CLAREMONT.
From here the road goes straight across Esher and Arbrook Commons, with glimpses into the well-kept park on the way, in sharp contrast with the wilderness of bracken, just turning an “old gold” tint with the first touch of autumn. A rugged, sandy hillock will be noticed on the right hand, amidst the bracken and the blackberry brambles. It is known as Round Hill, and, although apparently and actually of no great height, commands exquisite views. Safely leaving the cycle down below in this unfrequented spot, it is distinctly well worth while to scramble to the summit for the views of the surrounding country. Telegraph Hill—the wooded ridge between Oxshott and Leatherhead—is prominent, and recalls the days before the advent of the electric telegraph in 1838, when this height was one of a series between the Admiralty in London and Portsmouth Dockyard, and fitted with semaphores for signalling. More prominent still, peering over the woodlands of Ruxley Lodge at Claygate, is the castellated outlook tower built by Lord Foley; while dense woods and billowy expanses of gorse-clad commons complete the picture, save on the clearest days, when, faintly to be seen over the ridge of the North Downs, is Chanctonbury Ring, the great hill near Worthing.
From here to Oxshott Station the way still lies through commons. Around the station the builder is busy on the Crown lands, and is creating a modern village. Avoiding a knobbly road on the right, which a sign-post informs us is the way to Stoke D’Abernon, we continue ahead, more by token that in doing so there is a fine road and a good coast downhill. In another mile a sign-post appears directing to Woodlands and Stoke D’Abernon. Here we will leave the Leatherhead road, whose course we have been travelling, and turn to the right, coming in less than a mile, still gently downhill, to another post. Instead of turning to the right here we keep on for half a mile along the road, which now begins to wind about and to take on the character of a country lane. Then look out for a right-hand turning at the corner of a park enclosed by a new red brick wall. This is Randalls Park. Turning down here a hundred yards or so, along a lane where the local authorities delight to blast the scenery by tipping all the potsherds and domestic refuse of the district, the explorer, after enduring much, comes at last to a pretty scene on the river Mole, which here runs in two branches: the first spanned by a substantial bridge, the second bridged by a very long and narrow structure of wood intended for foot passengers only. Wheeled traffic goes through a picturesque water-splash; but the cyclist must perforce dismount and walk his machine over the wooden bridge. From this point, crossing a road running right and left, the way lies ahead, up a sharp rise through Fetcham village and along the road to Great and Little Bookham. At the last-named place we turn off to the right for the four miles’ run to Ockham, famous as being the Waterloo of the Bloomer women; for it was here, at the “Hautboy,” that Mrs. Sprague, the champion of convention, withstood the breeched Lady Harberton, with complete success. Why is there no monument to this historic event?
The route to Ockham is almost wholly through Effingham Common and Blackmore Heath, past solitary Effingham Junction, and thence through woods to Martyr’s Green, where we turn to the left, and so to the “Hautboy” and the village built under the shelter of Ockham Park, the seat of the Earl of Lovelace. The church, standing in the park, is worth seeing. Nailed to the gallery front is the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Purse worn by Lord Chancellor King, who held the office in the reign of Queen Anne.
Among the eccentric epitaphs often quoted, that on John Spong of Ockham should surely be numbered. He died 17th November 1736, aged sixty years. The lines on his tombstone were written by Daniel Wray, F.R.S. Spong was a carpenter—
“Who many a sturdy Oak has laid along,
Fell’d by Death’s surer hatchet, here lies Spong.
Posts oft he made, yet ne’er a Place could get,
And liv’d by Railing tho’ he was no Wit.
Old Saws he had, altho’ no Antiquarian,
And Stiles corrected, yet was no Grammarian.
Long liv’d he Ockham’s Premier Architect,
And lasting as his fame, a tomb t’erect
In vain we seek an Artist such as He
Whose Pales and Gates are for Eternity.
So here he rests from all life’s toils and follies:
Oh spare, kind Heaven! his fellow-lab’rer Hollis.”
Hollis was a bricklayer friend of Spong’s, and appears, at anyrate, to have been spared long enough to escape being a post-mortem butt for Mr. Daniel Wray’s wit.
From Ockham village, roads lead round either side of Ockham Park into Ripley, a mile distant. It is worth while to linger round Ripley for half a day, for the village itself is pleasing and the surroundings are exquisitely pretty. Ripley is a great deal more interesting now to the cycling tourist than ever it was in the days of its cycling popularity. For there is no doubt whatever that the days are gone, never to return, when cycles were stacked by the hundred in the broad village street on Saturdays and Sundays. Ripley has been called the Mecca of every good cyclist, and for some fifteen years its popularity was great among London clubmen, to whom the twenty-three miles from town, and the run home again across the commons that border the Portsmouth road from London, formed a delightful day’s cycling. Indeed, so exclusively was this a place of pilgrimage that the road to it was generally known among cyclists as the “Ripley road,” although, as a matter of fact, Ripley is but an incident along the old coaching highway that stretches a long course of seventy-three miles between London and Portsmouth. So devoted was this class of cyclist to Ripley that many never ventured beyond it, but made that remarkably picturesque old inn, the “Anchor,” and the village green opposite, their lounging and gossiping places, until it was time to start again for home. Ripley was first “discovered” by cyclists in the dawn of the ’70’s, when the very few who wheeled on what were then called velocipedes found a welcome at the rustic “Anchor” at a time when the riders of such new-fangled contrivances were generally looked upon as pariahs, and refused accommodation or even ordinary civility. Such unwonted consideration made the fortunes of the “Anchor,” of the Dibbles who then occupied it, and of the village of Ripley in general; for it became known that here, at least, was a place where the weary wheelman, who trundled his hundredweight or so of old iron painfully along the roads, and called it “pleasure,” could take his peculiarly well-earned rest. Thus the fame of Ripley grew, and with the growth of cycling clubs attained really great proportions. Such early racing cyclists as Cortis, the Honourable Ion Keith Falconer, and “Jack” Keen were the first comers. They have all passed into the Unknown, and so have “the Dibbles,” as the genial family who once occupied the “Anchor” were collectively spoken of; and to-day the tourist may see the memorial windows to Cortis and the Dibble sisters in the ancient chapel of Ripley, hard by the inn, windows erected by club-cyclists who knew them well.