IN MEMORY OF
A generous but unfortunate Sailor,
Who was barbarously murdered on Hindhead,
On Sept. 24th 1786,
BY THREE VILLAINS
After he had liberally treated them, and promised them his
further assistance on the road to Portsmouth.
“When pitying eyes to see my grave shall come,
And with a generous tear bedew my tomb,
Here shall they read my melancholy fate,
With murder and barbarity complete.
In perfect health, and in the flower of age,
I fell a victim to the ruffians’ rage;
On bended knees I mercy strove t’obtain,
Their thirst of blood made all entreaties vain.
No dear relation or still dearer friend,
Weeps my sad lot or miserable end.
Yet o’er my sad remains—my name unknown—
A generous Publick have inscribed this stone.”
The Huts Hotel exhibits a series of quaint pictures illustrating this tragedy. The murderers were hanged on what is still called Gibbet Hill, the highest point of the moorland, looking over to Haslemere from the edge of the Punch Bowl. The gibbet was soon blown down; then on its site a granite cross with a nobler inscription was erected by Chief Justice Sir William Erle. This spot, nearly 900 feet high, is the main point for picnic parties; and it seems time to tell the reader how to reach it.
About nine miles beyond Godalming, the Portsmouth road runs between the Gibbet Hill and the Punch Bowl, into which hollow leads a humbler footway from Thursley, lying about half a mile to the right where the road begins its long steady ascent. On the edge of the Punch Bowl, Nicholas Nickleby’s road has been brought down to a lower level, and the memorial stone with it; one must scramble up the sandy lane representing the old road to get the view from the cross. No description can do justice to this panorama, seen at its best on a still autumn day; and guide-book editors are here saved much trouble by an orientation-table, on the top of which, as on a compass face, will be found indicated the names, direction, and distance of all the chief points around.
From the Gibbet Hill it is nearly a mile on to the inhabited part of Hindhead, whose nearest station is Haslemere, three miles off, in the valley below, to and from which now plies an omnibus. From Haslemere to Farnham also runs a service of motor-cars that would give a good trip over this district, but without touching that highest and wildest point. Half-way up the ascent, near Shottermill Church and its fish-ponds, was a temporary home of George Eliot, who did some of her best work in this vicinity. Most of Hindhead’s visitors come by way of Haslemere; and in any case this is a place worth visiting for its own sake.
The picturesque character of the neighbourhood becomes very manifest at Witley, the station before Haslemere, where one might get out to make a gradual ascent of Hindhead by lanes on which it is easy to miss the way, unless by steering for clumps of wood high above the right of the railway some three miles on. Witley is also the station for Chiddingfold, a couple of miles south-eastward, whose picturesque old “Crown” Inn bespeaks former importance; and a factory of walking-sticks represents the iron and glass making that once flourished in this well-timbered district.
To the east of Witley station, Hambledon and Hascombe have some fine hill and wood scenery, rising to the height of 644 feet in the Beech Telegraph Hill, once a far-seen beacon point. To the north of this is Hascombe Church, whose lavish interior decoration makes it one of the sights of the vicinity. Severer features of interest are shown by Witley Church, standing a mile nearer London than the station. It contains a memorial of the murdered Duke of Clarence; and in the churchyard lies an ill-fated financier of our own time, under a costly tomb, with the inscription, “He loved the poor,” which seems suggested by the career of Robin Hood. On his home at Lea Park, above Witley, this notorious adventurer lavished so much of other people’s money, that there was some difficulty in disposing of a place which failed to be started as an hotel, even although baited with a golf course and other attractions of sport. In a better organised state of society, it should be purchased by the nation as free lodgings for authors and artists, who might help it to live down its past by illustrating or advertising a vicinity which George Eliot hit off as mingling the charms of Scotland with those of the green heart of England. Luckily, the wilder part of the grounds has been purchased by subscription, to be thrown into nature’s own demesne, freely available for public enjoyment, while at the same time the neighbourhood has lately had to complain of other bits of common being enclosed or stripped of their old trees.
The highway from Godalming to Haslemere comes by Lea Park, avoiding Witley; but from its station, on the opposite side of the railway line, one has another road, five miles of up-and-down windings, with lovely views; and it would be only some couple of miles out of the way to go by Chiddingfold and along the edge of the Fold country. But, indeed, every approach to Haslemere, road or path, is charming, and would be more so, if not so often shut in by new red mansions and cottages “with a double coach-house.” This Surrey border town, which was made a rather rotten borough in Elizabeth’s reign, fell away from such dignity, but in our time revived as centre of so choice a district, and has a busy station on the L. & S.W. Portsmouth line. The station lies beyond the roomy village or townlet, to which Hindhead pilgrims might well turn back for a glimpse of its broad street, forming a right angle at the modest Market Hall, junction point of byroads with the highway between Godalming and Midhurst. Its good old houses have been much overlaid by châlets and bungalows, for even in the valley here we are some hundreds of feet above the sea, and Haslemere has its own clientèle of health-seekers. The Church stands rather out of the way, across the railway line, but is worth a digression. In the nave, opposite the porch, a coloured window, the subject taken from Burne-Jones’s “Holy Grail,” makes a memorial to Tennyson. In the new part of the churchyard, near the gate, will be seen a curious mass of gorse and heather, which is Tyndall’s tomb, taking this form, it is understood, by his own desire, and rather painfully suggesting the remains of that “Screen” with which he disfigured the slopes of Hindhead in the unphilosophic design of fencing himself in against a neighbour.