Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/196

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��sive caverns were formerly excavated for this purpose under parts of the present town.

The road from London to Horsham passes through Dorking, and continues over the Holmwood Common. This is the turnpike which was made in 1755 * in response to the astounding statement of the people of Horsham that if they wanted to drive to London they were compelled to go round to Canterbury. Arthur Young justly described it as the worst instance of the want of communication which he had heard of in England. 4 The Act was for the making of a road from Epsom, through Letherhead, Dorking, and Capel, with a branch to Ockley. The old road from Dorking into Sussex went up Boar Hill to Cold- harbour, and down to Ockley. 6 This road was impassable for wheeled traffic as late as the earlier part of the I gth century, when it was such a narrow ravine that bearers carrying a coffin had to walk in single file with the coffin slung on a pole. It was repaired about 1830, chiefly at the instance of Mr. Serjeant Heath of Kitlands, Capel, who threat- ened to prosecute the parish. The road from Reigate to Guildford passes through Dorking from east to west.

The South Eastern Railway, Redhill and Reading branch, has two stations in Dorking, Box Hill and Dorking, opened in 1849. In 1867 the London Brighton and South Coast Railway, Portsmouth branch, was brought through Dorking, where there is a station near the Box Hill station of the South Eastern Railway.

The ancient road called Stone Street (see in Ockley on the name) ran through Dorking. It is to be traced in much of its course by flint pavement which is found in draining and field work. It is laid down fairly correctly upon the Ordnance Map. It enters Dorking parish close to Anstie Grange Home Farm (not to be confounded with Anstie Farm), and runs along the side of the hill under the Redlands Woods, and above the Holmwood Common. Folly Farm lies just west of it. Near Dorking it has not been accurately observed, but it has no relation to the direction of the streets. Drainage operations show that it left South Street to the east, and crossed West Street just opposite the yard occupied by Messrs. Stone & Turner ; a foot passage opposite their premises is just on the line. It continued in a straight line for Pebble Lane, where there is little doubt that it mounted to the chalk hills, and is represented still by the old bridle way over Mickleham Downs to Epsom race-course ; it must have left Dorking Church to the south-east. Manning and Bray 7 say that the flints were found north-east of the church in a nursery garden, and sold to the road surveyor. But the description is vague and not incompatible with its having passed the church as described. It has not been traced in the north part of Dorking parish.

The prehistoric fortified hill of Anstiebury, formerly in Dorking parish, was included in Capel by the Local Government Act of 1894, and has been de- scribed under Capel.

There is a barrow, unopened apparently, on Milton Heath, north of the road. Camden says that Roman coins were found in Dorking churchyard, and others

��4 Act 28 Geo. II, cap. 45.

5 In 1622 Sir Robert More wrote to his father, Sir George, that he could not drive from beyond Horsham to Loseley as he had intended, because it had rained, but that he hoped to find a way round by

��East Grinstead, Godttone, and Reigate (Loseley MSS. vol. i, p. 14.9). It would seem that the clay roads had become worse by 1750.

6 Ogilvy, Bk. of Roads ; Burton, Iter Surriense, &c.

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��have been mentioned. In 1817 a find of 700 Anglo-Saxon coins was made in Winterfold Hanger, on Lower Merriden Farm, west of Redlands Wood. 9

The town of Dorking used to consist of many houses of respectable antiquity, but has been much modernized of late. The ' Old King's Head ' is a fine brick Jacobean building, standing at the west end of the High Street, on the north side. It used to be called the ' Chequers,' and received its later name in 1660. The licence was withdrawn about 1800, renewed about 1850, and is now again withdrawn. It is usually said to be the original of Dickens' ' Mar- quis of Granby,' but at the time when the Pickwick Papers were written it was not an inn at all. Oppo- site the ' Old King's Head,' just before High Street divides into West Street and South Street, was the old ' Bull Ring.'

A few old houses are to be found in the High Street and side streets, but most of them have been re-fronted or otherwise modernized, and a comparison with the sister towns of Letherhead, Guildford, and Godalming, is in this respect very disappointing. In the town itself perhaps the most interesting old houses are the White Horse Inn anciently the ' Cross House,' from its sign, the cross of the Knights of St. John,' a quaint, low structure largely of timber and plaster, with three gables, and a large courtyard open- ing from the High Street, probably on a very ancient site, and as it stands perhaps 400 years old. The town abounds in ancient hostelries of lesser size, such as the ' Red Lion ' (originally ' The Cardinal's Cap ') and the ' Black Horse,' and in the side streets are one or two small half-timber houses with overhanging upper stories.

The gallows used to stand on a hill called Gallows Hill on the left-hand side of the road going towards Coldharbour by way of Boar Hill. A house now occupies the spot. It is marked in the map of Ogilvy's Book of Roads. The parish registers of 1625 to 1669 record at intervals the burial of persons hanged there when the Assizes were held in the town.

The old market-house stood in the street opposite the ' Red Lion.' Pictures show a gabled, probably 16th-century building, of the same type as the Farnham market-house, but the original wooden supports had been changed for brick arches at the west end ; they remained under the east end. It was demolished in 1813.

The market on Thursdays, claimed by John de Warenne in 1 278, is still held on the spot in the street. There is a fair, also existing in 1278, on Ascension Day. Down to ten years ago the practice of Shrove Tuesday football continued in the streets of Dorking. Shop windows were barricaded, all business suspended, and the town given over to a very tumultuous game. When the practice became known through the papers as a curiosity surviving here, idle people came from a distance to assist. The nuisance, always great, was intolerable, and it was suppressed with some difficulty by the police. But the year 1907 is said to have been the first in which no attempt was made to continue it. In 1830 there was a very serious riot in Dorking during the Swing Riots. 10

' Hist, of Surr. iii, App. jclvi.

8 V.C.H. Surr. i, 272.

9 It was held of the manor of St. John of Jerusalem, Clerkenwell.

10 y.C.H. Surr. i, 429.

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