146 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



that time the town of Redhill, now numbering some 

 16,000 persons, has come into existence, and when we 

 speak of Redhill we mean — not the height up which 

 the coaches laboured, but a certain commonplace town 

 lying at the foot of it, with a busy railway junction 

 where there are always plenty of trains, but never the 

 one you want, and quite a number of public institutions 

 of the asylum and reformatory type. 



The railway junction has, of course, created Redhill 

 town, which is really in the parish of Reigate. When 

 the land began to be built upon, in the '-10's, it was 

 called " Warwick Town," after the then Countess of 

 Warwick, the landowner, and the names of a road and 

 a public-house still bear witness to that somewhat 

 lickspittle method of nomenclature. But there is, 

 and can be, only one possible Warwick in England, 

 and " Redhill " this " Warwick Town," by natural 

 selection, became. 



There could have been no more certain method of 

 inviting the most odious of comparisons than that of 

 naming Redhill after the fine old feudal town of 

 Warwick, which first arose beneath the protecting 

 walls of its ancient castle. Either town has an origin 

 typical of its era, and both look their history and 

 circumstances. Redhill, within the memory of those 

 still living, sprang up around a railway platform, and 

 the only object that may be said to frown in it is the 

 great gas-holder, built on absolutely the most prominent 

 and desirable site in the whole town ; and that not 

 only frowns, but stinks as well, and is therefore not a 

 desirable substitute for a castle keep. Here, at any 

 rate, " Mrs. Partington's " remark that " comparisons 

 is odorous " would be altogether in order. 



Prominent above all other buildings in the town, 

 in the backward view from that godfatherly hill, is 

 the huge St. Anne's Asylum, housing between four and 

 five hundred children of the poor. 



" The Cutting " through the brow of the hill, 

 enclosed on either side by high brick walls, leads 

 presently upon Redhill and Earlswood Commons, 



