The Crooked Billet, on Penge Common.

Friday, May, — 1827.

I had appointed this morning with my friend W. for a visit to the gallery of paintings at Dulwich College; and he was to obtain from a printseller an admission ticket, and bring it with him. He came furnished with the ticket, but as the ticket provided that the public were not to be admitted on a Friday, our seeing the pictures was out of the question. Neither of us, however, was in a humour to be disappointed of a holiday; we therefore set out in the direction we had intended. A coachman hailed us from the box of a Dulwich stage; we gave him an assenting nod, and mounted the roof: and after a brisk drive through Walworth and Camberwell, which are now no other way distinguishable from the metropolis, than by the irregular forms and sizes of the houses, and the bits of sickly grass and bottle-green poplars that further diversify them, we attained to the sight of the first out-of-town looking trees and verdure on the ascent towards Herne-hill. Here we began to feel “another air;” and during the calm drive down the hill into Dulwich—the prettiest of all the village entrances in the environs of London—we had glimpses, between the elms and sycamores, of pleasant lawns And blooming gardens, with bursts of the fine distances. The calm of the scene was heightened by the note of the cuckoo: it was no “note of fear” to us—we remembered our good wives surrounded by their families; they had greeted our departure with smiles, and hopes that the day would be pleasant, and that we should enjoy ourselves;—the mother and the children rejoiced in “father’s holiday” as a day of happiness to them, because it would make him happier.

Leaving Dulwich College on our right, with an useless regret, that, by our mistake as to the day, the picture-gallery was closed to us, we indulged in a passing remark on the discrepancies of the building—the hall and west wing of the Elizabethan age; the east wing in the Vanbrugh style; and the gallery differing from each. Alighting, just beyond, at the end of the old road, and crossing to the new one in the same line, we diligently perused an awful notice from the parochial authorities against offenders, and acquainted ourselves with the rewards for apprehending them. The board seemed to be a standing argument in behalf of reading and writing, in opposition to some of the respectable inhabitants of Dulwich, who consider ignorance the exclusive property of labourers and servants, which they cannot be deprived of without injury to their morals.

Ascending the hill, and leaving on the left hand a large house, newly built by a rich timber-merchant, with young plantations that require years of growth before they can attain sufficient strength to defend the mansion from the winds, we reached the summit of the hill, and found a direction-post that pointed us to a choice of several roads. We strolled into one leading to Penge Common through enclosed woodlands. Our ears were charmed by throngs of sweet singing birds; we were in a cathedral of the feathered tribes, where “every denomination” chanted rapturous praises and thanksgivings; the verger-robins twittered as they accompanied us with their full sparkling eyes and bright liveried breasts.—

Chiefs of the choir, and highest in the heavens,
As emulous to join the angels’ songs,
Were soaring larks; and some had dared so far
They seem’d like atoms sailing in the light;
Their voices and themselves were scarce discern’d
Above their comrades, who, in lower air
Hung buoyant, brooding melody, that fell
Streaming, and gushing, on our thirsty ears.
In this celestial chancel we remain’d
To reverence these creatures’ loud Te Deum—
A holy office of their simple natures
To Him—the great Creator and Preserver—
Whom they instinctively adored.

A gate in the road was opened to us by a poor woman, who had seen our approach from her road-side dwelling; she had the care of collecting the toll from horsemen and carriage-drivers—we were foot-passengers, and credited our tailors for the civility. At a few yards beyond this turnpike we stopped to read a dictatorial intimation:—“All trespassers on these woods will be prosecuted, and the constables have orders to take them into custody.” I am not sure that there is a “physiognomy of hand-writing,” but I am a believer in the physiognomy of style, and the features of this bespoke a Buonaparte of the hundred who had partaken of the carvings under an enclosure-act. No part was fenced off from the common road, and the land had been open to all till spoliation deprived the commoners of their ancient right, and annexed the common soil to a neighbouring domain. Whose it now is, by law, I know not, nor inquired. I look around, and cottages have disappeared, and there are villas instead; and the workhouses are enlarged, and, instead of labour, tread-mills are provided. According to a political economist of ancient times, “There is much food in the tillage of the poor;” and “He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.” To whom of old was it said, “The spoil of the poor is in your houses?”

We lingered on our way, and passed a bridge over the canal, towards a well-looking public-house, called “the Old Crooked Billet.” Before the door is, what is called, a “sign,” which, according to modern usage, is a sign-post, with a sign-board without a sign, inscribed with the name of what the sign had been. Formerly this was a little ale-house, and to denote its use to the traveller, the landlord availed himself of one of the large old trees then before the door, and hung upon the lowest of its fine spreading branches not the “sign” of the billet, but a real “crooked billet:” this was the origin of “the Old Crooked Billet” on (what was) Penge Common. We had set out late and loitered, and after a brief reconnoitre entered the house in search of refreshment. The landlord and his family were at dinner in a commodious, respectable bar. He rose to us like “a giant refreshed,” and stood before us a good-humoured “Boniface”—every inch a man—who had attained to strength and fair proportion, by virtue of the ease and content wherein he lived. We found from his notable dame that we could have eggs and bacon, and spinach put into the pot from the garden, in a few minutes; nothing could have been suggested more suitable to our inclination, and we had the pleasure of being smiled into a comfortable parlour, with a bow-window view of the common. The time necessary for the preparation of our meal afforded leisure to observe the hostel. W. went out to pencil the exterior in his sketch-book. Except for the situation, and the broad, good-humoured, country face of our landlord, we might have imagined ourselves in town; and this was the only uncomfortable feeling we had. The sign-board on the other side of the road revealed the name of our entertainer—“R. Harding,” and the parlour mantlepiece told that he was a “Dealer in Foreign Wines, Segars, &c.” This inscription, written in clerk-like German text, framed and glazed, was transportation against my will, to the place from whence I came. Our attention was diverted by the rolling up of a gig, espied afar off by “mine host,” who waited at the door with an eye to business, and his hands in the pockets of his jean jacket. The driver, a thin, sharp-featured, pock-faced man, about forty, alighted with as much appearance of kindly disposition as he could bring his features to assume, and begged the favour of an order for “a capital article.” His presented card was received with a drop of the landlord’s countenance, and a shake of the head. The solicitor—and he looked as keenly as a Chancery-lane one—was a London Capillaire-maker; he urged “a single bottle;” the landlord pleaded his usage of sugar and demurred, nor could he be urged on to trial. Our repast brought in, and finished with a glass of country brewed and a segar, W. completed his sketch, and we paid a moderate charge, and departed with “the Old Crooked Billet” as exhibited in the [engraving]. The house affords as “good accommodation for man and horse” as can be found in any retired spot so near London. Our stroll to it was delightful. We withdrew along the pleasant road to the village of Beckenham. Its white pointed spire, embowered in trees, had frequently caught our sight in the course of the day, and we desired to obtain a near view of a church that heightened the cheerful character of the landscape. It will form another [article]—perhaps [two].