16 December 1771 – 22 December 1771

I rode to Dorking, where were many a people; but none were cut to the heart.

I went on to Ryegate-place. In King Henry the Fourth's time, this was an eminent monastery. At the dissolution of monasteries, it fell into the hands of the great spoiler, Henry the Eighth. Queen Elizabeth, pleased with the situation, chose it for one of her palaces. The gentleman who possesses it now has entirely changed the form of it, pulling down whole piles of ancient building and greatly altering what remains. Yet, after all that is taken away, it still looks more like a palace than a private house. The staircase is of the same model with that at Hampton Court; one would scarcely know which is the original. The chimney-piece in the hall is probably one of the most curious pieces of woodwork now in the kingdom. But how long? How many of its once bustling inhabitants are already under the earth! And how little a time will it be before the house itself, yea the earth shall be burned up!

I met an old friend, James Hutton, whom I had not seen for five-and-twenty years. I felt this made no difference; my heart was quite open; his seemed to be the same; and we conversed just as we did in 1738, when we met in Fetter Lane.