DORKING TO REIGATE
Nicknames.—Anastasius Hope.—Deepdene.—Mr. Howard's Garden.—Betchworth Chestnuts and Castle.—Brockham badgers.—The Straw-yards.—Bakers among the roses.—Leigh: Lie.—Leigh Place.—Ardernes and Copleys.—Sir Thomas's notion of a Gentleman.—Buckland's barn.
Of three dull nicknames, stuck like burrs on the mantles of Dorking's prophets, the dullest and prosiest has stuck to the richest. "Conversation" is a pretty severe burden for a man named plain Richard Sharp to carry; the hideousness of the baulked elision of "Sylva" Evelyn sets the teeth on edge (he developed into "Sylvie" as well as "Silver" Evelyn, poor man); "Capability" Brown, the gardener, must have been buttonholed by a thousand bores; but "Anastasius" Hope is beyond tolerance. How should such a name be endured? Thomas Hope endured it. He was the owner of Deepdene, the great house and garden and park a mile west of Dorking, property that once belonged to the Howards, and in particular to the ninth Duke of Norfolk. His father was a vastly wealthy Amsterdam merchant, he himself a patron and a critic of art. He gave Thorwaldsen his first commission in marble, and Thorwaldsen celebrated the day of the order every year of his life. But he owed his name to a romance, Anastasius or Memoirs of a Modern Greek, which he wrote at his leisure, and which places him, as Mr. John Timbs, promenading around Dorking in 1824, assures us, "in the highest list of eloquent writers and superior men." The Edinburgh Reviewer was not less effusive. Until Anastasius was published he had known Mr. Hope merely as the author of an essay on Household Furniture and Interior Decoration. In Anastasius was the change from the upholsterer to the epicurean.
Deepdene still holds statues and pictures, of which Mr. Bright, in his history of Dorking, gives a long list. Such a list belongs rightly to a history; but since the pictures can no longer be seen, other pages need but note that permission is occasionally granted to walk in the park. Aubrey's engaging description of the garden as he saw it late in the seventeenth century, a hundred years before Mr. Thomas Hope, belongs to his century and ours:—
"Near this place the Honourable Charles Howard of Norfolk hath very ingeniously contrived a long Hope (i.e., according to Virgil, Deductus Vallis) in the most pleasant and delightful solitude for house, gardens, orchards, boscages etc., that I have seen in England: It deserves a Poem and was a subject worthy of Mr. Cowley's Muse. The true name of this Hope is Dibden (quasi Deep Dene).
Mr. Howard hath cast this Hope in the form of a theatre on the sides whereof he hath made seven narrow walks like the seats of a theatre, one above another, about six in number, done with a plough, which are bordered with thyme, and some cherry-trees, myrtles, etc. Here was a great many orange trees and syringas which were then in flower. In this garden are twenty-one sorts of thyme. The pit, as I may call it, is stored full of rare flowers and choice plants. He hath there two pretty lads his gardeners, who wonderfully delight in their occupation, and this lovely solitude, and do enjoy themselves so innocently in that pleasant corner, as if they were out of this troublesome world, and seem to live in the state of innocency."
But not the gardeners alone. The visitor had a quiet mind who could exclaim, as John Aubrey did, that "the pleasures of the garden were so ravishing that I can never expect any enjoyment beyond it but the Kingdom of Heaven." Aubrey has been called ill-natured, and a scandal-lover. Nobody ever called him that who has met him in a garden.
East of Dorking and the Deepdene are half-a-dozen Betchworths. Betchworth Clump rides a shoulder of the downs, with a superb view to the south; Betchworth village lies under the Clump a mile and more from the foot of the hill; Betchworth Park and Castle are between the village and Deepdene. Through the park runs a road, and an avenue of wonderful limes, but the Castle, which cannot be seen from the part of the park open to the public, is a castle no longer. It was never more than a castle in name; Sir Thomas Browne fortified it under Henry VI, but it saw no fighting. Thomas Hope's father, when he added Betchworth to his purchase of the Deepdene, pulled it down, and a mere fragment remains. Not much younger than the ruins, perhaps, are the gnarled and twisted boles of the Betchworth sweet chestnuts. Albury Park holds some giants, and there are a few trees quite as fine in Weybridge gardens that once stood on royal ground, but the Betchworth chestnuts must be older than either.
Badgers must have been common by Betchworth, for Brocks multiply in the local names. Brockham village, with a pretty green, stands beyond Betchworth Park on the Mole; probably the badger has left Brockham since the bricklayer came out of Dorking.
