Between Farley Heath and Chilworth Station, which is the chosen end of the walk from Cranleigh, is Blackheath, well named. In winter the flowerless heather darkens the whole moorland; and through it the roads, the rough roads the Roman legionaries knew well, run ribands of white sand.
Chertsey.
CHAPTER XVI
CHERTSEY
Through the hayfields.—The Abbey.—John de Rutherwyk.—Cowley in his garden.—Bill Sikes at Chertsey.—The curfew.—A duel of hearts.—The Chertsey legend.—St. Anne's Hill.—Digging for treasure.—St. Paul's like a mushroom.—Charles James Fox.—Sunshine and turnips.—Triumphant rooks.
Chertsey might well be taken as the centre from which to explore north-west Surrey, but it is less generally convenient as regards the railway than Weybridge, which allows exploration north, east, south and west, whereas Chertsey lies on a branch line. Besides, there is the walk from Weybridge to Chertsey to be taken, and there are few more delightful near the Surrey Thames. The high road from the bridge over the Wey runs between double ribands of water; on one side lies the sunny, slow canal, edged with iris and forget-me-nots, and banked up higher than the road; on the other, a shady stream, dun and bleak-haunted. Before the road turns into Addlestone there is a field-path, breaking off at right angles, which leads to a wooden bridge crossing the clear, brown little Bourne, and beyond the bridge lies Chertsey Mead, one huge hayfield, bounded on the left by wooded slopes, on the right by the Thames itself. Two or three narrow paths intersect the level of waving grass; the turf underfoot is as springy as peat, and the standing crop scents the June wind, rich with daisies and clover. Beyond Chertsey before you lies St. Anne's Hill, dark and incumbent over the town; but you do not guess that the Thames edges that shining hayfield until you catch sight of a boat-sail, leisurely dipping and nodding under the Lombardy poplars that line the stream. The path leaves the meadow close to Chertsey Bridge, graceful with seven stone arches.
A thousand years ago Chertsey was the centre of a very large tract indeed. Chertsey Abbey, up to the Dissolution, was one of the greatest religious houses in the kingdom, and one of the oldest. It was in 666—the date is suspiciously exact—that Frithwald, viceroy of Surrey under Wulfer, king of the Mercians, gave the land on which the building was to stand, and he and Erkenwald, its first abbot, duly founded the Abbey. Frithwald, since he could not write, made the sign of the Cross in delivering the deed. But Frithwald's Abbey was short-lived. Perhaps it was then not much more than a little wooden church, with buildings for its journeying priests; at all events, the Danes had no trouble in sacking it two hundred years later, when they made their foray brutally complete by murdering the Abbot and his ninety monks.
But Chertsey's Abbey was to rise again. Edgar rebuilt it, and his building was rebuilt again by the Abbot Hugh of Winchester, early in the twelfth century, and from that date began the great days. The Abbot and convent were in high favour with the king, and lived as well as good monks should. They had rights of warren and liberty of the chase, they had the right to keep dogs, and they might take hares and foxes, the neighbouring manor of Egham sent them fifty fat hogs a year, Chobham sent them a hundred and thirty, Byfleet sent them 325 eels, and Petersham contributed 1,000 eels and 1,000 lampreys.