"Ancient Lights" by Algernon Blackwood

Published in 1914

weald: a heavily wooded area

Chanctonbury Ring: a prehistoric hill fort atop Chanctonbury Hill on the South Downs, on the border of the civil parishes of Washington and Wiston in the English county of West Sussex

Croydon: a town in South London. In the early 20th century it was noted for its car manufacturing, metal working, and airport. West Sussex is just south of Croydon, Chanctonbury Ring being fairly close to the coast, roughly 50 miles SSW of Croydon

£3 a week: £3 in 1912 (while published in 1914, the story was written in 1912) would be worth in the range of £375 to £3,476. But probably towards the lower end, call it £400 a week. Forbes says that the average weekly salary across all industry sectors for 2024 is £689. So £400 a week is a bit on the low side.

moving staircase at Harrod's: in London, Harrod's Department Store opened the first escalator in the country in 1898.

theodolite: a precision optical instrument used in land surveying for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes

The picture used is "Dreamy Fairy Forest" by Lightastic, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/).

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/72928/pg72928-images.html#XV