Highways and byways in Surrey . s you may read in a record in thebelfry. In the record the ages of the ringers are carefullygiven. They range between 19 and 30. Bell ringing is hardwork. Between Bletchingley and Redhill lies Nutfield, which hasnot yet been caught into the town. Perhaps its progress intoRedhill will be slow, for it stands inconveniently high forwheeled traffic in and out of that huddled basin of bricks, andfrom its own station a mile to the south the roads up the hillare some of the steepest in east Surrey. Before Redhill briitgs AN OLD INN 399 it more money and more bricks, it
Highways and byways in Surrey . s you may read in a record in thebelfry. In the record the ages of the ringers are carefullygiven. They range between 19 and 30. Bell ringing is hardwork. Between Bletchingley and Redhill lies Nutfield, which hasnot yet been caught into the town. Perhaps its progress intoRedhill will be slow, for it stands inconveniently high forwheeled traffic in and out of that huddled basin of bricks, andfrom its own station a mile to the south the roads up the hillare some of the steepest in east Surrey. Before Redhill briitgs AN OLD INN 399 it more money and more bricks, it ought to be worth anenterprising landlords while to convert its principal inn to itsold methods. The Old Queens Head is a posting inn withthe remains of what was once a spacious parlour, solid withoak beams big enough for a belfry, warmed by a broad openfireplace and offering the hospitality of two great chimneyseats. The chimney seats have lapsed into cupboards and stands where once the wealden logs roared up into the. v--^:^.. ,,-V^,- Church. night. But if Godstone with its Clayton Arms, or Chidding-fold with its Crown, beckons in the passer-by to look at oldoak and old walls, why should not Nutfield ? Nutfields chief industry, the digging of fullers earth, datesback to beginnings that are now quite forgotten. TheNutfield pits are still working, and spread over the slope onwhich they lie a dreary stretch of blue and grey upturned soilas if a giant gamekeeper had been digging out colossal ferrets. 400 NEW USES FOR FULLERS EARTH ch. xxxviii The industry is old enough and important enough for theexport of fullers earth to have been prohibited as far back asEdward II, and in 1693 one Edmund Warren was tried in theExchequer for smuggling a quantity of earth out of thecountry, though it was proved to be not fullers earth butpotters clay. But there is no doubt that great quantitieswere smuggled abroad, with corresponding injury—or so itwas thought at the time—t
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