THE SEVEN-DIALS PILLAR, WEYBRIDGE.
How few, however, know that history, or that it once stood in the centre of the street at Seven Dials, near Drury Lane! It was the pillar, in fact, that supported the seven-sided sundial once presenting a face to each of the seven radiating streets which centred at that spot. It was originally erected there about 1694, and stood until July 1773, when it was thrown down by a party of adventurers who, possessed by the singular idea that there was treasure buried at the base, excavated it, and found—nothing. The stones then occupied a neglected corner in a London stonemason’s yard for many years, until, indeed, they were purchased in 1822 by the inhabitants of Weybridge for the present purpose. The large block of stone originally supporting the dials may be seen embedded in the pathway near the “Ship Inn,” where it was long used as a mounting-block for horsemen; but it seems, curiously enough, to be only six-sided. The holes where the gnomons of the dials were fixed are still visible in the stone.
Oatlands Park, where the Duchess of York once lived, has long been converted into a riverside hotel, in whose grounds the gravestones of her pet dogs, to the number of sixty or so, are still to be seen. There lie “Pepper,” “Faithful Queenie,” “Topsy” and “Dinah,” and many another. “Julia” has the most elaborate epitaph—
“Here Julia rests, and here each day
Her mistress strews her grave with flowers,
Mourning her death whose frolic play
Enlivened oft the lonesome hours.
From Denmark did her race descend,
Beauteous her form and mild her spirit;
Companion gay, and faithful friend—
May ye who read have half her merit.”
Close by these memorials is still to be seen the two-storeyed grotto built by a Duke of Newcastle at a cost, it is said, of £40,000. It engrossed the labour of two men—father and son—for some years, and is decorated with shells, spars, marbles, and stalactites, said to be of rare varieties, but not a little shabby and dingy nowadays.
From Weybridge we make for Chertsey, crossing the Wey, and running beside the now beautiful canal, and then crossing the equally beautiful Bourne. Soon after passing this stream there is a choice of roads. Do not turn to the left to Addlestone, but keep straight on, past Addlestone Moor, where turn to the right, and then the first to the left. This road leads direct to Chertsey, where it crosses the main street of that place at right angles, close to the railway station.
Chertsey is a quite commonplace little town, with streets of that would-be smartness that succeeds only in being pretentiously mean; and church and Town Hall alike were erected in that most tasteless period which stretched between the beginning and the middle of last century. Chertsey Abbey once stood behind the present church, but the site is now a market garden, and the most interesting relics of it are to be seen in the Architectural Museum at Westminster in the shape of a set of tiles illustrating the legend of King Arthur. There is a house in Guildford Street, however, that should arrest the attention of the literary pilgrim. It is the quaint, Dutch-like red brick mansion where Cowley the poet lived—now named “Cowley House,” partly for that hero-worshipping reason, and partly because since its fine old porch, which once straddled across the pavement, has been destroyed, its old title of “Porch House” has ceased to be descriptive.
At one end of the town is Chertsey Bridge, but the Thames here is at its tamest and the meads on either side at their flattest—admirable, possibly, from the point of view of the cows that graze in them, but not from that of the sight-seer.