GENERAL FREE DELIVERY OF LETTERS.
No stone has been left unturned in the endeavour to afford a free
delivery of letters at the door of every house in the district; and at
last all houses and cottages, even in the remotest localities, have been
reached, and the woodman, the gamekeeper, and the lone cottager now
receive a daily visit from the postman. In visiting out of the way
places of the kind with a view to arranging a delivery, the surveyor has
to look out for dogs. A certain warren house in this district affords a
typical case. It is far from the ordinary haunts of man, and was without
an official delivery on account of its extreme inaccessibility. The
approach is through a deep gorge, known as Goblin Combe, and the path to
the house is precipitous. The gamekeeper residing there had to send to a
farmhouse a mile and a quarter distant for his letters, which the
obliging farmer had consented to take in for him. The attempts of the
staff to arrange a method of delivery by postmen had long been baffled.
At the time when the writer went to view the place there was a rumour in
the neighbourhood that, owing to serious depredations by poachers,
fierce dogs roamed the enclosed warren; and on passing out on to the
warren from the wood corner, there was observed standing on a wall near
the house what in the distance and misty morn, appeared to be a large
bloodhound, and so the advance had to be made warily. The attendant
rural postman was armed with a riding whip, on which his grip tightened,
for he had already been four times bitten by dogs, as the scars on his
hand testified, and he desired to guard himself against another attack.
At last, as the place was neared, the object of distrust was found to
be--a large goat! Another out-of-the-way place in the same
neighbourhood, also unserved by the postman, was a woodman's house in a
dense wood, which, with its bowling-green, is said once to have been
used by "Bristol bloods" of old time as a safe retreat where they could
indulge in a little business connected with the prize ring and cock
fighting. That the Duke of Norfolk's liberal policy in Her Majesty's
Diamond Jubilee year has proved a boon and a blessing to many residents
in isolated spots is indicated, for instance, by what a poor woman
living in a wild district stated. She had recently to trudge the whole
way from her house to Bristol, a distance of eight miles out and eight
miles back, while a letter which would have obviated her journey had
been lying undelivered for days at a Post Office only two miles off.
Blaize Castle, which is within four miles of the Head Post Office, was
singularly enough almost the last habitation in the Bristol district
which was granted a free delivery of letters daily, for until 1898 the
postman in his official capacity had never penetrated to that
rock-elevated and remote part of the Blaize Woods where the castle
stands. That reproach to the Bristol district has now been removed, and
the custodians of the castle have obtained their rights as citizens of
the great kingdom in having their letters delivered at the door daily by
the Postmaster-General's representative. It was a difficult matter to
find out all the houses at which the postman did not call, and this
particular castle, which is now only occupied by caretakers, was not
notified by the rural postman, as the occupiers had signified to him
that they did not care for a delivery and were quite satisfied if the
letters were left in the village till called for. The circumstance may
be of interest to Bristolians, from the fact that Blaize Castle is
spoken of by many but is seen by very few. Its flagstaff is visible from
some little distance, but the castle itself can scarcely be discerned
through its wooded surroundings, even from the far-famed Arbutus Walk,
which is separated from it by a deep gorge. The castle is situated on a
lofty plateau in the midst of the large woods. Close to it is a sheer
perpendicular rock, three hundred feet high, known as "The Giant's
leap." The castle is said to have derived its name from St. Blaisius,
the Spanish patron of wool-combers, to whom a chapel was dedicated on a
hill in the grounds where the castle now stands, and where there was
once a Roman encampment. The interest attaching to this castle is
enhanced from a postal point of view by the circumstance that the son of
the lady who owns the property married a daughter of the late
Postmaster-General, the Right Hon. H. C. Raikes.
Mr. Raikes was one of the hardest working of Postmasters-General. So
diligent indeed was he, that almost nightly, when the House of Commons
was sitting, the right hon. gentleman, after all other Members had gone
home, retired to his official room and went through the papers which had
been sent up from the Post Office for his consideration. So absorbed
would he become in the documents, which he read carefully through from
end to end, so that he might judge from his own standpoint and not from
that of his official advisers, that he would sit well into the small
hours of the morning, whilst that patient and most obliging of
officials, the postmaster of the House, Mr. Pike, kept weary vigil,
waiting to take the despatch-bag to the Post Office in the City before
he went home to his well-earned rest. Mr. Raikes's invariably clear and
even writing betokened that, long past the hour for bed as the time
might be, he never had any idea of doing his work in a hurry. He was
probably known to many of the citizens of Bristol, through his frequent
visits to a mansion on the Westbury side of the Downs.