3-053-411 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Evershed's Rough, near Dorking, with cross cut in turf where Bishop Wilberforce lost his life, 1873. 'The exact spot where the lamented Bishop of Winchester was killed...by a fall from a stumbling horse,...is a place called Evershed's Rough, which is on the bridle-path along the valley beneath the southern slope of the chalk hills...The Bishop and Earl Granville...had ridden...along the high road towards Dorking, near Box Hill, where they turned off the road directly to the right hand, crossing Ranmoor-common, and descending to the level horse-path in the grassy bottom. As they approached the farm buildings shown in our Illustration, half a mile from Abinger Hall,...this fatal disaster suddenly occurred, to deprive the English Church and State of a most accomplished and useful man. The Illustration, from a view taken by the Surrey Photographic Company, shows the cross which was cut in the turf, immediately after the removal of the Bishop's dead body, to mark the precise spot of his fall. A few yards behind is the slight hollow in the ground where the horse stumbled and cast its rider headforemost out of the saddle. Abinger Hall, to which mansion the body was carried, is the seat of Mr. Farrer, Secretary to the Board of Trade'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.