Natural Formations: fact and fiction about a site well-known to Jane Austen readers, by Tony Grant

Standing, looking west across the Surrey countryside to the wooded ridge of hills in the distance, a line of trees mark the horizon. A sunny, hot day, blue skies with some clouds, small patches of white high above us,. Marilyn, Abi, Emily and myself stand two hundred and twenty four meters above sea level. Patches of fields lined with thick hedges of trees and shrubs spread out before us. Box, yew, beech, ash and oak populate the landscape gathered in woods or spread out in small copses on this hill top. Looking out over this scenery, I make out the distant markings of a football pitch. To one side is another field with a cricket square neatly and closely mowed in the middle of it, a wooden pavilion at one side of the field.

Image of a view of Burford. Image courtesy of Tony Grant.

Below, almost looking straight down, a white 18^th century mansion is surrounded by lawns and a pattern of four knot gardens are at the rear of the house. Although high up here there is no breeze and the trees are still and the air is warm. A few insects and butterflies move through the air nearby. Other people, families and partners and single walkers move at a distance across the chalk grassland steeply sloping down towards Burford Bridge that crosses the River Mole winding its way past the bottom of the hill. The A24, the Dorking bypass, hums with traffic. I catch glimpses of the red clay tiled roofs of flint cottages , through the canopy of trees, that make up the village of Mickleham to the north. Dorking is to the south. Great Bookham is due west and Leatherhead is unseen to the north west. The chatter of children as they race down the steep slope of Burford Spur I hear nearby but their sounds get fainter as they race away. The sun warms my skin, pleasantly.

Image of Burford Spur, courtesy of Tony Grant

We walk on down Burford Spur before turning back. I am now required to step upwards, leaning forward, and push hard on thigh and calf muscles to make my way back up to the top of this very steep slope. I parked my car near the old fort at the National Trust car park.

On top of Box Hill. Image courtesy of Tony Grant

I decided to pick up a piece of flint to take home. Stones make a place. One stone is a piece of that place. This piece of flint was still embedded in the firm ground and some kicking and pulling and pushing with my hands were needed to prise it loose. I take stones home from places . A piece of smooth granite from a beach in Cornwall, some sandstone from a cliff face in Dorset, a piece of shale from the isle of White and now this piece of flint from the top of Box Hill in Surrey.

The Box Hill Picnic: Emma

A view of Boxhill, Surrey (with Dorking in the distance), George Lambert, 1733, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain image.

Things did not go quite as planned or as wished. The Sucklings were unable to come. Mrs Elton was disappointed, her plans thwarted but the trip to Box Hill was to go ahead.

Emma thought she would like to go to Box Hill too, separately from Mrs Elton’s expedition of course. She didn’t want to miss out on what others might experience. Her party should be simple and unpretentious compared to that of Mrs Eltons. Mr Weston decided other plans and suggested to Emma and Mrs Elton combining the two parties. Mrs Elton agreed and Emma felt forced to very reluctantly agree.

Mr Weston directed everybody on the day. His wife, Mrs Weston, was to stay with Mr Woodhouse to keep him company. Emma and Harriet were to go in one carriage. Miss Bates and Jane Fairfax, were to go with Mr and Mrs Elton and the gentlemen, Mr Knightley, Frank Churchill and Mr Weston on horse back.

Chris Hammond illustration of the picnic on Box Hill in Jane Austen’s Emma. Image in the public domain.

All admired the views on arrival. But there was a

deficiency.. languor.. a want of spirts and a lack of unison.”

They all separated too much into parties. Frank Churchill was silent and stupid, looking without seeing.

Frank eventually turned his attention to Emma and overtly carried on a most blatant flirtation, an act that Emma, perhaps to her surprise, doesn’t enjoy. It is all an obvious act. She feels his falsehood. Frank Churchill proceeds to upset Emma and the whole party by requesting they all reveal what they are thinking about. This makes the general mood worse. We can guess at their true thoughts. Emma is rightly afraid to hear their honest opinions. She feels the unease and disquiet created by this whole venture.He changes the request, asking each to say

one thing clever or two things moderately clever or three things dull.”

Miss Bates volunteers, perhaps to fill the unwanted silence and apprehension, suggesting she can say three things dull. Emma quips that she would find it difficult to limit the number to

only three at once.”

Miss Bates takes the hint and is mortified. Mr Weston provides a conundrum based on Emma’s name. Finally as they depart Mr Knightley takes Emma aside and points out the hurt she has caused her lifelong acquaintance and family friend, Miss Bates.

It was badly done indeed.”

The party to Box Hill is certainly not a success. Everything goes wrong. Mr and Mrs Elton walk off , Frank Churchill has his mind on other things, Emma feels uncomfortable under his feigned flirtations, she up sets Miss Bates and Mr Knighltley is angered by Emmas behaviour.This is the point in the novel when Emma has her naivity in human interactions and her immaturity laid bare. We all have to confront ourselves before we can change and develop. Emma is confronted by her own shortcomings. It is the beginning of self awareness and the need to be remorseful. A painful journey for Emma. This chapter is only is only six pages long in my edition but the human traits that it reveals are numerous,and the importance to the arc of the plot and the final outcomes is pivotal. Officiousness, immaturity, pride, selfishness, naivity, anger, cunning, secrecy, deceit, remorse and forgiveness. ”It was badly done indeed.” But, in another way, it was, well done.

A piece of flint:

The flint is heavy, about two kilogrammes in weight, nine centimetres long and about five centimetres wide.There are sharp angular edges where some of the flint has been broken off. Bluey black glassy hard faces are revealed. The stone is mostly covered in a thin white hard calcareous rind like the rind covering a cheese, enveloping most of its smooth surface. Hollows and rounded lumps push up beneath its white ,”skin,” like the shapes of bones lieing beneath its surface, finger bones, wrist joints, protruding heels, knuckle bones. A little bit of crumbling chalk, the substance it has been torn from, hides in a hollow on one side.

The Stonebreaker by John Brett, exhibited 1858, Wikimedia Commons

Chalk was formed during the cretaceous period some 145 to 66 million years ago. It was formed under marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite shells shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores  A white muddy layer was formed on the sea bed. The same earth movements , the violent shifting of the earths plates, that formed the Alps formed these downlands in Southern England rippling and folding the earths surface. That soft white sediment of calcite shells hardened and formed the chalk. Within the chalk, creatures such as sponges and other organisms created pockets which, molecule by molecule by molecule were replaced by flint as water and minerals from the chalk seeped into the spaces.

Flint has been used for many things over the millennia. Axes, knives and arrow heads, used by the hunter gatherers that roamed this land over ten thousand years ago, were made from flint. It has been used in rural buildings. Today we can see many cottages and farm buildings located around Box Hill with layers of flint embedded in the surface of their walls. Some village churches are made from flint. The Romans built coastal forts from flint. It is a very durable material. Flint was used to create the spark that ignited the gunpowder on the ignition pans of flintlock muskets. It was used in the eighteenth century to strike against a piece of steel to create sparks to light fires with. We can say about, a cold callous person, that they have, “a heart of flint.”

Image of Box Hill flint found by Tony Grant. Image courtesy of Tony Grant

Here is my piece of flint from the top of Box Hill in Surrey , from the very location, at the top of Burford Spur with Mickleham to the north and Dorking to the south where Emma Woodhouse and the gentle people of Highbury gathered for a picnic.

Tony Grant and family on top of Box Hill. Image courtesy of Tony Grant.

All this on a hill of chalk downland in the centre of Surrey on a hot summers day.