The Brighton Road Part 11

In 1892 and 1894, however, the Brighton Company approached Parliament and, proving the growing confusion, congestion, and loss of time at Redhill Junction, owing to this odd condition of things, obtained powers to complete that missing link by the construction of an entirely new railway between Stoat's Nest and a point just within a quarter of a mile of Earlswood Station, beyond Redhill, and also to double the existing line between East and South Croydon and Purley. The works were completed and opened for traffic in 1898, when for the first time the Brighton Railway had a complete and uninterrupted route of its own to the sea.

The hamlet of Smitham Bottom, which paradoxically stands at the top of the pa.s.s of that name, in this ancient way across the North Downs, can never have been beautiful. It was lonely when Jackson and Fewterel fought their prize-fight here, before that distinguished patron of sport the Prince of Wales and a more or less distinguished company, on June 9th, 1788; when the only edifice of "Smith-in-the-Bottom," as the sporting accounts of that time style it, appears to have been the ominous one of a gibbet. The Jackson who that day fought, and won, his first battle in the prize-ring was none other than that Bayard of the n.o.ble art, "Gentleman Jackson,"

afterwards the friend of Byron and of the Prince Regent himself, and subsequently landlord of the "c.o.c.k" at Sutton. On this occasion Major Hanger rewarded the victor with a bank-note from the enthusiastic Prince.

[Sidenote: SMITHAM]

Until 1898 Smitham Bottom remained a fortuitous concourse of some twenty mean houses on a windswept natural platform, ghastly with the chalky "spoil-banks" thrown up when the South Eastern Railway engineers excavated the great cuttings in 1840; but when the three railway-stations within one mile were established that serve Smitham Bottom--the stations of Coulsdon, Stoat's Nest, and Smitham--the place, very naturally, began to grow with the magic quickness generally a.s.sociated with Jonah's Gourd and Jack's Beanstalk, and now Smitham Bottom is a town. Most of the spoil-banks are gone, and those that remain are planted with quick-growing poplars; so that, if they can survive the hungry soil, there will presently be a leafy screen to the ugly railway sidings. Showy shops, all plate-gla.s.s and nightly glare of illumination, have arisen; the old "Red Lion" inn has got a new and very saucy front; and, altogether, "Smitham" has arrived. The second half of the name is now in process of being forgotten, and the only wonder is that the first part has not been changed into "Smytheham" at the very least, or that an entirely new name, something in the way of "ville"

or "park," suited to its prospects, has not been coined. For Smitham, one can clearly see, has a Future, with a capital F, and the historian confidently expects to see the incorporation of Smitham, with Mayor, Town Council, and Town Hall, all complete.

It is here, at Marrowfat, now "Marlpit," Lane, that the new link of the Brighton line branches off from Stoat's Nest.[8] One of the first trials of the engineers was the removal of three-quarters of a million cubic yards of the "spoil," dumped down by the roadside over half a century earlier; and then followed the spanning of the Brighton Road by a girder-bridge. The line then entered the grounds of the Cane Hill Lunatic Asylum, through which it runs in a covered way, the London County Council, under whose control that inst.i.tution is carried on, obtaining a clause in the Company's Act, requiring the railway to be covered in at this point, in case the lunatics might find means of throwing themselves in front of pa.s.sing trains.

Leaving the asylum grounds, the railway re-crosses the road by a hideous skew girder bridge of 180 feet span, supported by giant piers and retaining-walls, and then crosses the deep cutting of the South Eastern, to enter a cutting of its own leading into a tunnel a mile and a quarter in length--the new Merstham tunnel--running parallel with the old tunnel of the same name through which the South Eastern Railway pa.s.ses. At the southern end of this gloomy tunnel is the pretty village of Merstham, where the hillside sinks down to the level lands between that point and Redhill.

At Merstham one of the odd problems of the new line was reached, for there it had to be constructed over a network of ancient tunnels made centuries ago in the hillside--quarry-tunnels whence came much of the limestone that went towards the building of Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster Abbey. The old workings are still accessible to the explorer who dares the acc.u.mulation of gas in them given off by the limestone rock.

The geology of these five miles of new railway is peculiarly varied, limestone and chalk giving place suddenly to the gault of the levels, and followed again by a hillside bed of Fuller's earth, succeeded in turn by red sand. The Fuller's earth, resting upon a slippery substratum of gault, only required a little rain and a little disturbance to slide down and overwhelm the railway works, and retaining-walls of the heaviest and most substantial kind were necessary in the cuttings where it occurred.

Tunnelling for a quarter of a mile through the sand that gives Redhill its name, the railway crosses obliquely under the South Eastern, and then joins the old Brighton line territory just before reaching Earlswood station.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHIPSTEAD CHURCH.]

All these engineering manifestations give the old grim neighbourhood of Smitham Bottom a new grimness. The trains of the Brighton line boom, rattle, and clank overhead into the covered way, whose ventilators spout steam like some infernal laundry, and from the 80-foot deep cuttings close beside the road, steamy billows arise very weirdly. Presiding over all are the beautiful grounds and vast ranges of buildings of the Cane Hill Lunatic Asylum, housing an ever-increasing population of lunatics, now numbering some three thousand. Sometimes the quieter members of that unfortunate community are seen, being given a walk along the road, outside their bounds, and the sight and the thoughts they engender are not cheering.

Along the road, where the walls of the cutting descend perpendicularly, is the severely common-place hamlet of Hooley, formerly Howleigh, consisting of the "Star" inn and some twenty square brick cottages. Just beyond it, where a modern Cyclists' Rest and tea-rooms building stands to the left of the road, the first traces of the old Surrey Iron Railway, which crossed the highway here, are found, in the shallower cutting, still noticeable, although disused seventy years ago. Alders, hazels, and blackberry brambles grow on the side of it, and its bridges are ivy-grown: primroses and violets, too, grow there wondrously profuse.

[Sidenote: CHIPSTEAD]

And here we will, by way of interlude, turn aside, up a lane to the right hand, toward the village of Chipstead, in whose churchyard lies Sir Edward Banks, who began life in the humblest manner, working as a navvy upon this same forgotten railway, afterwards rising, as partner in the firm of Jolliffe & Banks, to be an employer of labour and contractor to the Government: in short, another Tom Bra.s.sey. All these things are recorded of him upon a memorial tablet in the church of Chipstead--a tablet which lets nothing of his worth escape you, so prolix is it.[9]

It was while delving amid the chalk of this tramway cutting that Edward Banks first became acquainted with this village, and so charmed with it was he that he expressed a desire, when his time should come, to be laid at rest in its quiet graveyard. When he died, after a singularly successful career, his wish was carried out, and here, in this quiet spot overlooking the highway, you may see his handsome tomb, begirt with iron railings, and overshadowed with ancient trees.

The little church of Chipstead is of Norman origin, and still shows some interesting features of that period, with some unusual Early English additions that have presented architectural puzzles even to the minds of experts. Many years ago the late Mr. G. E. Street, the architect of the present Royal Courts of Justice in London, read a paper upon this building, advancing the theory that the curious pedimental windows of the chancel and the transept door were not the Saxon work they appeared to be, but were the creation of an architect of the Early English period who had a fancy for reviving Saxon features, and who was the builder and designer of a series of Surrey churches, among which is included that of Merstham.

Within the belfry here is a ring of fine bells, some of them of a respectable age, and three bearing the inscription, with variations:

"OUR HOPE IS IN THE LORD, 1595."

R E

From here a bye-lane leads steeply once more into the high road, which winds along the valley, sloping always towards the Weald. Down the long descent into Merstham village tall and close battalions of fir-trees lend a sombre colouring to the foreground, while "southward o'er Surrey's pleasant hills" the evening sunlight streams in parting radiance. On the left hand as we descend are the eerie-looking blow-holes of the Merstham tunnel, which here succeeds the cutting. Great heaps of chalk, by this time partly overgrown with gra.s.s, also mark its course, and in the distance, crowned as many of them are with telegraph poles, they look by twilight curiously and awfully like so many Calvarys.

Beside the descent into Merstham was situated the terminus of the old Iron Railway, in the great excavated hollow of the Greystone lime-works, where the lime-burners still quarry the limestone and the smoke of their burning ascends day and night. The old "Hylton Arms," down below, that served the turn of the lime-burners when they wanted to slake their thirst, has been ornately rebuilt in the modern-Elizabethan Public House Style, alongside the road, to catch the custom of the world at large, and is named the "Jolliffe Arms." Both signs reflect the ownership of Merstham, for Jolliffe has long been the family name of the holders of the modern Barony of Hylton. Formerly "Jolly," it was presumably too baccha.n.a.lian and not sufficiently aristocratic, and so it was changed, just as your "Smythe"

was once Smith, and "Johnes" Jones.

XVI

[Sidenote: MERSTHAM]

Merstham is as pretty a village as Surrey affords, and typically English.

Railways have not abated, nor these turbid times altered in any great measure, its fine air of aristocratic and old-time rusticity. At one end of its one clearly-defined street, set at an angle to the high-road, are the great ornamental gates of Merstham Park, setting their stamp of landed aristocracy upon the place. To their right is a tiny gate leading to the public right-of-way through the park, which presently crosses over the pond where rise fitfully the springs of Merstham Brook, a congener of the Kentish "Nailbournes," and one of the many sources of the River Mole. To the marshy ground by this brook, and to its stone-quarries, the place owes its name. It was in Domesday Book "Merstan" = Mere-stan, the stone (house) by the lake.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MERSTHAM.]

Beyond the brook, above the tall trees, is seen the shingled spire of the church, an Early English building dedicated to St. Catherine, not yet spoiled, despite restorations and the sc.r.a.ping which its original lancet windows have undergone, in misguided efforts to endue them with an air of modernity.

The church is built of that limestone or "firestone" found so freely in the neighbourhood--a famed speciality which entered largely into the building and ornamentation of Henry the Seventh's Chapel at Westminster.

Those wondrously intricate and involved carvings and traceries, whose decadent Gothic delicacy is the despair of present-day architects and stone-carvers, were possible only in this stone, which, when quarried, is of exceeding softness, but afterwards, on exposure to the air, a.s.sumes a hardness equalling that of any ordinary building-stone, and has, in addition, the merit of resisting fire, whence its name. From the softer layers comes that article of domestic use, the "hearthstone," used to whiten London hearths and doorsteps.

Merstham Church is even yet of considerable interest. It contains bra.s.ses to the Newdegate. Best, and Elmebrygge families, one recording in black letter:

"Hic iacet Johesi Elmebrygge, armiger, qui obiit biij die ffebruarij; A Dni Mcccclxxij, et Isabella uxor eius quae fuit filia Nichi Jamys quonda Maioris et Alderman London: quae obiit bij die Septembris A Dni Mcccclxxij et Annae uxor ei: quae fuit filia Johes Prophete Gentilman quae obiit ...

A Dni Mccc ... quoru animabus ppicietur Deus."

The date of the second wife's death has never been inserted, showing that the bra.s.s was engraved and set during her lifetime, as in so many other examples of monumental bra.s.ses throughout the country. The figure of John Elmebrygge is wanting, it having been at some time torn from its matrix, but above his figure's indent remains a label inscribed _Sancta Trinitas_, and from the mouths of the remaining figures issue labels inscribed _Unus Deus--Miserere n.o.bis_. Beneath is a group of seven daughters; the group of four sons is long since lost.

A transitional Norman font of grey Suss.e.x marble remains at the western end of the church, and on an altar-tomb in the southern chapel are the poor remains of an ancient stone figure of the fifteenth century, presumably the effigy of a merchant civilian, as he is represented wearing the _gypciere_. It is hacked out of almost all significance at the hands of some iconoclasts; their chisel-marks are even now distinct and bear witness against the Puritan rage that defaced and buried it face downwards, the reverse side of the stone forming part of the chapel pavement until 1861, when it was discovered during the restoration of the church.

Before that restoration this was an interior of Georgian high pews. Among them the "squire's parlour" was pre-eminent, with its fireplace, its well-carpeted floor, its chairs and tables: a snuggery wherein that good man snored un.o.bserved, or partook critically of his snuff during the parson's discreet discourse. But now the parlour is gone, and the squire must slumber, if he can, with the other sinners.

[Sidenote: GATTON]

In Merstham village, just beyond the "Feathers" inn, stood Merstham toll-gate, followed by that of Gatton, at Gatton Point, a mile distant, where the old route through Reigate goes off to the right, and the new--the seven miles between Gatton Point and Povey Cross, through Redhill--continues, straight as an arrow, ahead. The way is bordered on the right hand by Gatton Park, a spot the country folk rightly describe as an "old arnshunt place." The history of Gatton, in truth, goes back to immemorial times, and has no beginning: for where history thins out and becomes a mere scatter of disjointed sc.r.a.ps purporting to be facts, tradition carries back the tale into a very fog of legend and conjecture.

It was "Gatone" when the Domesday survey was made: the Saxon "Geat-ton,"

the town in the "gate," pa.s.sage, or road through the North Downs, just as Reigate is the Saxon "Rige-geat," the road over the ridge. The "ton" or town in the place-name does not necessarily mean what we moderns would understand by the word, and here doubtless indicated an enclosed, hedged, or walled-in tract of land redeemed and cultivated out of the then encompa.s.sing wilderness of the Downs.

Who first broke the land of Gatton to the plough? History and tradition are silent. No voice speaks out of the grave of the centuries. But both Reigate and Gatton are older than Anglo-Saxon times, for a Roman way, itself following the course of an even earlier savage trail, came up out of the stodgy clay of Holmesdale, over the chalky hills, to Streatham and London. It was a branch of the road leading from _Portus Adurni_--the present Old Sh.o.r.eham, on the river Adur--and doubtless, in the long centuries of Romano-British civilisation, it was bordered here and there by settlements and villas. Prominent among them was Gatton. There can scarcely be a doubt of it, for, although Roman relics are not found here now, Camden, writing in the time of Henry the Eighth, tells of "Roman Coynes digged forth of the Ground." It was ever a desirable site, for here unfailing springs well out of the chalk and give an abounding fertility, while another road--the ancient Pilgrims' Way--running west and east, crossed the other highway, and thus gave ready communication on every side.

Gatton has, within the historic period, never been more than a manorial park, but an unexplained something, like the echo of a vanished greatness, has caused strangely unmerited honours to be granted it. Who shall say what induced Henry the Sixth in 1451 to make this mere country park a Parliamentary borough, returning two members? There must have been some adequate reason or excuse, even if only the one of its ancient renown; for there _must_ always be an apology of sorts for corruption; no job is jobbed without at least some shadowy semblance of legality. But no one will ever pluck out the heart of its mystery.

[Sidenote: THE ROTTEN BOROUGH]

A Parliamentary borough Gatton remained until 1832, when the first Reform Act swept away the representation of it, together with that of many another "rotten borough." Rightly had Cobbett termed it "a very rascally spot of earth," for certainly from 1541, when Sir Roger Copley owned the property and was the sole elector of the place, the election was a scandalous farce, and never at any time did the "burgesses" exceed twenty.

They were always tenants of the lord of the manor and the mere marionettes that danced to his will.

Gatton, returning its two members to Parliament, as of old, was early in the nineteenth century purchased by Mark Wood, Esq., who was soon after created a Baronet. It was then recorded that in this borough there were six houses and only one freeholder: Sir Mark Wood himself. The other five houses he let by the week; and thus, paying the taxes, he was the only elector of the two representatives. At the election, he and his son Mark were the candidates, and the father duly elected himself and his son!

Scandalous, no doubt; but those members must have represented the const.i.tuency better than could those of a larger electorate.

The landowner who possessed such a pocket-borough as this, and could send whomsoever he liked to Parliament, to vote as he wished, was, of course, a very important personage. His opposition was a serious matter to Governments; his support of the highest value, both politically and in a pecuniary sense; and thus place, honours, riches, could be, and were, secured. The manor of Gatton actually, in the cynical recognition of these things, was valued at twice its worth without that Parliamentary representation, and Lord Monson, who purchased the property in 1830, gave as much as 100,000 for it, solely as an investment in jobbery and corruption, by which he hoped, in the course of shrewd political wire-pulling, to obtain a cent per cent return.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GATTON HALL AND "TOWN HALL."]

He was a humorist of a cynical turn who built in front of the great mansion in midst of the park a "Town Hall" for the non-existent town, and inscribed on the urn which stands by this freakish, temple-like structure the motto, satirical in this setting, "_Salus populi suprema lex esto_,"

together with other sardonic Latin, to the effect that no votes sullied by bribery should be given.

Less than two years after Lord Monson's purchase of the estate, Reform had destroyed the value of Gatton Park, for it was disfranchised. We can only wonder that he did not claim compensation for the abolition of his "vested interests."