CHIPSTEAD
And here we will, by way of interlude, turn aside, up a lane to the right hand, toward the village of Chipstead, in whose churchyard lies Sir Edward Banks, who began life in the humblest manner, working as a navvy upon this same forgotten railway, afterwards rising, as partner in the firm of Jolliffe & Banks, to be an employer of labour and contractor to the Government: in short, another Tom Brassey. All these things are recorded of him upon a memorial tablet in the church of Chipstead—a tablet which lets nothing of his worth escape you, so prolix is it.[9]
It was while delving amid the chalk of this tramway cutting that Edward Banks first became acquainted with this village, and so charmed with it was he that he expressed a desire, when his time should come, to be laid at rest in its quiet graveyard. When he died, after a singularly successful career, his wish was carried out, and here, in this quiet spot overlooking the highway, you may see his handsome tomb, begirt with iron railings, and overshadowed with ancient trees.
The little church of Chipstead is of Norman origin, and still shows some interesting features of that period, with some unusual Early English additions that have presented architectural puzzles even to the minds of experts. Many years ago the late Mr. G. E. Street, the architect of the present Royal Courts of Justice in London, read a paper upon this building, advancing the theory that the curious pedimental windows of the chancel and the transept door were not the Saxon work they appeared to be, but were the creation of an architect of the Early English period who had a fancy for reviving Saxon features, and who was the builder and designer of a series of Surrey churches, among which is included that of Merstham.
Within the belfry here is a ring of fine bells, some of them of a respectable age, and three bearing the inscription, with variations:
“OUR HOPE IS IN THE LORD, 1595.”
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From here a bye-lane leads steeply once more into the high road, which winds along the valley, sloping always towards the Weald. Down the long descent into Merstham village tall and close battalions of fir-trees lend a sombre colouring to the foreground, while “southward o’er Surrey’s pleasant hills” the evening sunlight streams in parting radiance. On the left hand as we descend are the eerie-looking blow-holes of the Merstham tunnel, which here succeeds the cutting. Great heaps of chalk, by this time partly overgrown with grass, also mark its course, and in the distance, crowned as many of them are with telegraph poles, they look by twilight curiously and awfully like so many Calvarys.
Beside the descent into Merstham was situated the terminus of the old Iron Railway, in the great excavated hollow of the Greystone lime-works, where the lime-burners still quarry the limestone and the smoke of their burning ascends day and night. The old “Hylton Arms,” down below, that served the turn of the lime-burners when they wanted to slake their thirst, has been ornately rebuilt in the modern-Elizabethan Public House Style, alongside the road, to catch the custom of the world at large, and is named the “Jolliffe Arms.” Both signs reflect the ownership of Merstham, for Jolliffe has long been the family name of the holders of the modern Barony of Hylton. Formerly “Jolly,” it was presumably too bacchanalian and not sufficiently aristocratic, and so it was changed, just as your “Smythe” was once Smith, and “Johnes” Jones.