Up the hill

A fortnight ago, the first expedition to Box Hill for a long time. A place, a very long time ago, we used to visit on a Sunday to inspect the motorcycles collected at the bottom, followed by a climb up the steep slope behind. Not the sort of thing we have attempted of late, opting instead to drive up the hill and park in the National Trust car park. 

Which was the form on this occasion, including a stop-over at the top of Epsom Downs on the way, parking up in the rain, not far from where the model aeroplane enthusiasts operate on a Sunday. I remember rather noisy engine driven planes, but clearly rubber still has a place, for which see reference 1.

It took a while to find a suitable map of the racecourse, then a minute or so to decipher the overhead view. The white lines are paths, tracks and roads, not racecourse. The racecourse is visible as a dark green, watered strip, against a light green un-watered chalk down. We parked in the white triangle just above the orange spot. The aeroplanes would be a little to the left.

It took another while to sort out that the furlong markers tell the jockeys how much further it is to the winning post, rather than how far it is from the starting line. Obvious, now a brain wave has revealed that races are of different lengths at Epsom - from half a mile to a mile and a half - and making the latter convention awkward, given that the winning post is fixed. All this being triggered by the seven furlong marker just above the orange spot.

In addition to all of which we had some race horses out for walks - singly rather than in strings - and some joggers out for jogs. Plus a pile of green matting, which we supposed to be used on race days to bridge over the breaks in the course for access roads - while I had remembered brown matting. I dare say green looks better on the screen.

Pushed on through Tadworth and so forth to get to Box Hill from the north east. No sightings of Wellingtonia, old or new, at which I was a little surprised. I had thought the sort of area where one would find them. Too chalky?  There is at least one at Dorking, visible around the tall church spire in the snap below, but maybe that is down on the clay.

The car park at the bottom of the hill being a little to the right of the orange spot (far left, middle). Motorcycles and their famous café - Rikers - long deodorized, although I believe that they still sell unhealthily large burgers.

The rain paused for the time we were at the top, so we were able to take in the fine views. It had been far too long since we visited this fine place.

Looking east.

Our Canadian visitors, snapped against a rather threatening sky. I learned in the margins that the Hudson's Bay company, from whom I had bought my long lasting folding umbrella, still in regular use, had recently folded. The end of an illustrious history which had started in the reign of Charles II and for which see reference 2. I haven't found any website from the company itself; maybe they have all been shut down - which would be very tidy of them.

Then there was the matter of Alberts, where they like Trump and where there is talk of succession, along with all their oil and gas. Maybe fresh water too? Talk which may well be stilled by the First Nations, whom I imagine would not be keen on changing of the status quo, rather as such talk in Quebec was.

We came down the hill on the Zig Zag road, with that being the proper route up the hill for serious cyclists. Not something I ever attempted, although I dare say I would have been strong enough 40 years ago. But coming down in the rain, we came across some curious markings on the road, which I now know to be an art work called the 'Box Hill Road River', painted to mark the route of an important race in 2012, with the snap above lifted from reference 11. I have yet to work out the connection. 

Probably just the white streak on Google maps below - the Street View camera car seeming to have stopped a couple of hairpins further down for some reason.

The idea had been that we would go back via the ancient bridge over the River Mole at Leatherhead, maybe even visiting the public house claimed to have hosted an overnight stop of Good Queen Bess, then on one of her progressses. But my navigational skills were not up to this and we wound up back at Epsom instead.

Consolation prize one, was a slice of BH's fine apple, date and walnut cake.

Consolation prize two, a little later, was a bowl of lentil soup, fortified by bacon lardons - a recent discovery from M&S. I put 16oz of lentils into the soup, mostly Duchy Original lentils from Waitrose which did not declare their country of origin, apart from their being foreign, which I had assumed would have been Turkey or Ontario. Washing these organic lentils resulted in much more milky washings than one gets from regular lentils and when cooked we were back with the triangular black things, looking a bit like small dead flies. A problem we have had in the past, but one which regular lentils seem to have cracked. Turning up the full story about this matter is left as an exercise for the reader - but there are some clues at reference 3.

According to reference 5: '... Canada, India, and Turkey. In Canada, red lentils are mainly grown in Saskatchewan and Alberta...'. So production seems to have moved west from Ontario since I last read about the matter. Or memory error. But no mention of Australia, which reference 4 makes much of. One more of the many things I have to check.

And so off to collect a few trolleys, as noticed at reference 6.

PS 1: today, having posted about the Mole, if not the Mole Gap, I thought of the stream which runs from Stamford Green to the Hogsmill, from thence to the Thames as Kingston, a little to the east of where the Mole joins the Thames at Hampton. Our part of it runs between West Hill and Horton Hill, a gap through which water from Epsom Common can drain down to the Hogsmill, if not dignified by the name of gap. But which attracted my attention recently on account of its counting as a chalk stream, one of the few. Maybe this is why it is usually full of quite big fish under the bridge by the Civic Centre at Kingston.

Approximate route of the stretch near us marked in red on the snap above - slightly confused by the tendency of the OS route gadget to lock onto rights of way. With the top end, the northern end, being its confluence with the Hogsmill River. See reference 7 and 8 for the river, reference 9 for the (ancient) bridge.

PS 2: I remember from a story by Len Deighton about what might have happened had we lost the Battle of Britain and Hitler had landed on the south coast, that the Mole Gap was the route that his tanks would have taken on their push up to grab the Crown Jewels. William the Conqueror too? Certainly the Romans, for whom see reference 10.

References

Reference 1: http://www.edmac.org.uk/index.php/9-front-page/31-cloud-tramp-2019.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson%27s_Bay_Company. 

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=dead+flies+lentils.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lentil.

Reference 5: https://nutrada.com/products/lentils/red-lentils-wholesale.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/09/trolleys-990-991-992-and-993.html.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogsmill_River.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/08/chalk.html.

Reference 9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clattern_Bridge.

Reference 10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stane_Street.

Reference 11: https://www.arengario.it/opera/box-hill-road-river/.