MITCHAM COMMON 155 



funny as he felt, he should set up for a humorist, and 

 oust some of the dull dogs who pose as jesters. 



Opposite Horley church is Gatwick Park, since 1892 

 converted into a racecourse, with a railway station of 

 its own. Less than a mile below it, at Povey Cross, 

 the Sutton and Reigate route to Brighton joins the 

 main road. 



XVIII 



The Sutton and Reigate route to Brighton, instead 

 of branching off along the Brixton Road, pursues a 

 straight undeviating course down the Clapham Road, 

 through Balham and Upper and Lower Tooting, 

 where it turns sharply to the left at the Broadway, 

 and in half a mile right again, at Amen Corner. Thence 

 it goes, by Figg's Marsh and Mitcham, to Sutton. 



It is not before Mitcham is reached that, in these 

 latter days, the pilgrim is conscious of travelling the 

 road to anywhere at all. It is all modern " street " — 

 and streets, to this commentator at least, have a strong 

 resemblance to rows of dog-kennels. They are places 

 where citizens live on the chain. They lack the charm 

 of obviously leading elsewhere : and even although 

 electric tramcars speed multitudinously along them, to 

 some near or distant terminus, they do but arrive there 

 at other streets. 



Mitcham is at present beyond these brick and 

 mortar tentacles, and is grouped not unpicturesquely 

 about a village green and along the road to the Wandle. 

 Pleasant, ruddy-faced seventeenth and eighteenth- 

 century mansions look upon that green, notable in the 

 early days of Surrey cricket ; and away at the further 

 end of it is the vast flat of Mitcham Common, that 

 dreary, long-drawn expanse which is at once the best 

 illustration of eternity and of a Shakespearian " blasted 

 heath " that can readily be thought of. 



" Mitcham lavender " brings fragrant memories, 

 and indeed the only thing that serves to render the 



