“George was not the only writer to find inspiration on the Surrey Hill. Who can forget Jane Austen’s famous picnic scene in Emma?”


Emma? It is the place where Emma lets her tongue run away with her, allowing words to tumble out of her mouth and roll across the landscape. Could the hill inspire such freedom in such a regimented social situa- tion? Well yes, I believe that it can and does frequently. Saying what one thinks at Box Hill is a little-known past time for the locals and visitors to the beauty spot. Although Austen describes the hill as


“not Switzerland” in winter when it snows, many locals describe seeing walkers climb- ing the Burford Spur as if ascending into the Alps. To be fair, it is only a 5% gradi- ent for a 129m hill. John Keats spent time on the hill when


finishing the final touches of his poem Endymion. He mentioned his stay at what is now called the Burford Bridge Hotel in letters written to his friend John Hamilton Reynolds. “I like this place very much,” he said simply. One night he ventured out of the hotel to walk up the hill seeking “after the moon”. One of my personal favourites is Daniel


Defoe’s writing in 1720. He described a rendezvous on the hill in the summer. “… Of coaches and horsemen, with abundance of gentlemen and ladies from Epsome to take the air, and walk in the box woods: and in a word, divert, or debauch, or per- haps both, as they thought fit, and the game increased so much, that it began al- most on a sudden, to make a great noise in


Burford Bridge Hotel


the country.” Te thought of Epsom resi- dents running amok on the hill is such a lovely image for someone like me who was born there. During the French Revolution, Juniper


Hall, situated at the bottom of the hill in Mickleham, became the home of a group of French emigres escaping the chaos and violence of the overthrow of the French monarchy. Te hill became home to Anne Louise Germaine de Staël. Her works, both her novels and travel literature, with emphasis on passion, individuality and op- positional politics made their mark on European Romanticism. General Alexandre D’Arblay also found


sanctuary at the hall and it was here that he met Fanny Burney the 18th century novelist, whom he later married. Burney wrote satirical novels such as Evelina, Cecilia and Camilla. It is possible that Austen met Fanny here. Austen took the title of her best-known novel Pride and Prejudice from the last paragraph of


Camilla. In her diaries Austen mentioned: “We are about a mile and a half from Norbury Park and two miles from Mickleham. I am become already so stout a walker, by use and with the help of a very able supporter, that I go to those places and return home on foot without fatigue, when the weather is kind.” Mystery author Cyril Hare set his 1954


novel Tat Yew Tree's Shade (published in the U.S. as Death Walks the Woods) at a local beauty spot called “Yew Hill”, which Hare acknowledges in the introduction is based on Box Hill. Today Box Hill is still a place for picnics,


and I will leave it to the mistress of satire Jane Austen to finish our journey through Box Hill: “Tey had a very fine day for Box Hill… Nothing was wanting but to be happy when they got there. Seven miles were travelled in expectation of enjoyment, and everybody had a burst of admiration on first arriving…”


George Lambert ‘Box Hill’


© The National Trust www.focus-info.org FOCUS The Magazine 25


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