SURREY, MIDDLESEX, AND SUSSEX STREAMS 57 



Northumberland, much watered with clearest 

 streams, and buried in ancient trees of Scawen's 

 Park and the neighbouring Beddington." Bedding- 

 ton, of whose " brave old hall " the same writer 

 was enamoured, is now, alas, threatened grievously ; 

 and Carshalton itself has, it would be idle to deny, 

 in some respects suffered much since Ruskin, in 

 a glowing passage in his Crown of Wild Olive, 

 wrote thus : — " Twenty years ago there was no 

 lovelier piece of lowland scenery in South England, 

 nor any more pathetic in the world, by its expres- 

 sion of sweet human character and life, than that 

 immediately bordering on the sources of the 

 Wandle, and including the low moors of Addington, 

 and the villages of Beddington and Carshalton, 

 with all their pools and streams. No clearer or 

 diviner waters ever sang with constant lips of the 

 Hand which giveth rain from heaven ; no pastures 

 ever lightened in spring-time with more passionate 

 blossoming ; no sweeter homes ever hallowed the 

 heart of the passer-by with their pride of peaceful 

 gladness, — fain-hidden, yet full confessed." Thus 

 Ruskin a quarter of a century ago : and Carshalton 

 has its beauties still, but ugly City lamp-posts and 

 modern flashy shop windows have made their mark 

 on the place. It is inevitable perhaps with London 

 "as a lion creeping nigher " every year, every 

 month, almost, it might be said, every week ; but it 

 is scarcely the less saddening for that. Then, as 

 regards the stream, the mills have worked havoc — 

 mills that grind slowly but grind exceeding small ! 

 The banks of this chalkiest of chalk streams 

 are often redolent in late summer with the aromatic 

 odours of peppermint and sweet lavender, which are 

 here cultivated in considerable quantities, and they 



