THE ENVIRONS OF LONDON.*

Turs is a work on which enormous labour has been expended,. as any one may see who examines it with even a moderate degree of attention. It must have required no little courage to under- take such a compilation in these days, and it is easy to credit Mr. Thorne when he says that it has been in band for years. For where do the environs of London end? The growth of the city itself has been so enormorous that it is now almost half a day's. journey on foot to get beyond any of its suburbs. The man who returns to the metropolis after an absence of some years finds himself almost a stranger in it, and reduced to the humiliating necessity of occasionally asking the policeman for a direction,. like any other rustic. Half the well-known landmarks are gone ;. old inns and old churches have been swept away, and even entire thoroughfares have disappeared. If it were not for Fleet Street and the Strand, and that prince of streets, Bond Street— a street in which nearly every convenience or luxury of life can be bought, and which is a city in itself—the old Londoner woulki be all adrift in the huge ocean which surrounds him. It is almost as great a relief to him to find himself in those familiar thorough- fares, after wandering about miles of new houses, as it is to the shipwrecked mariner to feel the hard land beneath his feet once more. What is he to make of all that region near to the Holborn Viaduct? You put him down in a broad and spacious street,. full of big warehouses and offices, and tell him it is Shoe Lane.. He begins to think that he must be at least a hundred years old,. and probably does not recover from the shock until he has taken a stroll in Gough Square, through Robin Hood Court, and recalled the old reminiscences of Johnson and Goldsmith, and then dropped • Handbook to the Enoirone of London, Alphabetically Arranged. Containing an Account of every Town and Village, and of all places of interest, within a circle of Twenty Mika round London. By James Thorne, F. S.A. Two Farts. London John Murray. 1876.

into the Cheshire Cheese, to see if they still make colossal pud- dings there, and if the portrait of the old waiter remains over the fire-place in the little parlour ; and so turns out from Wine Office Court into Fleet Street, thankful that some parts of the "classic ground" will at least last out his time.

As for the environs of London, it requires, as we have said, a man of great pluck to tackle _them at all. In some directions there are no clearly marked limits to them. Mr. Thorne has nominally drawn the line at twenty miles, but in many cases he feels himself obliged to travel beyond it. We can imagine what would be old Cobbett's feelings if these two volumes could be placed in his hands, and if he were told that they merely formed a sort of handbook to what had substantially become the outlying suburbs of the "great Wen." The man deputed to bear him that message would wish much that some one else had gone instead. Rows of "modern villas" now cover land far beyond even Mr. Thorne's liberal radius. It is a pity to see such a place as Sevenoaks in- vaded by the speculative builder, and efaced with lath-and- plaster buildings, damp, gloomy, and uncomfortable,—miserable houses, which are advertised as "beautiful detached residences; rent, £95 a year." Poor paterfamilias on the look-out for a house has to spend many a sovereign in travelling-expenses to go and see these wretched shells, lured by specious advertisements. Scarcely less melancholy are the smaller houses put up by build- ing societies in the vicinity of Leatherhead, and other once picturesque towns. Not that we have a word to say against the erection of houses for poor people,—homes of this kind are the great want of the age. Land is passing into fewer and fewer hands every year, and at the rate we are now going, there will soon be no place left for those inconvenient and superfluous human beings,—the poor. Perhaps there are a few owners of their thou- sands of acres who think that a great storm-wave every few years would help to settle the difficulty.

It is quite probable that a man might, by diligent search, manage to discover some place that is omitted in Mr. Thorne's Handbook, but we can only say that after carefully testing the two volumes, and reading the greater part of them, we have failed to detect any such omission. The plan of the book is thoroughly practical. We have, in the first place, a concise and yet interesting account of the history of the town or village treated of, with illustrations drawn from writers who have either lived on the spot or written about it. In this department of his work, Mr. Thorne has collected good stores of information from old diaries, letters, newspapers, and books, and his quotations are so interesting, that it is well worth while turning over his pages to look at them alone. We then have a description of the place which is the subject of the article, written from personal observation, and in many cases some useful hints as to the walks to be found in the neighbourhood. The book tells you bow to get to these places, and it tells you all you can reasonably wish to know about their past history and present condition; and an author who has conscientiously and thoroughly carried out such a programme as that deserves no little credit. Let us take a few examples of Mr. Thorne's work.

To Croydon over seven double-column pages are devoted, and they may be accepted as a tolerably complete guide to that ancient town. Under the heading "Enfield," we find an article full of useful local information and interesting reminiscences, and there is an even more laborious and minute account of St. Alban's. The articles on Highgate and Hampstead are very careful and satisfactory productions, not telling all that might be told, per- haps, but giving more information than we have a just right to look for in a volume which treats of so many hundreds of other places. In the =tide on Richmond there are many facts and incidents related which will be new even to those who think they are tolerably familiar with the locality. The chapter on Epping Forest is not only intended to be useful to visitors, but it is ex- tremely interesting even to the general reader, and describes in an effective manner the constant raids which have been made upon that picturesque domain, and which have shorn it of more than half its fair proportions. Mr. Thorne generally tells us something in addition about the trees and plants and birds which are characteristic of any particular locality, and thus he writes of Epping Forest :—

a The major part of the forest was oak and hornbeam, with a con- siderable number of beech, and an abundance of hawthorns, sloe'

s and rough underwood. But within the last twenty years more than a million forest-trees have been cut down. Of the part left, the most striking feature is the beechwood at High Beech, but there are many good oaks there and at Chingford ; hornbeams still predominate in other parts of the forest. In point of scenery, High Beech is by far

the most attractive portion of the forest left. (See art., High Beech.') Though, of course, greatly injured by the inclosures, and the extensive destruction of trees, Epping Forest is still a very interesting place, alike to the lover of scenery and the student of natural history. A larger number and variety of birds may be found there than in any other place within the same distance of London. By day, the singing-birds are numberless,and by night, owls and night-jars alternate with the nightin- gale, which some believe is heard here earlier and later than elsewhere. For the rarer plants, the forest is still the best collecting-ground on this side of London, though it must yield precedence to Darenth Wood, and, perhaps, one or two others of the Kentish woodlands. Ferns flourish wonderfully, but the Osmunda, the Lady Fern, and some other of the more highly prized and rarer varieties have been extirpated. Ching- ford, Fan-mead, and the neighbourhood produce an unrivalled variety of fungi, and the club mosses and orchids are also numerous and beauti- ful. For the entomologist Epping is at least as productive a hunting- ground as for any of his brother naturalists."

Then follows an amusing account of the "Epping Hunt" on Easter Monday, as it was in its palmy days, and as the author witnessed it in 1873 and 1874. But it may be said that these are well-known or important places, and therefore would naturally receive unusual care. Let us, therefore, try Mr. Thorne by his slighter chapters, and see what sort of workmanship we find in them.

Under the heading "Miekleham," we have about all that there is to tell of that homely little village ; and then there is an excel- lent account of Norbury Park—in our humble opinion, the most varied and beautiful park in Surrey, which is a good deal to say for it. If anybody questions the verdict, let him go through it

from Micklehatu nearly to Leatherhead, in one direction, and then strike off in another for the Druid's Grove. After doing that, he will at once come over to our way of thinking. Having, then, told us something about Norbury, Mr. Thorne gives us a compre- hensive view of all the places of interest in the neighbourhood ;

and we do not see that he has omitted anything, from Juniper Hall to Camilla Lacey. This, we think, is quite enough to say about Mickleham.

We now turn to Bletchingley, and there we find an interesting sketch of the chief events in the history of that curious town, which once returned two Members to Parliament, and now is dwindling away to nothing. Mr. Thorne produces some pleasant notes about the old church there, and mentions the fact that in the chancel there is a small brass "without an inscription."

We could tell Mr. Thorne a very strange little story about that

brass, but must reserve it for another occasion. We then have a succinct account of the principal seats round Bletchingley, and if

Mr. Thorne had given a word to the butcher and his wonderful beagle dogs, we should have been inclined to certify that he had left absolutely nothing untold.

Our space will only permit of our taking one or two examples of each kind of article, and we must now pass on to those which deal with walks. Is the book likely to be useful to those who like to find their way about on foot ? We have no hesitation in saying that it is. The best walks round Chiselhurst, Croydon, Reigate, Dorking, and similar towns are briefly indicated, and even when we come to smaller places, the opportunity of giving a few useful hints is not neglected. We will take Woldinghain and Chelsham as examples, because neither of those villages is very easy to find in a region of hill and dale. The stranger is pretty sure to go astray, but not with such a guide as Mr. Thorne to assist him. We quote his directions ; they are short,

but sufficient. No one wants to read a long essay stuck up on a finger-post :— WOLDINGIIAM, Surrey, a settlement of the Wealdingas (Remble),, Dom, Wallingham, a secluded little village 3 miles N.E. of Godstone, 2 miles E. of the Caterham Railway Station. To reach Woldingham from Caterham, take the path up the hill, nearly opposite the station, to lingdown Fare, (which leave on right) ; then cross the bottom (where. there is the rifle-ground—look out for the red flag), and go past the barn, and at the end of the field take the path which caters (as they say hereabouts) to the right, and cross the Deer Park (the N. end of Marden Park), a wild-looking place, half-forest skirt, half-common, and very pic- turesque—through Nether Court Farmyard, and to the right, by the Hop Pole —but some of these ways may be stopped ; they are stopping many of the field-paths in this neighbourhood just now."

"CHELSHAM 24 miles E. by N. from Warlingham Station of the South-Eastern Railway (Caterham Branch). From Warlingham Common continue nearly east by Bull Green, Holt Wood, and the Ledgers to Chelsham Church."

We only wish that everybody to whom one applies for adirection could give it as clearly and accurately and in as few words as Mr. Thorne has done in the case of Chelsham.

There are many other articles to which we had intended to refer, but we have perhaps said enough to induce the reader to go to the volumes, if he seeks for information about the towns and villages twenty miles or so round London. Lysons' and Hunter's books have long been worthless for practical purposes,

though occasionally interesting or reference, Mr. Thorne's work. istintended for actual use, and is a most acceptable addition to tliatt valuable library of English Handbooks, for which all lovers orEngland and its beautiful scenery and quaint old towns owe their obligations to Mr. Murray.