Note 948 — Chapter XIV · DOWN UNDER.
Reading edition
“The old Bourne stream, generally known as the ‘Surrey Woe Water,’ has already commenced to flow through Caterham Valley, and at the moment there is quite a strong current of water rushing through an outlet at Purley.
“There are also pools along its course through Kenley, Whyteleafe, and Warlingham, which suggest that the stream is rising at its principal source, in the hills around Woldingham and Oxted, where it is thought there exists a huge natural underground reservoir, which, when full, syphons itself out at certain periods about every seven years.
“Tradition says that when the Bourne flows ‘out of season’ or at irregular times it foretells some great calamity. It certainly made its appearance in a fairly heavy flow in three of the years of the war, but last year, which will always be historical for the declaration of the armistice and the prelude of peace, there was no flow at all.”—The Star, 15th March, 1919.