The Hastings Road and the "Happy Springs of Tunbridge"

THE HASTINGS ROAD

ENTRANCE TO HASTINGS, BY MINNIS ROCK AND THE OLD LONDON ROAD.

THE
Hastings Road

AND
THE “HAPPY SPRINGS OF TUNBRIDGE”

By Charles G. Harper

ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR

London
Chapman & Hall, Ltd.
1906

[All rights reserved]

PRINTED AND BOUND BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

vii

PREFACE

The Road to Hastings is hilly. Not, perhaps,altogether so hilly as the Dover Road, andcertainly never so dusty, nor so Cockneyfied; butthe cyclist who explores it finds, or thinks he finds,an amazing amount of rising gradient in proportionto downhill, no matter which way he goes.

Sevenoaks town, the matter of twenty milesdown the road, is certainly preceded by the long,swooping down-grades of Polhill; but the lengthiestdescent, by mere measurement in rods, poles, andperches, is only an incident in descending, whilethe inevitable corresponding rise is, the climbingof it, a long-drawn experience. To the motorist,who changes from high-gear to lower, and then,viiias the gradient stiffens, to lowest, and so withlabouring engine crawls uphill, like a bluebottleup a window-pane, the revulsion from chargingalong the levels at an illegal pace, raising veritablesiroccos of dust, is heart-breaking.

Sevenoaks town crests the ramparted downs,and the hilly road goes up to it in steep lengths,with other lengths as near as may be flat, leadingyou to believe you are there, when in sheer coldfact you are not there, and still have otherincredible gradients to climb. And yet, returning,you shall find the descent by no means so precipitous.River Hill by that time will havetaken pride of place.

For the other hills, let them be taken ontrust; they are surely there, as also are thoselong rises, insensible to the sight of the toilingcyclist, but patent to his feeling as he wearilypushes round his unwilling pedals. For themotor-cyclist, with disabled engine, the HastingsRoad is more tragical than anything Shakespeareever staged.

The Hastings Road is, in short, the pedestrian’sroad. You would not say so much of theBath Road or the Exeter Road between Hounslowixand Taplow, and Staines; nor even of the greatNorth Road where it runs flat through Bedfordshireand Hunts. There the way recedes everinto the infinite, and there, if anywhere, thehurtling motorist is to be excused of his illegality.Here, however, on the way to Hastings, you lingerby hillside and valley, for the road goes throughthe most beautiful parts of Sussex and of Kent,and marches through much diverting social andnational history, to the scene of the crowningtragedy of Battle. I am not of those who findthe story of the Battle of Hastings sheer dry-as-dust.It is to me a living story, though over eighthundred years old, and it will live for you whoexplore that stricken field, if so be you explore itaway from the perfunctory guides who parrot thehalf-holiday public through the grounds of BattleAbbey.

But they are not necessarily the larger happeningsthat interest me in these pages. I can findit easily possible—nay, effortless—to turn fromcatastrophic struggles, and take an absorbinginterest in some one’s back garden: that is the wayto keep boredom at arm’s length. The mediævalknight who swore by his “halidom,” and thexmodern hop-picker who says “blimy!” (andstronger things than that) are both entertainingpersons; would that Time were bridged, and theycould be introduced to one another! What theknight and the “caitiff” would severally thinkof either would be well worth the hearing.

For mere topography: let us maintain aninvincible curiosity as to whence this river comesor whither it goes; as to what lies on the otherside of yonder hill, or at the end of some alluringbyway. Let us find entertainment in the mannerin which the city, town, or village next on themap is different from those we have alreadypassed; and with interests so varied the way willbe all too short.

CHARLES G. HARPER.

Petersham,
Surrey.
April, 1906.

xi

THE ROAD TO HASTINGS

xiii

List of Illustrations

1

The HASTINGS ROAD

I

The road to Hastings is measured from what, inthese times, seems the unlikely starting-point ofLondon Bridge, and is identical with the DoverRoad as far as New Cross, where it turns to theright and goes through Lewisham, the DoverRoad continuing by Deptford and Blackheath.

Few would