The Old Road

by Hilaire Belloc

It is possible that a way from the Portus Adurni[29] to London ran here by Reigate and climbed the hill above; one of those fingers reaching to the ports of the south coast, of which the Stane Street, the Watling Street, and perhaps the fragment further east by Marden, are the remnants: moreover, in the existence of such a road I think one can solve the puzzle of Gatton.

Gatton, which is now some three or four houses and a church and a park, sent two members to Parliament, from the fifteenth century until the Reform Bill. It was therefore at some time, for some reason, a centre of importance, not necessarily for its population but as a gathering-place or a market, or a place from which some old town had disappeared. Indeed a local tradition of such a town survives. One may compare the place with that other centre, High Cross, where is now the lonely crossing of the Fosse Way and Watling Street in Leicestershire.

Now, what would have given this decayed spot its importance long ago? Most probably the crossing of an east and west road (the Old Road) with another going north and south, which has since disappeared.

The influence of vested interests (for Gatton Park fetched twice its value on account of this anachronism) preserved the representation in the hands of one man until the imperfect reform of seventy years ago destroyed the Borough.

There is another point in connection with the Pilgrim's Way at Gatton. For the second time since it has left Winchester it goes to the north of a hill. At Albury it did so, as my readers have seen, for some reason not to be explained. In every other case between here and Canterbury the explanation is simple. It goes north to avoid a prominent spur in the range and a re-entrant angle at the further side. The map which I append will make this point quite clear.

For precisely the same cause it goes north of the spur south of Caterham and much further on, some miles before Canterbury, it goes north of the spur in Godmersham Park.

We did not here break into another man's land, but were content to watch, from the public road outside, the line of the way as it runs through Gatton, and when we had so passed round outside the park we came to the eastern lodge, where the avenue runs on the line of the Old Road. Here the public lane corresponds to the Pilgrim's Way and passes by the land where was made a find of Roman and British coins, close to the left of the road.

After this point the road went gently down the ridge of the falling crest. This was precisely what we later found it doing at Godmersham, where also it climbs a crest and goes behind a spur, and having done so follows down the shoulder of the hill to the lower levels of the valley. The valley or depression cutting the hills after Gatton is the Merstham Gap, by which the main Brighton Road and the London and Brighton Railway cross the North Downs. The Old Road goes down to this gap by a path along the side of a field, is lost in the field next to it, but is recovered again just before the grounds of Merstham House; it goes straight on its way through these grounds, and passes south of Merstham House and just south of Merstham church; then it is suddenly lost in the modern confusion of the road and the two railway cuttings which lie to the east.

We left it there and went down to Merstham inn for food, and saw there a great number of horsemen all dressed alike, but of such an accent and manner that we could not for the life of us determine to what society they belonged. Only this was certain, that they were about to hunt some animal, and that this animal was not a fox. With reluctance we abandoned that new problem and returned to Merstham church to look for the road from the spot where it had disappeared.