Cycle Rides Round London

by Charles G. Harper

EVERSHED’S ROUGH.

When this descent is accomplished, the road leads over a railway bridge, whence, to the left, the most beautiful views of the Downs, with the spire of the church on Ranmore Common above and that of Dorking Church below, are spread out. Notice a brickfield on the right, and look for a green road, also on the right, a few yards beyond. This leads to a piece of common land, known as “Evershed’s Rough,” the scene of the fatal accident to Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester, on 19th July 1873, when, riding horseback, he was thrown by his horse stumbling. The place is marked by a granite cross ten feet high, simply carved with the initials “S.W.” and a shepherd’s crook, in relief, with the date inscribed in smaller letters. The rebuilt parish church of Dorking, whose lofty spire can be seen from near this spot, is also a memorial to that energetic prelate, whom men called in life “Soapy Sam.” Some day, doubtless, when our civilisation and its records have alike perished, say a thousand years hence, the antiquaries of a new era will be disputing as to the origin and meaning of this lonely cross, with its weatherworn initials and shepherd’s crook.

Cross-roads presently appear down the road. Here a sign-post points ahead for Abinger, with the added information that the first turning to the left should be taken. Turning accordingly, as bidden, a pretty lane is reached, with a very beautiful old pond, fringed with rushes, on the left. This is Abinger mill-pond, and the rust-red roofs of the mill itself can be seen rising from a hollow on the farther side; an old, old building which Nature has long since reclaimed as her own, with lichens growing everywhere, and ferns and wild plants that only the botanist can name luxuriating amid the dampness of the disused mill-wheel.

It is a steep and tiring ascent along a sandy lane to Abinger, where a little church on one side of the road, the “Abinger Hatch Inn” on the other, and a few cottages, comprise the village. Three miles straight ahead is Leith Hill, the tallest in the south of England, rising to a height of close upon a thousand feet. The route lies past Abinger Common, with its well and picturesque well-house in the Norman style, built and dedicated to St. James by Mr. Evelyn of Wotton in 1893. The way to the summit of Leith Hill is through pine-woods and along a road of such excellent surface and so gradual a rise that this hilltop expedition is not at all fatiguing. It leads by degrees half round the hill, and brings one to a point where the road is crossed by a white gate, directly under the tower that crowns the hilltop. To leave one’s cycle here against a tree-trunk, and to clamber up the chalky final ascent to where the tower stands on its flat plateau, is the best plan. Those who are not already high enough can ascend this tower at the cost of a penny a-head, and some six thousand persons annually avail themselves of the privilege. It was originally built in 1766 by a Mr. Hill, of Leith Hill Place, who, dying in 1772, was, according to his injunctions, buried here, under the flooring, when the interior of the tower was filled up with cement and stone. The stone tablet recording that he “led the life of a true Christian and rural philosopher” still remains, and so does the legend (true or untrue) that he was of opinion that the world would be reversed on the Day of Judgment, and so directed that he should be buried head downwards.

LEITH HILL.

The tower, having become ruinous, was restored by Mr. Evelyn, who added the staircase turret. By the sight of it, crowning the summit, Leith Hill can be identified many miles distant, and the view from this hilltop is extraordinarily widespread. The whole of the counties of Surrey and Sussex, as far as the South Downs, is stretched out flat like a carpet, to where the wall of the South Downs alone prevents the sea being disclosed along the length of the Sussex coast. At one point, indeed, it can be seen, and that directly in front, where a notch in those distant hills discloses a something that may be sky and may be water, you think. But as you look, on a sunny afternoon, and continue looking, the sunlight streams down momentarily and wakens a million facets to life, all flashing like diamond-points or flecks of fire. They are the ripples of the English Channel, transfigured by this radiance, and the notch through which you see them is Shoreham Gap.

There are nearer stretches of water that thus mirror the sun’s rays. Frensham Ponds, away in the west, eighteen miles away as the crow flies, glitter like burnished steel, and in sharp contrast with black and sullen Hindhead. Down below, somewhere amidst the woods that are set round about this hill of hills, is another lake, and near it the clustered chimneys of a great mansion. For the rest, the weald at the foot of the tumbled masses of the North Downs is vague, formless, inchoate. There are towns there, we know, and villages, hamlets, roads, and railways; but they are all lost in immensity. Perhaps, if you take literature in your pocket when cycling, the reading of Tennyson’s “Vastness” is appropriate here, for it echoes the sense that comes to one on this hilltop of the littleness of one’s self. (Mem.: If you wish to retain a good conceit of yourself, keep to the plains!)