The Natural History of Selh 



orne 



Great Ward le ham [Worldham], Kingsley, Hedleigh [Head- 

 ley], Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lysse [Liss], and Greatham. 

 The soils of this district are almost as various and diversified 

 as the views and aspects. The high part of the south-west 

 consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising three hundred feet above 

 the village, and is divided into a sheep-down, the high wood 

 and a long hanging wood, called the Hanger. The covert 

 of this eminence is altogether beech, the most lovely of all 

 forest trees, whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its 

 glossy foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs. The down, or 

 sheep-walk, is a pleasing park-like spot, of about one mile by 

 half that space, jutting out on the verge of the hill-country, 

 where it begins to break down into the plains, and command- 

 ing a very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, 

 wood-lands, heath, and water. The prospect is bounded to 

 the south-east and east by the vast range of mountains 

 called the Sussex Downs, by Guild-down near Guildford, and 

 by the Downs round Dorking, and Ryegate [Reigate] in 

 Surrey, to the north-east, which altogether, with the country 

 beyond Alton and Farnham, form a noble and extensive 

 outline. 



At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the uplands, 

 lies the village, which consists of one single straggling street, 

 three-quarters of a mile in length, in a sheltered vale, and 

 running parallel with the Hanger. The houses are divided 

 from the hill by a vein of stiff clay (good wheat-land), yet 

 stand on a rock of white stone, 1 little in appearance removed 

 from chalk; but seems so far from being calcareous, that it 

 endures extreme heat. Yet that the freestone still preserves 

 somewhat that is analogous to chalk, is plain from the beeches 

 which descend as low as those rocks extend, and no further, 

 and thrive as well on them, where the ground is steep, as on 

 the chalks. 



The cart- way of the village divides, in a remarkable manner, 



1 When White wrote, geology was hardly even in its infancy : the stone 

 to which he here alludes is now known as one of the Upper Greensand 

 series. ED. 



