At Tadworth Court, where the ways divide, and a most picturesque view of long roads, dark fir trees, and a weird-looking windmill unfolds itself, formerly stood a toll-gate. A signpost directs on the right to Headley and Walton, and on the left to Reigate and Redhill, and a battered milestone which no one can read stands at the foot of it. The church spire on the left is that of Kingswood.
From London to Reigate, through Sutton, is, according to Cobbett, “about as villainous a tract as England contains. The soil is a mixture of gravel and clay, with big yellow stones in it, sure sign of really bad land.” The greater part of this is, of course, now covered by the suburbs of “the Wen,” as Cobbett delighted to style London; and it is both unknown to and immaterial to most people what manner of soil their houses are built on; but the truth of Cobbett’s observations is seen readily enough here, on these warrens, which owe their preservation as open spaces to that mixture, worthless to the farmer, and not worth the stealing in those times when land could be stolen with impunity.
KINGSWOOD WARREN.
REIGATE HILL
Past the modern village of Kingswood, almost lost in, and certainly entirely overshadowed by, the wild heaths of Walton and Kingswood Warren the road comes at last to Reigate Hill, where, immediately past the suspension bridge that overhangs the cutting, it tilts very suddenly and alarmingly over the edge of the Downs. The suddenness of it makes the stranger gasp with astonishment; the beauty of that wonderful view from this very rim and edge of the hills compels his admiration. It is the climax up to which he has been toiling all these long, ascending gradients from Sutton; and it is worth the toil.
The old writers of road-books do more justice to this view than any modern writer dare. To them it was “a remarkably bold elevation, from whence is a delightful prospect of the South Downs in Sussex. But near the road, which is scooped out of the hill, the declivity is so steep and abrupt that the spectator cannot help being struck with terror, though softened by admiration. The Sublime and the Beautiful are here perfectly united; imagination is fully exercised, and the mind delighted.”
How would this person have described the Alps?
A milestone just short of this drop—one of a series starting at Sutton Downs and dealing in fractions of miles—says, very curtly: “London 19, Sutton 8, Brighton 32⅝, Reigate 1⅜.”
