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I am a Surrey Girl....

lindaglamour
Sep 8, 2016
2 min read

I am a Surrey girl.

The family home of my Friswell ancestors remains standing in Ewhurst and it looks out upon the village Green. My ancestor, in 1878, James Hain Friswell, died at the family property "Fairhome" at Bexley Heath, Kent. It too still stands. He was a friend to Charles Dickens and part of the London literary scene. I have a first edition of his essay collections sitting safely on a shelf in my library.

He was my Great Great Grandfather.

I have inherited his love of literature and of fast cars.

The dense shaded canopy of the A25 shielded me as I drove from Esher to Hever Castle then back via Reigate to Compton and home. The road took me through the green Kent countryside and the beautiful Surrey hills. It is green in a way Australia can never be green.

My heart has always called me to Devon and yet here, as I walk the main st of Esher and travel through the Surrey countryside, there is a deep sense of completion which overwhelms me. I have heard people tell of the genetic pull which calls one home and here I am, in its thrall. Surrey however has also been my marital home. I drove today past the Victorian mansion which housed our apartment. I drove along streets where I intuitively knew which lane to be in, which turn to take. I lamented what was once found and then, what was lost.

I have a Happy Place.

In the footsteps of Anne Boleyn, I have walked around Hampton Court Palace and the Chateau of Amboise and today, I visited Hever Castle. My guide book in hand, I was able to imagine the castle as Anne would have seen it and not as it is presented....and I agree with the authors, the highlight is The Book of Hours that belonged to Anne. It is in the personal items that link us, not necessarily the large or imposing.

I have a memory of lying moat side on the grass, in the sunshine. Today, some ten years later, I did the same. And still felt that same sense of completion, of being happy that was not dependant upon thing or one and only upon being.

Driving back to Esher I travelled once more down memory lane to The Withies - a 16th Century coaching Inn. The glass of wine slowly disappeared as I breathed in the past.