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
The modern pilgrim may as well leave this lower road to be looked down
on from the edge, along which he can hold on from Marden Park, by hints
of War Office possession, and some lonely houses that mark an attempt at
a new London settlement meant to take its name from Woldingham on the
lower ground behind. Thus is gained the inconspicuous swell of Botley
Hill, which appears to be the highest ground on the Surrey Downs (882
feet) but has no markedly prominent point to command a view, looking
north across a somewhat featureless table-land to the towers of the
Crystal Palace, and south over a more pleasing expanse of hills, dales,
woods, and villages. Presently this prospect is interrupted by woods,
behind which five roads meet to make the perilous descent by Titsey, as
other arduous lanes and paths have been seen dropping down towards Oxted
and Limpsfield. Still we may keep the edge, taking the Westerham road,
almost half a mile along which, at Cold Harbour Green, the highest face
of the Surrey Downs (880 feet) is marked by a clump of beech trees above
a farm named Pilgrims' Lodge. A little farther along the high ground
stands the last Surrey Church, Tatsfield, looking far over the vale by
which the Way now enters Kent.
Many a weary league had the pilgrims yet to tramp or trot, up and down,
along or above the Kentish Downs. Little thought had they to spare for
the beauties of their long road, unless when some poetic soul was
half-unconsciously moved by the freshness of a flowery mead or the
coolness of the good greenwood where "smalle fowles maken melody." Least
of all did they admire the arduous steeps and the patches of wilderness
on which a generation free from the fear of robbers and bogeys best
loves to linger. In this too short account of some forty miles as the
bird flies, which might well be doubled by turning here and there among
varied scenes and sites, I have been able only to outline one of the
most alluring ways in England, which threads together nearly all
Surrey's fairest charms. If the gentle reader do not believe my report,
let him make this pilgrimage for himself, as he may do, day after day,
in stretches of some dozen miles, by striking into its road from
Farnham, Guildford, Dorking, Redhill, or Caterham, each giving access to
a fresh block of the Downs.
VI
THE ROMAN ROAD
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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