File:The Old Road (1904) (14740216226).jpg

Identifier: cu31924028008229 (find matches)
Title: The Old Road
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Belloc, Hilaire, 1870-1953 Hyde, William Henry, 1858-1925, illus
Subjects: Roads
Publisher: London, A. Constable
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
y what I fear was a private path through a newly-enclosedpiece of property. We remembered to spare the garden, butwe permitted ourselves a trespass upon this outer hollowtrench in the wood which marked our way. A magnificent bit of open ground, from which we sawbelow us the sandy hills, and beyond, the whole of the Weald,led us on to a point where the Old Road once again corre-sponds with a modern and usable, though unmetalled and very • Here our track is quite different from that given in the ^Jg^ Ordnance map forSurrey (xxvi. 10), where it is carried along the base of the hill past Buckland LimePits. The Ordnance map practically confesses its error, for in the succeeding sheet(xxvi. 11) the Pilgrims Way reappears suddenly in its right place, at the top of thecrest. It is easy for any one who has walked the road to see how this part of it wasneglected. It is overgrown with a thick growth, and most of it, though quite plain, isnot seen till you are right upon it. 114 23 ot co c <
Text Appearing After Image:
OF THE EOAD dirty lane. This is the lane which runs to the south ofthe park of Margery Hall. It skirts to the north the propertyrecently acquired by the War Office, and when it has passedthe War Office boundary-stone it is carried across the high-roadfrom Reigate to London by a suspension bridge, which mustsurely be the only example in Europe of so modern an inventionserving to protect the record of so remote a past. Nor wouldthere be any need for such a suspension bridge had not theLondon Road in the early part of the nineteenth century beeneased in its steepness by a deep cutting, to cross which thesuspension bridge was made. That bridge, once passed, the roadpointed straight to the lodge of Gatton, and pursued its waythrough that park to the further lodge upon the easternside.^ Here should be submitted some criticism of the rathervague way in which the place-names of this district havebeen used by those who had preceded us in the reconstruc-tion of the Pilgrims Way. Reigate, which

Note About Images