k since his day, near the south
door, and is an ancient monument of hard sandstone with a cross carved
on it. Legend says that it was brought from Tandridge Priory, but there
are others like it at Oxted and Titsey which belong to an older date
than the priory.

[Illustration: _A Street in Oxted._]

Oxted is north-east of Tandridge; but there are two Oxteds. One is the
new village near the station, with new shops, a new inn, and the old
church. The other is the old village, set apart from the railway; a
little village clustered about a main street running up the hillside--a
rustic Guildford, a main street with cottage fronts for Guildford house
fronts, and an ancient timbered inn hanging out a golden bell instead of
Guildford's clock. Guildford's houses should hold Kate Greenaway maidens
and prim ladies with mittens: Oxted should have corduroys and aprons,
brown children and sunbonnets. So Oxted has; and it has also, I think,
more little inns than any Surrey village near its size. Each has its
sign; the street holds out a gallery of signs: stone steps and raised
alleys run to the cottage doorways, and the children play curious
village games with chalk squares and knucklebones, safe in the doorways
and on the pavement. There is a corner by the road crossing the main
street which is the prettiest in east Surrey. Weatherbeaten,
brick-and-timber cottages frame it: the Bell Inn, with its beams like
letters of a big black alphabet, hangs out its gold bell; beyond, the
road slopes to dim country greennesses and the hill of the downs.

[Illustration: _Oxted Church._]

Oxted church tower is noble and massive; a great content is about its
quiet, solid battlements. Once it had a spire, and I wish I had never
read that the spire was destroyed; now when I see it I am always
wondering what the church was like with a spire. In the churchyard are
two ancient tombstones, like the single stone at Tandridge; they, too,
are far older than the church.

Other strange monuments are in the church. One is to the memory of Ann,
wife of Charles Hoskins, who thus mourned her in 1651:--

LET THIS
PATTERNE OF PIETY
MAPP OF MISERY
MIRROUR OF PATIENCE
HERE REST

In another memorial you may trace the history of an extremely large
family. John Aldersey "haberdas^hr and m'chant ventoror of London" died
in 1616, aged seventy-five, "and had ysue 17 childeren." The whole
seventeen are represented in marble accompanyin