Few places in this part of Surrey are more attractive than this old home of the Greshams. The purity of the air, praised by Aubrey long{118} ago for its sweet, delicate, and wholesome virtues, the health-giving breezes of the surrounding downs and commons, the natural loveliness of the place, and the taste with which the park and gardens have been laid out, all help to make Titsey a most delightful spot. Its beautiful woods stretch along the grassy slopes of Botley Hill, and the clump of trees on the heights known as Cold-harbour Green is 881 feet above the sea, and marks the loftiest point in the whole range of the North Downs. Wherever the eye rests, one ridge of wooded hill after the other seems to rise and melt away into the soft blue haze. Nor is there any lack of other attractions to invite the attention of scholar and antiquary. The place is full of historic associations. A whole wealth of antiquities, coins, urns, and pottery, have been dug up in the park, and some remains of Roman buildings were discovered there a few years ago, close to the Pilgrims’ Way. After the conquest Titsey was given to the great Earls of Clare, who owned the property at the time of the Domesday Survey. In the fourteenth century it belonged{119} to the Uvedale family, and two hundred years later was sold to Sir John Gresham, an uncle of Sir Thomas Gresham, the illustrious merchant of Queen Elizabeth’s court, and the founder of the Royal Exchange. A fine portrait of Sir Thomas himself, by Antonio More, now hangs in the library of Titsey Place. Unfortunately the Greshams suffered for their loyalty to Charles I., and after the death of the second Sir Marmaduke Gresham in 1742, a large part of the property was sold. His son, Sir John, succeeded in partly retrieving the fortunes of the family, and rebuilt and enlarged the old manor-house, which had been allowed to fall into a ruinous state. But the Tudor arches of the east wing still remain, as well as much of the fine oak panelling which adorned its walls; and the crest of the Greshams, a grasshopper, may still be seen in the hall chimney-piece. The present owner, Mr. Leveson-Gower, is a lineal descendant of the last baronet, and inherited Titsey from his great-grandmother Katherine, the heiress of the Greshams. The fourteenth-century church was unluckily pulled down a hundred years ago,{120} because Sir John Gresham thought it stood too near his own house, but an old yew in the garden and some tombstones of early Norman date still mark its site. The course of the Pilgrims’ Way through the Park is clearly marked by a double row of fine ash trees, and the flint stones with which the road itself is paved may still be seen under the turf. Further along the road is a very old farmhouse, which was formerly a hostelry, and still bears the name of the Pilgrims’ Lodge. From Titsey the Way runs along the side of the hills, under Tatsfield Church, which stands on{121} the summit of the ridge, and about a mile above the pretty little towns of Westerham and Brasted. Here the boundary of the counties is crossed, and the traveller enters Kent. Soon we reach the gates of Chevening Park, where, as at Titsey, the Pilgrims’ Way formerly passed very near the house, until it was closed by Act of Parliament in 1780.
The manor of Chevening, originally the property of the See of Canterbury, was held in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the family of Chevening, from whence it passed to the Lennards, who became Barons Dacre and Earls of Sussex. In the last century it was bought by General Stanhope, the distinguished soldier and statesman, who, after reducing the island of Minorca, served King George I. successively as Secretary of State and First Lord of the Treasury. Inigo Jones built the house for Richard Lennard, Lord Dacre, early in the seventeenth century, but since then it has undergone such extensive alterations that little of the original structure remains, and the chief interest lies in a valuable collection of historical{122} portraits, including those of the Chesterfields, Stanhopes, and the great Lord Chatham. The last-named statesman, whose daughter Hester married Charles, Lord Stanhope, in 1774, was a frequent visitor at Chevening, and is said to have planned the beautiful drive which leads through the woods north of the house to the top of the downs. The little village of Chevening lies on the other side of the park, just outside Lord Stanhope’s gates and close to the old church of St. Botolph, which was one of the shrines frequented by the pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. There are some good Early English arches in the nave and chancel, and a western tower of Perpendicular date. The south chapel contains many imposing sepulchral monuments to the different lords of the manor. Amongst them are those of John Lennard, who was sheriff of the county and held several offices under the crown in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and of his son Sampson, who with his wife Margaret, Lady Dacre in her own right, reposes under a sumptuous canopy of alabaster surrounded by kneeling effigies of their children. There is{123} also a fine black marble monument to the memory of James, Earl of Stanhope, the prime minister of George I., who was buried here with great pomp in 1721. He was actually in office at the time of his death, and was taken ill in the House of Lords, and breathed his last the next day. But the most beautiful tomb here is Chantrey’s effigy of Lady Frederica Stanhope sleeping with her babe in her arms, and an expression of deep content and peace upon her quiet face.