138 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



Within the belfry here is a ring of fine bells, some 

 of them of a respectable age, and three bearing the 

 inscription, with variations : 



" OUR HOPE IS IN THE LORD, 1595." 



R J* E 



From here a bye-lane leads steeply once more into 

 the high road, which winds along the valley, sloping 

 always towards the Weald. Down the long descent 

 into Merstham village tall and close battalions of fir- 

 trees lend a sombre colouring to the foreground, 

 while " southward o'er Surrey's pleasant hills ' the 

 evening sunlight streams in parting radiance. On the 

 left hand as we descend are the eerie-looking blow- 

 holes of the Merstham tunnel, which here succeeds the 

 cutting. Great heaps of chalk, by this time partly 

 overgrown with grass, also mark its course, and in the 

 distance, crowned as many of them are with telegraph 

 poles, they look by twilight curiously and awfully 

 like so many Calvarys. 



Beside the descent into Merstham was situated 

 the terminus of the old Iron Railway, in the great 

 excavated hollow of the Greystone lime-works, where 

 the lime-burners still quarry the limestone and the 

 smoke of their burning ascends day and night. The 

 old " Hylton Arms," down below, that served the 

 turn of the lime-burners when they wanted to slake 

 their thirst, has been ornately rebuilt in the modern- 

 Elizabethan Public House Style, alongside the road, 

 to catch the custom of the world at large, and is 

 named the " Jolliffe Arms." Both signs reflect the 

 ownership of Merstham, for Jolliffe has long been 

 the family name of the holders of the modern Barony 

 of Hylton. Formerly " Jolly," it was presumably 

 too bacchanalian and not sufficiently aristocratic, and 

 so it was changed, just as your " Smythe " was once 

 Smith, and " Johnes " Jones. 



