a-half away, lies Bletchingley, and another mile
beyond that, Nutfield, which has not yet been absorbed by Redhill, and,
indeed, belongs to Surrey country as surely as Redhill belongs to the
railway and the town. To the north are Caterham and Chaldon, and
Woldingham and Warlingham; Tandridge is two miles away, Oxted a little
more, and Limpsfield not quite four; north of Limpsfield is Titsey, and
east of Limpsfield and Titsey is the Kent border. Crowhurst lies to the
south-east, and beyond that Lingfield; but Lingfield is almost Sussex,
and is perhaps a little too far for a walk from Godstone; it is best
reached by rail.

Godstone begins hospitably, at least to the traveller from the south,
with three old inns, the Bell, the Rose and Crown, and the old White
Hart, now the Clayton Arms. The Bell and the Rose and Crown have not, I
think, won any particular place in history; probably they were always a
little overshadowed by the spacious frontage of the old White Hart. The
Rose and Crown, for all that, displays an imposing board setting out the
numbers and the addresses of the many cycling clubs who have made it
their country headquarters--doubtless it has been the first stage of
many happy, dusty journeys. But the old White Hart has its place in the
classical country books. Cobbett often lunched there, and probably the
inn-parlour where he had his bread and bacon is very much the same as
when he wrote of the village in _Rural Rides_. Perhaps the rooms
upstairs hold more furniture than in the twenties--particularly the fine
dining-room with its oak-beamed ceiling, which is as full of furniture
as a room can very well be, besides serving various public uses as a
place in which audits and meetings are held and county and local account
books inspected. In the yard outside, too, although the great vats of
the brewhouse are gone, and Renault cars run under the arch which used
to echo with the shoes of spanking teams, there can be little changed
since Cobbett saw it. He wrote, in 1822:--

"At and near Godstone the gardens are all very neat; and at the Inn,
there is a nice garden well-stocked with beautiful flowers in the
season. I here saw, last summer, some double violets as large as
small pinks, and the lady of the house was kind enough to give me
some of the roots."

The garden is still gay and full of flowers; though if I were the
landlady I should certainly stock some peculiarly pretty sorts of
violet