A peculiar custom of Dorking must probably be spoken of in the past tense, now that staid citizens have been resolute in putting it down, as happened earlier at Kingston and other towns. Here lasted longest in Surrey what seems a survival of Carnival roistering, a triple game of football played through the main streets on Shrove Tuesday, between sides living east and west of the church. On this afternoon, all shops being closed, three balls,
red, white, and blue, were carried out in procession to the music of a traditional tune, to be kicked off by the town crier at the Church passage. The red ball having been first worried by the boys, at 3 P.M. the blue ball was taken in foot by the men; and at 4 P.M. a grand final struggle, hundreds strong, began with the white ball, going on till the chimes rang at 6 P.M. These Saturnalian scrimmages proved as hard to extinguish as the bonfire-revels at Lewes on Guy Fawkes Day; but this year a dozen extra policemen appear to have been too many for young Dorking's half-hearted conservatism; and for an illustration of the old Shrove Tuesday sports, one must go all the way to St. Colomb in Cornwall, where the ceremonial Hurling Match between "Town" and "Country" is still honoured in the observance.
These footballs were inscribed with the legend, "Wind and water is Dorking's glory." From some winds Dorking is well sheltered; but the lower part of the town has only too much water in the ponds filled by the Pipp Brook, at one time an attraction of the place, being stocked with perch, carp, and tench, that supplied the dish called "water souchy," a stew of fish in esteem with London citizens. Sanitarians now shake their heads over this damp and misty flat, and Dorking's recent growth is rather upon the high ground behind the long, spacious main street. In point of picturesqueness its situation is most admirable, shut in among such heights as Ranmore Common, Box Hill, and the broken swell of parks and woods rising southwards to Leith Hill.
Much of this beautiful country is enclosed in renowned demesnes; most famous of them Deepdene, lying close behind the town. That paradise of almost European reputation takes in the adjoining Betchworth and Chart Parks; and the wood on the opposite face of Box Hill also belongs to the property, that in a circumference of a dozen miles makes a magnificent collection of English and exotic timber. The nucleus of it was the deep hollow or "Long Hope," which Mr. Charles Howard, in Cromwell's time, laid out as an amphitheatre of garden terraces, an open-air conservatory of flowers and rare plants, visited with due admiration by his neighbour John Evelyn, and also by Aubrey, who declared the sight "worthy of Cowley's Muse." At the beginning of last century the estate was bought and extended by "Anastasius" Hope, author of a celebrated Eastern romance, and liberal patron of such artists as Flaxman and Thorwaldsen, with whose works he stored the mansion begun by him. As a guest here, Disraeli is understood to have written _Coningsby_. Another owner of note was Mr. Beresford Hope, the proprietor of the _Saturday Review_. In the hands of his heirs the estate fell among the Philistines, and after a succession of tenancies this lordly demesne has been turned into an _hôtel de luxe_. But if strangers cannot gain the lofty beech terrace, commanding such a rich woodland prospect, and from a lane outside must be content with a tantalising peep of the rhododendron show within, they may take a public path to the Glory Wood behind the town; or, on its east side, in the valley of the Mole, they find the avenues of Betchworth Park open as a way to Brockham; while the grounds of Box Hill, and some of the finest outskirts of Leith Hill, such as the Nower park-slopes, offer free rambles.