ABINGER, LEITH HILL, AND DORKING
Ewell is a convenient starting-point for this trip for South Londoners, and has the additional advantage of being served by two railways. Only in the spring of the year, when the Epsom races are on, and the Derby brings riotous crowds down by road as well as rail, do Ewell and Epsom wake out of their customary quiet. For the rest of the year they are old-fashioned places, even in these villa-building latter days. Ewell, as its name in some sort implies, is a place of springs and running waters, with crooked streets and with an ancient ivy-mantled church tower, all that is left of the old parish church, standing solemn beside the modern building. Just inside the churchyard gate notice a stone to one who lost his life by falling from a horse at Shipton-under-Wychwood, Oxon; and, close by, a monument with urn and a kneeling figure in relief on a pedestal to James Lowe, born 1798, who “met his death from an accident the 12th October 1866. He was the inventor of the segments of the screw-propeller, in use since 1838, and his life, though unobtrusive, was not without great benefit to his country. He suffered many troubles, but bore them lightly.”
Epsom, “town” we should presumably call it, a mile and a half down the road, hints little or nothing to the passing cyclist of its horse-racing fame, save perhaps for stray glimpses gained of the great Grand Stand perched upon the windy Downs, more than a mile away to the left; and if little be told by external appearances of this intimate relation with the foremost classic race in England, still less would the stranger gather that Epsom is a Place with a Past; a past, as a fashionable Spa, scarce inferior to Bath in the days of good Queen Anne. Epsom wells and Epsom salts have had their day and ceased to be.
Suburbia is extending its frontiers in this direction, and breezy Ashtead, two miles farther on, down a pleasant road, is now set within the marches of the suburbs, where the opposing camps of market gardeners and speculative builders are pitched cheek by jowl, and bricks and plaster are banishing the broccoli and the peas. At Leatherhead the incursions of villadom are lost in the intricacies of the old-fashioned little town and in the embowering foliage that owes its density to that beautiful stream, the Mole. Leatherhead is situated at the junction of many roads. It is what military men would call a “strategical point,” and, touring on a cycle through the southern and south-western districts outside London, you come to it, whether you will it so or not, again and again. And, just because it is a pleasant place, you do not regret the necessity. The streets of Leatherhead are narrow, and slope steeply towards the river Mole; also, they curve in somewhat puzzling fashion. Our way, however, lies straight ahead, passing that queer old inn the “Running Horse” on the right, where the landlady, Elynor Rummyng, gave short measure in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and was rolled in a barrel for her pains. A very old painted sign, fixed on the front of the house, and now glazed to protect it from the weather, shows a portrait of this iniquitous person, who, if the artist is to be credited, was a phenomenally ugly specimen of humanity, with predatory beak-like nose, covered with warts. Here we cross the Mole by a long bridge, and presently, keeping straight ahead, ascend a sharp rise, which leads on to the rather exposed upper road to Great Bookham and Effingham, those places being singularly provided with parallel roads less than a quarter of a mile apart. A cross-road to the right, when two miles out of Leatherhead, gives access to Great Bookham village. The church, which is interesting, appears to be generally locked up, except during service. In the churchyard notice the very beautiful modern churchyard cross to the memory of Guy Cuthbert Dawnay, killed by a buffalo in Masailand.
Regaining the upper road, Effingham is reached in a mile. The church will be noticed standing, with the tiny village, off to the right. The place gave a title to Lord William Howard, created by Queen Mary “Lord Howard of Effingham,” and it was the son of this nobleman who, as Lord High Admiral, commanded the little fleet that destroyed the Spanish Armada. Knowing this, the tourist approaches Effingham with due reverence and great expectancy. Unhappily, there is nothing whatever in village or church to connect them with the Admiral or others of the Howards. The church itself is utterly modernised.
At the roads that here run right and left stands a large inn, the “Prince Blucher.” Turn to the left, and then, after proceeding for nearly a mile, take the second to the right. We are here on very high ground, having cycled for a long while almost imperceptibly uphill. Away to the left the successive hills of the North Downs are seen: Box Hill and the others towards Reigate, with their wooded crests and the characteristic chalky scars on their southern face, softened to a Corot-like mellowness in the golden sunshine of an autumn afternoon. At the turning to the right, at which we have now arrived, the road goes suddenly down and deteriorates alarmingly, being knobbly and narrow, and partly overgrown with grass. This is Effingham Hill, and unless you would acquire reasons for vividly remembering the place in the way of being thrown off, it is distinctly advisable to walk some way down. This descent leads to a farm in a deep hollow. Through the stony farmyard, and walking up an equally stony rise on the other side, a straight flat road is reached, running for half a mile. Then, where roads right and left appear, turn to the right, and so downhill to where a sign-post stands at the bottom. Turn at this point to the left, along a secluded road through copses which lead presently to the crest of a hill marked by the red danger-board of the Cyclists’ Touring Club. These are the so-called White Downs, and this White Down Hill. There are, as every cyclist knows, degrees of danger on hills so marked by the C.T.C. Some are so little dangerous that this red warning-board is often disregarded; but this particular hill is a mile long, very steep, rough, and strewn with flints and lumps of chalk, and with a sharp curve when nearly at the bottom. It is, therefore, superlatively dangerous, and no one should on any account attempt to ride it. It is no hardship to walk down this hill, for it is no less superlatively beautiful than dangerous. It is a hollow road, or rather lane, with rugged chalky sides, into which the trees have thrust great gnarled and knotty roots, like the fangs of teeth, with steep hillsides stretching away overhead. Great beeches and lesser hazels and hollies make a perfect tunnel of foliage, through whose framing the eye looks down to the Weald, far below.