Cycle Rides Round London Works by the Same Author
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-A ROUN \ CHARLES G. HARPER THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.arcliive.org/details/cycleridesroundlOOharpiala CYCLE RIDES ROUND LONDON WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. The Brighton Road: Old Times and New on a Classic Highway. The Portsmouth Road : And its Tributaries, To-day and in Days of Old. The Dover Road : Annals of an Ancient Turnpike. The Bath Road : History, Fashion, and Frivolity on an old Highway. The Exeter Road : The Story of the West of England Highway. The Great North Road: The Old Mail Road to Scotland. Two Vols. The Norwich Road : An East Anglian Highway. The Holyhead Road: The Mail Coach Route to Dublin. Two Vols. The Cambridge, Ely, and King's Lynn Road. [In the Press. WW' ''^ THE OLU^LYCHGATE, PENSHURST. CYCLE RIDES ROUND LONDON RIDDEN WRITTEN & ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES G. HARPER AUTHOR OF "THE BRIGHTON ROAD" "THE PORTS- MOUTH ROAD" "THE DOVER ROAD" "THE BATH ROAD" "THE EXETER ROAD" "THE GREAT NORTH ROAD" "THE NORWICH ROAD" and "THE HOLYHEAD ROAD" London: CHAPMAN & HALL LTD. 1902. {All Right! Reserved) H2.3C PREFACE When that sturdy pioneer^ JoJin Mayalljunior, first rode his velocipede from London to Brighton in 1869, in much physical discomfort, and left his two would-be companions behind him in a crippled condition, no one could have foreseen the days when many thousands of Londoners would with little effort explore the Home Counties on Saturdays or zveek-ends, and ride sixty or seventy miles a day for the mere pleasure of seeking country lanes and historic spots. There are, indeed, no more ardent lovers of tlie country, of scenery, of ancient hails and churches, of quiet hamlets and historic castles than London cyclists, zuho are often, in fact, recruitedfrom the ranks of those pedestrians who, finding they could by means of the cycle extend their expeditions in search of the venerable and the beautiful, have cast away staff and stout walking-boots, and have learnt the nice art of balancing astride two zvheels. So much accomplished, the ex-pedestrian has at once widened his radius to at least thrice its former extent, and places that to him zcere little knozvn, or merely unmeaning names, have become suddenly familiar. Even the sea— that far cry to the Londoner— is within reach of an easy summer day's ride. viii Preface Few have anything like an adequate idea of how rich in beauty and interest is the country comprised roughly in a radius offrom tiventy to thirty miles from London. To treat those many miles thoroughly would require long study and many volumes, and these pages pretend to do nothing more than dip here and there into the inexhaustible resources, pictorial and literary, of the hinterland that lies without the uttermost suburbs. • To have visited Jordans, where the early Quakers worshipped and are laid to rest ; to have entered beneath the roof of the "pretty cot" at Chalfont St. Giles that sheltered Milton ; to have seen zvith one's own eyes Penshurst, the home of the Sidneys, and Chenies, the resting-place of the Russells ; to have meditated beneath the ^'yew tree's shade " at Stoke Poges ; to have seen or done all these things is to have done much to educate one's self in the historic resources of the much-talked-of but little-known countryside. The King's Stone in Kingston market-place, Ccesar's Well on Keston Common, the " Town Hall" at Gatton, the Pilgrims' Way under the lee of the North Downs, and the monumental brasses of the D'A bernons at Stoke D'A bernon have each and all their engrossing interest ; or, if you think them to savour too greatly of the dry-as-dust studies of the antiquary, there remain for you the quaint old inns, the sleepy hamletSy and the tributary rivers of the Thames, all puttingforth a never-failing charm ivhen May has come, and with it the sunshine, the leaves and floivers, and the song of the birds. CHARLES G. HARPER. Petersham, Surrey, April 1902. CONTENTS PAGE Chenies and the Milton Country . i SURBITON TO LeATHERHEAD ..... 22 Ightham Mote and the Vale of Medway . .36 The Darenth and the Grays ..... 53 Croydon to Knockholt Beeches and the Kentish Commons . .63 In Old-World Essex ...... 75 Among the Essex Hills. ..... 86 Abinger, Leith Hill, and Dorking . -97 Ripley and the Surrey Commons . .111 ' Rural Middlesex . .121 Under the North Downs . .131 The Suburban Thames ...... 155 The Southern Suburbs : Kingston to Ewell, Warlingham, and Croydon ....... 169 Ewell to Merstham, Godstone, and Lingfield . .177 Hever Castle, Penshurst, and Tonbridge . 186 To Stoke Poges and Burn ham Beeches . -199 Dartford to Rochester, Aylesford, and Borough Green . 218 Middlesex and Hertfordshire Byways . -231 The Back Way to Brighton . -251 Barking to Southend and Sheppey .... 260 I4ST. PAGE The Old Lychgate, Penshurst Frontispiece RUISLIP , . , . 4 Milton's Cottage, Chalfont St. Giles 13 Jesus Hospital, Bray 20 Esher Old Church 26 Horseshoe Clump 28 Brass to Sir John D'Abernon 30 • The Hall, Slyfield House 31 The "Running Horse". 32 Elynor Rummyng 33 Sign of the "Running Horse" 35 Crown Point 38 Sign of the "Sir Jeffrey Amherst" 39 Cromwell's Skull 40 Ightham Mote 43 The Courtyard, Ightham Mote 45 The Dumb Borsholder . 50 The Quintain, Offham , 51 The Waterside, Erith . 54 On the Thames, near Erith . 55 Purfleet, from the Darenth Meadows 57 The Darenth 58 Eynesford . 60 The P'ool's Cap Crest of Sir John Spi 62 The Little Church of Woldingham 66 Knockholt Beeches 71 C/tsAR's Well 73 The Stocks, Havering-atte-Bower 76 Navestock Church 79 Blackmore Church 81 List of Illustrations XI Two Churches in one Churchyard: the Sister Cm OF WiLLINGALE SpAIN AND WiLLINGALE DOE Stock Church Laindon Church . ParsLOWES .... EwELi. Old Church Tower Evershed's Rough Leith Hill Claremont. Newark Priory . The Little Church of Perivale Pinner .... A Mysterious Monument Reigate Heath . Westcott .... The Little Church of Wotton Postford Ponds . An Old Weir on the Wey The Guildhall and High Street, Guildfori Puttenham The Seven-Dials Pillar, Weybridge Pyrcroft House . The Ruins, Virginia Water Carshalton Leaving Carshalton The "Town Hall," Gatton The Hollow Road, Nutfield . An Iron Tomb-Slab The Ancient Yew, Crowhurst The Gatehouse, Hever Castle Hever Castle Chiddingstone Sunset on the Eden A Crest of the Sidneys Shoeing Forge, Penshurst Gray's Monument The " Bicycle Window," Stoke Poges At Burn ham Beeches xu List of Illustrations PAGE Stone ..... 219 Early English Doorway, Stone Church 220 Interior, Stone Church 221 High Street, Rochester 225 Temple Bar Cough's Oak 235 Shenley Round-House . 236 The Church Bell, Shenley 237 Water End 242 Flamstead .... 245 Mackery End 247 The North Downs and Marden Park 253 The " Sackville Lodging," East Grinstead 255 Lewes .... 258 Barking .... 263 Eastbury House . 267 Hadleigh Castle . 269 Leigh Marshes and the Mouth of the Thames 271 Minster-in-Sheppey Church 277 Warden Point 283 Newington 285 The End .... Sketch Maps to each Route. CYCLE RIDES ROUND LONDON CHENIES AND THE MILTON COUNTRY Sight-seeing with ease and comfort is the ideal of the cycling tourist, and this run into a corner of Buckinghamshire and the Milton country comes as near the ideal as anything ever does in a world of punctures, leakages, hills, headwinds, and weather that is either sultry or soaking. Starting from Southall Station, which will probably strike the tourist as in anything but a desirable locality, we gain that flattest of flat highways—the Oxford road —^just here, and, leaving the canal and its cursing bargees, together with the margarine works, the huge gasometers, and other useful but unlovely outposts and necessaries of civilisation, speed along the excellent surface, past Hayes End and the hamlet Cockneys are pleased to call " 'illingdon 'eath," until within a mile and a half of Uxbridge, where a turning on the right hand will be noticed, properly furnished with a sign-post, pointing to Ickenham, Ruislip, and Pinner. Here we 2 Cycle Rides round London leave the dusty high road and its scurrying gangs of clubmen, whose faces, as they scorch along, are indicative of anything but pleasure. It is a pleasant by-road upon whose quiet course we have now entered, going in a mile-long descending gradient, past the grand old trees of Hillingdon Court overhanging the way, down towards Ickenham. It is a perfectly safe and thoroughly delightful coast down here, far away from the crowds, along a lane whose leafy beauty ancf luxuriant hedgerows might almost belong to Devonshire, instead of being merely in Middlesex. At Ickenham, one of those singularly tiny and curiously old-world villages that are, paradoxically enough, to be found only in this most populous of English counties, are a village green, a pond, and a pump. The pond is, perhaps, not so translucent as it might be, for the reason that the ducks are generally busily stirring up the mud ; and the green, being mostly loose gravel, is not so verdant as could be wished ; but the pump, occupying a very central position, is at once ornate and useful, and, in appearance, something between a Chinese joss-house, a County Council band-stand, and a newspaper kiosk. Also, it still retains on its weather- cock the tattered and blackened flag of some loyal celebration or another, which may mean loyalty in excelsis or merely local laziness. The very interesting old church, with whitewashed walls and with odd dormers in the roof, has some excellent windows and a little timbered spirelet that shows up white against a dense background of trees, and is, altogether, just such a place as Gray describes in his " Elegy," in whose churchyard sleep the rude forefathers of the hamlet.