The Brighton road : the classic highway to the south . e cares to quote onEpsom ; and, altogether ignoring the mingledfragrances of Mitcham, declares it the place for athief. We need not, however, take the matterseriously : the rhymester was only at his wits end fora rhyme to beef. Mitcham station, beside the road, is a curiousexample of what a railway company can do in itsrare moments of economy ; for it is an earlv nineteenth-century villa converted to railway purposes by theprocess of cutting a hole through the centre. It is asore puzzle to a stranger in a hurry. From Mitcham one ascends a
The Brighton road : the classic highway to the south . e cares to quote onEpsom ; and, altogether ignoring the mingledfragrances of Mitcham, declares it the place for athief. We need not, however, take the matterseriously : the rhymester was only at his wits end fora rhyme to beef. Mitcham station, beside the road, is a curiousexample of what a railway company can do in itsrare moments of economy ; for it is an earlv nineteenth-century villa converted to railway purposes by theprocess of cutting a hole through the centre. It is asore puzzle to a stranger in a hurry. From Mitcham one ascends a hill past the woodlandestate of Ravensbury, crossing the abundantly-exploited Wandle ; and then, along a still rural road,to the modern town of Sutton. On the fringe of that town, at the discreet residential suburb of Benhilton, is a scenic surprisein the way of a deep cutting in the hilly road. Spannedby a footbridge, graced with trees, and neighbouredby the old Angel inn, Angel Bridge, as it iscalled, is a pretty spot. The rise thus cut through was. © o X o V H SUTTOX 150 once known as Been Hill, and on that basis wasfantastically reared the name of Benhilton. Onecannot but admire the ingenuity of it. Sutton for mutton : so ran the old-time reason of that ancient repute is found in thedowns iii whose lap the place is situated ; those thymydowns that afforded such splendid pasturage for Common is gone, enclosed in 1810, but the downsremain : and yet that rhyme has lost its reason, andSutton is no longer celebrated for anything aboye itsfellow towns. Even the famous Cock is gone—that old coaching-inn kept by the ex-pugilist, Gentle-man Jackson. Long threatened, it was at lastdemolished in 1898, and with the old house went theequally famous sign that straddled across the similar sign of the Greyhound still remains :the last relic of narrower streets and times morespacious. Leaving Sutton i4 town, as we call it nowadays,the road proceeds to clim
Size: 1266px × 1973px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjecthorses, bookyear1922
