So Much History in Such a Small Space

Not far away from here is Eashing, a hamlet scattered in bits around the River Wey: as if this was too much to accommodate in mind, it subdivides itself into Upper and Lower Eashing. Having passed through it umpteen times and even sat by the bridge with a sandwich, I decided to do the same again, but having a closer look at the place this time. 

The beautiful bridge is, we think, one of the suite of similar ones built along the river by the monks of Waverley Abbey. Some 700 years later, it still serves its purpose, and does it so very picturesquely despite those clamping timbers.

The odd little potting-shed chapel seen by Pevsner in the 1950s is gone now, as is Eashing House, the manor demolished in 1957. The stables remain, grand enough in their own right to suggest the splendour of what has disappeared. As a clerical friend reminded me, Eashing House was the home of Lord Penzance, the hardline judge and Dean of the Court of Arches who delighted in throwing Anglo-Catholic clergy into prison for putting candles on altars. He was also a noted rose grower, which Country Life in 1889 predicted would be what he would be remembered for in a couple of generations. Wrong. 

On this dull day there were several little items that had escaped my attention before, such as the roadside pump and this fantastic sconce on a cottage. 

But the historical relic that most struck me was the burh. The fact that Eashing was one of King Alfred's 9th-century defensive structures developed to counteract the Danish threat was one I knew theoretically but had never really thought what that meant. It was an obscure site: unlike most of the others, it lasted only about 50 years before being superceded by up-and-coming Guildford. There it is, the top of the escarpment behind those cottages. The defensive line follows the hilltop north to south, and then turns eastwards along the contour of a hollow road. Somehow to think that was it made me boggle, more than so many other similar or far more ancient sites I've found myself at.

And finally on the way back I passed beautiful, sad Fonthill, still being left to decay by Charterhouse School. Another photograph of it never does any harm.