Ewell: Literary Snippets
Nonsuch Palace. --Our antiquarian friends may not be aware that traces of this old residence of Elizabeth are still to be seen near Ewell. Traditions of it exist in the neighbourhood and Hansetown, and Elizabethan coins are frequently dug up near the foundations of the "Banquetting House," now inclosed in a cherry orchard not far from the avenue that joins Ewell to Cheam. In a field at some distance is an old elm, which the villagers say once stood in the court-yard of the kitchen. Near this is a deep trench, now filled with water, and hedged by bushes, which is called "Diana's Dyke," now in the midst of a broad ploughed field, but formerly the site of a statue of the Grecian goddess, which served as a fountain in an age when water-works were found in every palace-garden, evincing in their subjects proofs of the revival of classical learning. The elm above-mentioned measures thirty feet in the girth, immediately below the parting of the branches. Its age is "frosty but kindly;" some two or three hundred summers have passed over its old head, which, as yet, is unscathed by heavens fire, and unriven by its bolt. The ground here swells unequally and artificially, and in an adjoining field, long called, no one knew why, "the Conduit Field," pipes that brought the water to the palace have lately been found, and may be seen intersected by the embankments of the Epsom railway.
The avenue itself is one of the old approaches to the palace, and was the scene of a skirmish during the civil wars.
Your readers may, perhaps, forget that this palace was the scene of the fatal disgrace of young Essex.
GEORGE W. THORNBURY.
-- from Notes and Queries, March 29, 1851, ed. George Bell
And nearly the whole Battery joined in the tune. The rain persevered, thickening. The sun accepted defeat. The sky lost all its blue. Orders were given as to clothing. George had the sensation that something was lacking to him, and found that it was an umbrella. On the outskirts of Ewell the Battery was splashing through puddles of water; the coats of horses and of men had darkened; guns, poles, and caps carried chaplets of raindrops; and all those stern riders, so proud and scornful, with chins hidden in high, upturned collars, and long garments disposed majestically over their legs and the flanks of the horses, nevertheless knew in secret that the conquering rain had got down the backs of their necks, and into their boots and into their very knees but they were still nobly maintaining the illusion of impermeability against it. The Battery, riding now stiffly 'eyes front,' was halted unexpectedly in Ewell, filling the whole of the village, to the village's extreme content. Many minutes elapsed. Rumour floated down that something, was wrong in front. Captain Resmith had much inspectorial cantering to do, and George faithfully followed him for some time. At one end of the village a woman was selling fruit and ginger-beer to the soldiers at siege prices; at the other, men and women out of the little gardened houses were eagerly distributing hot tea and hot coffee free of charge. The two girls from the crossroads entered the village, pushing their bicycles, one of which had apparently lost a pedal. They wore mackintoshes, and were still laughing.
-- The Roll-Call, Arnold Bennett
"Could you like," she wrote to him not long ago, "the thoughts of a little sea change here? The top of the cliffs will soon be bright with heather: the gorse must be out already, and the heather I should think begun, to judge by the state of the hill at Ewell, and heather or no heather -- the cliffs are always beautiful, and if you come your room shall be cosy so that you may have a resting corner to yourself. Nineteen and sixpence is the price of a return-ticket which covers a month. Would you decide just as you would yourself like, only if you come we would hope to try and make it bright for you; but you must not feel it a burden on your mind if you feel disinclined to come in this direction."
-- The Way Of All Flesh, Samuel Butler