Friday, September 23, 1831 Travel Journal

1831

September

Friday 23

8 3/4

At breakfast at 10 5/.. – Long talk at breakfast brought on by Mr. Harris, ætatis 19, and his great turn for natural history. Read a little of this morning’s Times –

Off at 2 1/4 – At 2 1/2, stop at the end of Kingstone, finding my green and black cloak left behind – Off again at 3 10/.. Had been inking over this book –

Kingstone to Staines 9 miles – At 4 6/.. about 1/4 mile from Staines (left) close to the road, very pretty thatched cottage with a good deal of conservatory and greenhouse – Pretty flat drive from Richmond park to Staines, a good neat long-town – Bush Inn –

Off in 2 minutes – In about 10 minutes or 1/4 hour, Egham, a neat good little gentlemanly housed village, the very pretty undulating drive through plantations (chiefly fir) over what used to be Common and heather – gravelly, sandy soil from Kingston, the heathery rather hilly undulating common left, and ditto among plantations and farms right –

And then again through plantations and pretty wooded country to Bagshot, a tolerable, neat enough little town – 2 good Inns – I stopt at the last – Murrel Green.  Not the men – they go to Hartford Bridge, 2 miles nearer 10 miles, but this would make the next stage to Popham lane 14 instead of 12 miles and I had rather have two twelves –

All on the draw out of Bagshot for a long way – Undulating hill, plantations heather, and snug neat little farms – The hills look white and chalky, gravelly wherever turned up – Road cut through yellow red sand hill at 5 3/4 –

Just before entering the neat, pretty, straggling village of Blackwater – Several brick 3 story square boxes with neat little gardens and shrubberies in front on the right side of the village – Very pretty –

Then villages or cottages along the roadside, and then at 6, the wild open heath – The sky very red in the west right ahead, and night coming on apace – Occasional planting on each side the road –

WYAS Finding Numbers SH:7/ML/TR/11/0007 and SH:7/ML/TR/11/0008