ESHER OLD CHURCH.
The reflections conjured up by an inspection of Esher old church are sad indeed, and the details of it not a little horrible to a sensitive person. There is an early nineteenth-century bone-house or above-ground vault attached to the little building, in which have been stored coffins innumerable. The coffins are gone, but many of the bony relics of poor humanity may be seen in the dusty semi-obscurity of an open archway, lying strewn among rakes and shovels. To these, when the present writer was inspecting the place, entered a fox-terrier, emerging presently with the thigh-bone of some rude forefather of the hamlet in his mouth. “Drop it!” said the churchwarden, fetching the dog a blow with his walking-stick. The dog “dropped it” accordingly, and went off, and the churchwarden kicked the bone away. I made some comment, I know not what, and the churchwarden volunteered the information that the village urchins had been used to play with these poor relics. “They’re nearly all gone now,” said he. “They used to break the windows with ’em.” And then we changed the subject for a better.
The “new” church—new in 1852—is a very imposing one, also with its Claremont Royal Pew, very like a drawing-room, built on one side of the chancel, high above the heads of the vulgar herd, who often, when the church is open, climb up the staircase to it, and, seating themselves on the chairs, go away and boast of having sat on the seats honoured by the great—thereby proving the vulgarity aforesaid.
The church was built chiefly from the accumulated funds of a bequest anciently left to Esher. This was the piece of land now called Sandown Park and the site of the well-known racecourse, let to the racecourse company at an annual rent. Not until 1899 did it occur to the Vestry that for the Church to be the landlord of a racecourse was a rather scandalous state of affairs, and the sanction of the Charity Commissioners was then sought and obtained for a scheme to sell the land outright for £12,000, this sum to be invested in Consols. These tender consciences obscured the business side of the question, for the land, if not already worth more than that sum, very shortly will be, considering the spread of London’s suburbs. It is rather singular that this freehold, bequeathed so long ago, was once the site of the forgotten Priory of Sandown, which would appear never to have been revived after its Prior and all the brethren perished in the great pestilence, the Black Death, that almost depopulated England in the Middle Ages.
HORSESHOE CLUMP.
Leaving the village behind and pursuing the Portsmouth road, the woodlands of Claremont Park are left behind as we come downhill towards Horseshoe Clump, a well-known landmark on this road. This prominent object is a semicircular grove of firs on the summit of a sandy knoll, looking over the valley of the Mole, the “sullen Mole” of the poets, flowing in far-flung loops below, on its way to join the Thames at Molesey. This is a switchback road for cyclists thus far, for the ridge on which Horseshoe Clump stands is no sooner gained than we go downhill again, and so up once more and across the level “fair mile,” to descend finally into Cobham Street, where the Mole is reached again. Here turn to the left, along a road marked by a sign-post “Church Cobham,” the original village, off the main road, of which Cobham Street on the Portsmouth road is only an offshoot developed by the traffic of old road-faring days. Church Cobham has, besides its ancient church and “Church Stile House,” a picturesque water-mill and mill-pond beside the road. Beyond, in two miles, the tiny village owning the odd name of Stoke D’Abernon is sighted; village in name only, for the church and a scattered house or two alone mark its existence. The Norman family of D’Abernon gave their name to this particular Stoke, originally a primitive British stockade, or defensible camp, at a ford on the Mole.