E-text prepared by Colin Bell, Jane Hyland,
Internet Archive (Canadian Libraries),
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
()
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
IN
SURREY
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
Highways and Byways
IN
Surrey
BY ERIC PARKER
WITH · ILLUSTRATIONS · BY
HUGH THOMSON
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1909
Richard Clay and Sons, Limited,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
First Edition, 1908
Reprinted, 1909
PREFACE
A preface ought not to contain an apology. But mine must contain atleast an explanation, if only of omissions. The Highways and Byways ofSurrey belong not to one county or to one period of time, but to twodifferent ages, and, to-day, to two counties. London has made thedifference. What was Surrey country a hundred years ago has beengathered into the network of London streets, and belongs, in the mindand on the map, to London. Almost for ten miles south of the LondonThames the old Surrey countryside has disappeared, and the disappearancehas left the writer of a book of Surrey Highways a difficult choice. Itwould have been easy to fill a large part of the book with the Surrey ofthe past, the Surrey of Southwark, and the great church of St. MaryOverie, and of Lambeth Palace and the Archbishops, of Vauxhall, and theParis Gardens, and the Bankside where Shakespeare brought out his plays.But it is not easy to write anything new of any part of Surrey, and ofthat part I could have written nothing new at all. So that it seemedbest to leave the Surrey that has disappeared to writers who have dealtwith its history far more adequately than I could, and to choose for theHighways and Byways of this book only those which still run through opencountry and through country villages and towns. That is the Surrey ofto-day.
The general plan of the book is simple. I have entered the county fromthe west at Farnham, with the old Way along the chalk ridge, and I leaveit by Titsey on the east. Of course, not all the Surrey villages belongto the ridge, though the chief towns lie along it. Other villages setthemselves along the banks of the two Surrey rivers, the Wey and theMole, and there are separate little groups like the villages of the Foldcountry, or on the plateaux of the Downs round Epsom, or betweenChertsey and Windsor on the Thames. These group themselves in their ownchapters. But the main progress of the book is the trend of the greatSurrey highway. As to...