles away, whereas here the
windings and branchings of the Wey and Mole go often unsuspected till
one come close upon them. Below Surrey's bare, bony prominences, its
veins will lie lost in the plumpness of the valleys. Both chalk and sand
hills, dry as their tops may seem, are full of springs, escaping not
only in streams, but into stagnant or slowly trickling pools, that
sometimes form a chain of lakelets, or, as in the case of Virginia
Water, have
[Illustration: GODALMING--A BIT OF THE OLD TOWN.]
been improved into trim sheets to leave no note wanting in the landscape
scale. Even within the wider bounds of London sparkles a lake like that
of Wimbledon Park, where in hard winters ice is coined into silver.
Sandy commons, as well as marshy bogs, are unexpectedly found dotted
with ponds, often beautifully hidden behind a curtain of foliage, as the
"Silent Pool" of Albury, invisible to the cyclist spinning by within a
hundred yards. The modest titles of some of these Surrey lakes may well
deceive a stranger who has not opened his eyes upon the "Waggoners'
Wells" of Hindhead or the "Ponds" of Frensham. On the south side of the
county, where they once lay among thick woods, such waters often
preserve the title of "Hammer Ponds," from the days when they were
dammed up to work iron forges.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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