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THE BRIGHTON ROAD
HISTORIES OF THE ROADS
BY CHARLES G. HARPER.
THE BRIGHTON ROAD: The Classic Highway to the South.
THE GREAT NORTH ROAD: London to York.
THE GREAT NORTH ROAD: York to Edinburgh.
THE DOVER ROAD: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike.
THE BATH ROAD: History, Fashion and Frivolity on an old Highway.
THE MANCHESTER AND GLASGOW ROAD: London to Manchester.
THE MANCHESTER ROAD: Manchester to Glasgow.
THE HOLYHEAD ROAD: London to Birmingham.
THE HOLYHEAD ROAD: Birmingham to Holyhead.
THE HASTINGS ROAD: And The "Happy Springs of Tunbridge."
THE OXFORD, GLOUCESTER AND MILFORD HAVEN ROAD: London to Gloucester.
THE OXFORD, GLOUCESTER AND MILFORD HAVEN ROAD: Gloucester to Milford
Haven.
THE NORWICH ROAD: An East Anglian Highway.
THE NEWMARKET, BURY, THETFORD AND CROMER ROAD.
THE EXETER ROAD: The West of England Highway.
THE PORTSMOUTH ROAD.
THE CAMBRIDGE, KING'S LYNX AND ELY ROAD.
[Illustration: GEORGE THE FOURTH. _From the painting by Sir Thomas
Lawrence, R.A._]
_The_
BRIGHTON ROAD
The Classic Highway to the South
_By_ CHARLES G. HARPER
_Illustrated by the Author, and from old-time
Prints and Pictures_
[Illustration]
LONDON:
CECIL PALMER
OAKLEY HOUSE, BLOOMSBURY STREET, W.C. 1
_First Published_ - 1892
_Second Edition_ - 1906
_Third and Revised Edition_ - 1922
Printed in Great Britain by C. TINLING & CO., LTD.,
53, Victoria Street, Liverpool,
and 187, Fleet Street, London.
PREFACE
_Many years ago it occurred to this writer that it would be an interesting
thing to write and illustrate a book on the Road to Brighton. The genesis
of that thought has been forgotten, but the book was written and
published, and has long been out of print. And there might have been the
end of it, but that (from no preconceived plan) there has since been added
a long series of books on others of our great highways, rendering
imperative re-issues of the parent volume._
_Two considerations have made that undertaking a matter of considerable
difficulty, either of them sufficiently weighty. The first was that the
original book was written at a time when the author had not arrived at a
settled method; the second is found in the fact of the BRIGHTON ROAD being
not only the best known of highways, but also the one most susceptible to
change._
_When it is remembered that motor-cars have come upon the roads since
then, that innumerable sporting "records" in cycling, walking, and other
forms of progression have since been made, and that in many other ways the
road is different, it was seen that not merely a re-issue of the book, but
a book almost entirely re-written and re-illustrated was required. This,
then, is what was provided in a second edition, published in 1906. And now
another, the third, is issued, bringing the story of this highway up to
date._
CHARLES G. HARPER.
_March, 1922._
THE ROAD TO BRIGHTON
MILES
Westminster Bridge (Surrey side) to--
St. Mark's Church, Kennington 1-1/2
Brixton Church 3
Streatham 5-1/2
Norbury 6-3/4
Thornton Heath 8
Croydon (Whitgift's Hospital) 9-1/2
Purley Corner 12
Smitham Bottom 13-1/2
Coulsdon Railway Station 14-1/4
Merstham 17-3/4
Redhill (Market Hall) 20-1/2
Horley ("Chequers") 24
Povey Cross 25-3/4
Kimberham Bridge (Cross River Mole) 26
Lowfield Heath 27
Crawley 29
Pease Pottage 31-1/4
Hand Cross 33-1/2
Staplefield Common 34-3/4
Slough Green 36-1/4
Whiteman's Green 37-1/4
Cuckfield 37-1/2
Ansty Cross 38
Bridge Farm (Cross River Adur) 40-1/4
St. John's Common 40-3/4
"Friar's Oak" Inn 42-3/4
Stonepound 43-1/2
Clayton 44-1/2
Pyecombe 45-1/2
Patcham 48
Withdean 48-3/4
Preston 49-3/4
Brighton (Aquarium) 51-1/2
THE SUTTON AND REIGATE ROUTE
St. Mark's, Kennington 1-1/2
Tooting Broadway 6
Mitcham 8-1/4
Sutton ("Greyhound") 11
Tadworth 16
Lower Kingswood 17
Reigate Hill 19-1/4
Reigate (Town Hall) 20-1/2
Woodhatch ("Old Angel") 21-1/2
Povey Cross 26
Brighton 51-5/8
THE BOLNEY AND HICKSTEAD ROUTE
Hand Cross 33-1/2
Bolney 39
Hickstead 40-1/2
Savers Common 42
Newtimber 44-1/2
Pyecombe 45
Brighton 50-1/2
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
George the Fourth Frontispiece
Sketch-map showing Principal Routes to Brighton 4
Stage Waggon, 1808 13
The "Talbot" Inn Yard, Borough, about 1815 17
Me and My Wife and Daughter 19
The "Duke of Beaufort" Coach starting from the "Bull
and Mouth" Office, Piccadilly Circus, 1826 31
The "Age," 1829, starting from Castle Square, Brighton 35
Sir Charles Dance's Steam-carriage leaving London for
Brighton, 1833 39
The Brighton Day Mails crossing Hookwood Common, 1838 43
The "Age," 1852, crossing Ham Common 47
The "Old Times," 1888 51
The "Comet," 1890 55
John Mayall, Junior, 1869 70
The Stock Exchange Walk: E. F. Broad at Horley 83
Miss M. Foster, paced by Motor Cycle, passing Coulsdon 86
Kennington Gate: Derby Day, 1839 95
Streatham Common 101
Streatham 107
The Dining Hall, Whitgift Hospital 111
The Chapel, Hospital of the Holy Trinity 113
Croydon Town Hall 120
Chipstead Church 135
Merstham 139
Gatton Hall and "Town Hall" 144
The Switchback Road, Earlswood Common 148
Thunderfield Castle 150
The "Chequers," Horley 151
The "Six Bells," Horley 153
The "Cock," Sutton, 1789 157
Kingswood Warren 162
The Suspension Bridge, Reigate Hill 163
The Tunnel, Reigate 167
Tablet, Batswing Cottages 172
The Floods at Horley 174
Charlwood 176
A Corner in Newdigate Church 177
On the Road to Newdigate 179
Ifield Mill Pond 180
Crawley: Looking South 183
Crawley, 1789 185
An Old Cottage at Crawley 188
The "George," Crawley 189
Sculptured Emblem of the Holy Trinity, Crawley Church 191
Pease Pottage 197
The "Red Lion," Hand Cross 201
Cuckfield, 1789 203
The Road out of Cuckfield 207
Cuckfield Place 210
The Clock-Tower and Haunted Avenue, Cuckfield Place 211
Harrison Ainsworth 213
Old Sussex Fireback, Ridden's Farm 223
Jacob's Post 224
Clayton Tunnel 233
Clayton Church and the South Downs 235
The Ruins of Slaugham Place 239
The Entrance: Ruins of Slaugham Place 241
Bolney 243
From a Brass at Slaugham 244
Hickstead Place 245
Newtimber Place 247
Pyecombe: Junction of the Roads 249
Patcham 251
Old Dovecot, Patcham 254
Preston Viaduct: Entrance to Brighton 256
The Pavilion 259
The Cliffs, Brighthelmstone, 1789 263
Dr. Richard Russell 265
St. Nicholas, the old Parish Church of Brighthelmstone 269
The Aquarium, before destruction of the Chain Pier 271
THE BRIGHTON ROAD
I
The road to Brighton--the main route, pre-eminently _the_ road--is
measured from the south side of Westminster Bridge to the Aquarium. It
goes by Croydon, Redhill, Horley, Crawley, and Cuckfield, and is (or is
supposed to be) 51-1/2 miles in length. Of this prime route--the classic
way--there are several longer or shorter variations, of which the way
through Clapham, Mitcham, Sutton, and Reigate, to Povey Cross is the
chief. The modern "record" route is the first of these two, so far as Hand
Cross, where it branches off and, instead of going through Cuckfield,
proceeds to Brighton by way of Hickstead and Bolney, avoiding Clayton Hill
and rejoining the initial route at Pyecombe.
[Sidenote: VARIOUS ROUTES]
The oldest road to Brighton is now but little used. It is not to be
indicated in few words, but may be taken as the line of road from London
Bridge, along the Kennington Road, to Brixton, Croydon, Godstone Green,
Tilburstow Hill, Blindley Heath, East Grinstead, Maresfield, Uckfield, and
Lewes; some fifty-nine miles. This is without doubt the most picturesque
route. A circuitous way, travelled by some coaches was by Ewell,
Leatherhead, Dorking, Horsham, and Mockbridge (doubtless, bearing in mind
the ancient mires of Sussex, originally "Muckbridge"), and was 57-1/2
miles in length. An extension of this route lay from Horsham through
Steyning, bringing up the total mileage to sixty-one miles three furlongs.
This multiplicity of ways meant that, in the variety of winding lanes
which led to the Sussex coast, long before the fisher village of
Brighthelmstone became that fashionable resort, Brighton, there were
places on the way quite as important to the old waggoners and carriers as
anything at the end of the journey. They set out the direction, and roads,
when they began to be improved, were often merely the old routes widened,
straightened, and metalled. They were kept very largely to the old lines,
and it was not until quite late in the history of Brighton that the
present "record" route in its entirety existed at all.
Among the many isolated roads made or improved, which did not in the
beginning contemplate getting to Brighton at all, the pride of place
certainly belongs to the ten miles between Reigate and Crawley, originally
made as a causeway for horsemen, and guarded by posts, so that wheeled
traffic could not pass. This was constructed under the Act 8th William
III., 1696, and was the first new road made in Surrey since the time of
the Romans.
It remained as a causeway until 1755, when it was widened and thrown open
to all traffic, on paying toll. It was not only the first road to be made,
but the last to maintain toll-gates on the way to Brighton, the Reigate
Turnpike Trust expiring on the midnight of October 31st, 1881, from which
time the Brighton Road became free throughout.
Meanwhile, the road from London to Croydon was repaired in 1718; and at
the same time the road from London to Sutton was declared to be "dangerous
to all persons, horses, and other cattle," and almost impassable during
five months of the year, and was therefore repaired, and toll-gates set up
along it.
Between 1730 and 1740 Westminster Bridge was building, and the roads in
South London, including the Westminster Bridge Road and the Kennington
Road, were being made. In 1755 the road (about ten miles) across the
heaths and downs from Sutton to Reigate, was authorised, and in 1770 the
Act was passed for widening and repairing the lanes from Povey Cross to
County Oak and Brighthelmstone, by Cuckfield. By this time, it will be
seen, Brighton had begun to be the goal of these improvements.
The New Chapel and Copthorne road, on the East Grinstead route, was
constructed under the Act of 1770, the route across St. John's Common and
Burgess Hill remodelled in 1780, and the road from South Croydon to
Smitham Bottom, Merstham, and Reigate was engineered out of the narrow
lanes formerly existing on that line in 1807-8, being opened, "at present
toll-free," June 4th. 1808.
In 1813 the Bolney and Hickstead road, between Hand Cross and Pyecombe,
was opened, and in 1816 the slip-road, avoiding Reigate, through Redhill,
to Povey Cross. Finally, sixty yards were saved on the Reigate route by
the cutting of the tunnel under Reigate Castle, in 1823. In this way the
Brighton road, on its several branches, grew to be what it is now.
The Brighton Road, it has already been said, is measured from the south
side of Westminster Bridge, which is the proper starting-point for
record-makers and breakers; but it has as many beginnings as Homer had
birthplaces. Modern coaches and motor-car services set out from the
barrack-like hotels of Northumberland Avenue, or other central points, and
the old carriers came to and went from the Borough High Street; but the
Corinthian starting-point in the brave old days of the Regency and of
George the Fourth was the "White Horse Cellar"--Hatchett's "White Horse
Cellar"--in Piccadilly. There, any day throughout the year, the knowing
ones were gathered--with those green goslings who wished to be thought
knowing--exchanging the latest scandal and sporting gossip of the road,
and rooking and being rooked; the high-coloured, full-blooded ancestors of
the present generation, which looks upon them as a quite different order
of beings, and can scarce believe in the reality of those full habits,
those port-wine countenances, those florid garments that were
characteristic of the age.
[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP SHOWING PRINCIPAL ROUTES TO BRIGHTON.]
No one now starts from the "White Horse Cellar," for the excellent reason
that it does not now exist. The original "Cellar" was a queer place.
Figure to yourself a basement room, with sanded floor, and an odour like
that of a wine-vault, crowded with Regency bucks drinking or discussing
huge beef-steaks.
It was situated on the south side of Piccadilly, where the Hotel Ritz now
stands, and is first mentioned in 1720, when it was given its name by
Williams, the landlord, in compliment to the House of Hanover, the
newly-established Royal House of Great Britain, whose cognizance was a
white horse. Abraham Hatchett first made the Cellar famous, both as a
boozing-ken and a coach-office, and removed it to the opposite side of the
street, where, as "Hatchett's Hotel and White Horse Cellar." it remained
until 1884, when the present "Albemarle" arose on its site, with a "White
Horse" restaurant in the basement.
[Sidenote: SPORTSMEN]
What Piccadilly and the neighbourhood of the "White Horse Cellar" were
like in the times of Tom and Jerry, we may easily discover from the
contemporary pages of "Real Life in London," written by one "Bob Tallyho,"
recounting the adventures of himself and "Tom Dashall." A prize-fight was
to be held on Copthorne Common between Jack Randall, "the
Nonpareil"--called in the pronunciation of that time the "Nunparell"--and
Martin, endeared to "the Fancy" as the "Master of the Rolls."[1]
Naturally, the roads were thronged, and "Piccadilly was all in
motion--coaches, carts, gigs, tilburies, whiskies, buggies, dogcarts,
sociables, dennets, curricles, and sulkies were passing in rapid
succession, intermingled with tax-carts and waggons decorated with laurel,
conveying company of the most varied description. Here was to be seen the
dashing _Corinthian_ tickling up his _tits_, and his _bang-up set-out_ of
_blood and bone_, giving the go-by to a _heavy drag_ laden with eight
brawny, bull-faced blades, smoking their way down behind a skeleton of a
horse, to whom, in all probability, a good feed of corn would have been a
luxury; _pattering_ among themselves, occasionally _chaffing_ the more
elevated drivers by whom they were surrounded, and pushing forward their
nags with all the ardour of a British merchant intent upon disposing of a
valuable cargo of foreign goods on 'Change. There was a waggon full of
_all sorts_ upon the _lark_, succeeded by a _donkey-cart_ with four
insides: but _Neddy_, not liking his burthen, stopped short in the way of
a dandy, whose horse's head, coming plump up to the back of the crazy
vehicle at the moment of its stoppage, threw the rider into the arms of a
dustman, who, hugging his _customer_ with the determined grasp of a bear,
swore, d--n his eyes, he had saved his life, and he expected he would
stand something handsome for the Gemmen all round, for if he had not
pitched into their cart he would certainly have broke his neck; which
being complied with, though reluctantly, he regained his saddle, and
proceeded a little more cautiously along the remainder of the road, while
groups of pedestrians of all ranks and appearances lined each side."
On their way they pass Hyde Park Corner, where they encounter one of a
notorious trio of brothers, friends of the Prince Regent and companions of
his in every sort of excess--the Barrymores, to wit, named severally
Hellgate, Newgate, and Cripplegate, the last of this unholy trinity so
called because of his chronic limping; the two others' titles, taken with
the characters of their bearers, are self-explanatory.
Dashall points his lordship out to his companion, who is new to London
life, and requires such explanations.
[Sidenote: LORD CRIPPLEGATE]
"The driver of that tilbury," says he, "is the celebrated Lord
Cripplegate,[2] with his usual equipage; his blue cloak with a scarlet
lining hanging loosely over the vehicle gives an air of importance to his
appearance, and he is always attended by that boy, who has been
denominated his Cupid: he is a nobleman by birth, a gentleman by courtesy
(oh, witty Dashall!), and a gamester by profession. He exhausted a large
estate upon _odd and even_, _seven's the main_, etc., till, having lost
sight of the _main chance_, he found it necessary to curtail his
establishment and enliven his prospects by exchanging a first floor for a
second, without an opportunity of ascertaining whether or not these
alterations were best suited to his high notions or exalted taste; from
which, in a short time, he was induced, either by inclination or
necessity, to take a small lodging in an obscure street, and to sport a
gig and one horse, instead of a curricle and pair, though in former times
he used to drive four-in-hand, and was acknowledged to be an excellent
whip. He still, however, possessed money enough to collect together a
large quantity of halfpence, which in his hours of relaxation he managed
to turn to good account by the following stratagem:--He distributed his
halfpence on the floor of his little parlour in straight lines, and
ascertained how many it would require to cover it. Having thus prepared
himself, he invited some wealthy spendthrifts (with whom he still had the
power of associating) to sup with him, and he welcomed them to his
habitation with much cordiality. The glass circulated freely, and each
recounted his gaming or amorous adventures till a late hour, when, the
effects of the bottle becoming visible, he proposed, as a momentary
suggestion, to name how many halfpence, laid side by side, would carpet
the floor, and offered to lay a large wager that he would guess the
nearest.
"'Done! done!' was echoed round the room. Every one made a deposit of
L100, and every one made a guess, equally certain of success; and his
lordship declaring he had a large stock of halfpence by him, though
perhaps not enough, the experiment was to be tried immediately. 'Twas an
excellent hit!
"The room was cleared; to it they went; the halfpence were arranged rank
and file in military order, when it appeared that his lordship had
certainly guessed (as well he might) nearest to the number. The
consequence was an immediate alteration of his lordship's residence and
appearance: he got one step in the world by it. He gave up his second-hand
gig for one warranted new; and a change in his vehicle may pretty
generally be considered as the barometer of his pocket."
And so, with these piquant biographical remarks, they betook themselves
along the road in the early morning, passing on their way many curious
itinerants, whose trades have changed and decayed, and are now become
nothing but a dim and misty memory; as, for instance, the sellers of warm
"salop," the forerunners of the early coffee-stalls of our own day.
II
But hats off to the Prince of Wales, the Prince Regent, the King! Never,
while the Brighton Road remains the road to Brighton, shall it be
dissociated from George the Fourth, who, as Prince, had a palace at either
end, and made these fifty-odd miles in a very special sense a _Via Regia_.
It was in 1782, when but twenty years of age, that he first knew Brighton,
and until the last--for close upon forty-eight years--it retained his
affections. He is thus the presiding genius of the way; and because, when
we speak or think of the Brighton Road, we cannot help thinking of him, I
have appropriately placed the portrait of George the Fourth, by the
courtly Lawrence, in this book.
The Prince and King was the inevitable product of his times and of his
upbringing: we mostly are. Only the rarest and most forceful figures can
mould the world to their own form.
[Sidenote: THE PRINCE]
The character of George the Fourth has been the theme of writers upon
history and sociology, of essayists, diarists, and gossip-mongers without
number, and most of them have pictured him in very dark colours indeed.
But Horace Walpole, perhaps the clearest-headed of this company, shows in
his "Last Journals" that from his boyhood the Prince was governed in the
stupidest way--in a manner, indeed, but too well fitted to spoil a spirit
so high and so impetuous, and impulses so generous as then were his.
He proves what we may abundantly learn from other sources, that the
narrow-minded and obstinate George the Third, petty and parochial in
public and in private, was jealous of his son's superior parts, and
endeavoured to hide his light beneath the bushel of seclusion and
inadequate training. It was impossible for such a father to appreciate
either the qualities or the defects of such a son. "The uncommunicative
selfishness and pride of George the Third confined him to domestic
virtues," says Walpole, and adds, "Nothing could equal the King's
attention to seclude his son and protract his nonage. It went so absurdly
far that he was made to wear a shirt with a frilled collar like that of
babies. He one day took hold of his collar and said to a domestic, 'See
how I am treated!'"
The Duke of Montagu, too, was charged with the education of the Prince,
and "he was utterly incapable of giving him any kind of instruction....
The Prince was so good-natured, but so uninformed, that he often said, 'I
wish anybody would tell me what I ought to do; nobody gives me any
instruction for my conduct.'" The absolute poverty of the instruction
afforded him, the false and narrow ways of the royal household, and the
evil example and low companionship of his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland,
did much to spoil the Prince.
To quote Walpole again: "It made men smile to find that in the palace of
piety and pride his Royal Highness had learnt nothing but the dialect of
footmen and grooms.... He drunk hard, swore, and passed every night in[3]
...; such were the fruits of his being locked up in the palace of piety."
He proved, too, an intractable and undutiful son; but that was the result
to be expected, and we cannot join Thackeray in his sentimental snivel
over George the Third.
He was a faithless husband, but his wife was impossible, and even the mob
who supported her quailed when the Marquis of Anglesey, baited in front of
his house and compelled to drink her health, did so with the bitter rider,
"And may all your wives be like her!"
All high-spirited young England flocked to the side of the Prince of
Wales. He was the Grand Master of Corinthianism and Tom-and-Jerryism. It
was he who peopled these roads with a numerous and brilliant concourse of
whirling travellers, where before had been only infrequent plodders amidst
the Sussex sloughs. To his princely presence, radiant by the Old Steyne,
hasted all manner of people; prince and prizefighter, statesman and
nobleman; beauties noble and ignoble, and all who _lived_ their lives.
There he made incautious guests helplessly drunk on the potent old brandy
he called "Diabolino," and then exposed them in embarrassing situations;
and there--let us remember it--he entertained, and was the beneficent
patron of, the foremost artists and literary men of his age. The
_Zeitgeist_ (the Spirit of the Time) resided in, was personified in, and
radiated from him. He was the First Gentleman in Europe, but is to us, in
the perspective of a hundred years or so, something more: the type and
exemplar of an age.
He should have been endowed with perennial youth, but even his splendid
vitality faded at last, and he grew stout. Leigh Hunt called him a "fat
Adonis of fifty," and was flung into prison for it; and prison is a
fitting place for a satirist who is stupid enough to see a misdemeanour in
those misfortunes. No one who could help it would be fat, or fifty.
Besides, to accuse one royal personage of being fat is to reflect upon
all: it is an accompaniment of royalty.
Thackeray denounced his wig; but there is a prejudice in favour of flowing
locks, and the King gracefully acknowledged it. One is not damned for
being fat, fifty, and wearing a wig; and it seems a curious code of
morality that would have it so; for although we may not all lose our hair
nor grow fat, we must all, if we are not to die young, grow old and pass
the grand climacteric.
There has been too much abuse of the Regency times. Where modern
moralists, folded within their little sheep-walks from observation of the
real world, mistake is in comparing those times with these, to the
disadvantage of the past. They know nothing of life in the round, and
seeing it only in the flat, cannot predicate what exists on the other
side. To them there is, indeed, no other side, and things, despite the
poet, _are_ what they seem, and nothing else.
They lash the manners of the Regency, and think they are dealing out
punishment to a bygone state of things; but human nature is the same in
all centuries. The fact is so obvious that one is ashamed to state it. The
Regency was a terrible time for gambling; but Tranby Croft had a similar
repute when Edward the Seventh was Prince of Wales. Bridge is a fine game,
and what, think you, supports the evening newspapers? The news? Certainly:
the Betting News. Cock-fighting was a brutal sport, and is now illegal,
but is it dead? Oh dear, no. Virtue was not general in the picturesque
times of George the Fourth. Is it now? Study the Cause Lists of the
Divorce Courts. Worse offences are still punished by law, but are later
condoned or explained by Society as an eccentricity. Society a hundred
years ago did not plumb such depths.
In short, behind the surface of things, the Regency riot not only exists,
but is outdone, and Tom and Jerry, could they return, would find
themselves very dull dogs indeed. It is all the doing of the middle
classes, that the veil is thrown over these things. In times when the
middle class and the Nonconformist Conscience traditionally lived at
Clapham, it mattered comparatively little what excesses were committed;
but that class has so increased that it has to be subdivided into Upper
and Lower, and has Claphams of its own everywhere. It is--or they
are--more wealthy than before, and they read things, you know, and are a
power in Parliament, and are something in the dominie sort to those other
classes above and below.
III
[Sidenote: SOCIETY: THEN AND NOW]
The coaching and waggoning history of the road to Brighthelmstone (as it
then was called) emerges dimly out of the formless ooze of tradition in
1681. In De Laune's "Present State of Great Britain," published in that
year, in the course of a list of carriers, coaches, and stage-waggons in
and out of London, we find Thomas Blewman, carrier, coming from
"Bredhempstone" to the "Queen's Head," Southwark, on Wednesdays, and,
setting forth again on Thursdays, reaching Shoreham the same day: which
was remarkably good travelling for a carrier's waggon in the seventeenth
century. Here, then, we have the Father Adam, the great original, so far
as records can tell us, of all the after charioteers of the Brighton Road.
It is not until 1732, that, from the pages of "New Remarks on London,"
published by the Company of Parish Clerks, we hear anything further. At
that date a coach set out on Thursdays from the "Talbot," in the Borough
High Street, and a van on Tuesdays from the "Talbot" and the "George." In
the summer of 1745 the "Flying Machine" left the "Old Ship,"
Brighthelmstone at 5.30 a.m., and reached Southwark in the evening.
But the first extended and authoritative notice is found in 1746, when the
widow of the Lewes carrier advertised in _The Lewes Journal_ of December
8th that she was continuing the business:
THOMAS SMITH, the OLD LEWES CARRIER, being dead, THE BUSINESS IS NOW
CONTINUED BY HIS WIDOW, MARY SMITH, who gets into the "George Inn," in
the Borough, Southwark, EVERY WEDNESDAY in the afternoon, and sets out
for Lewes EVERY THURSDAY morning by eight o'clock, and brings Goods
and Passengers to Lewes, Fletching, Chayley, Newick and all places
adjacent at reasonable rates.
Performed (_if God permit_) by
MARY SMITH.
We may perceive by these early records that the real original way down to
the Sussex coast was by the Croydon, Godstone, East Grinstead and Lewes
route, and that its outlet must have been Newhaven, which, despite its
name, is so very ancient a place, and was a port and harbour when
Brighthelmstone was but a fisher-village.
[Illustration: STAGE WAGGON, 1808. _From a contemporary drawing._]
That is the only glimpse we get of the widow Smith and her waggon; but the
"George Inn, in the Borough," that she "got into," is still in the
Borough High Street. It is a fine and flourishing remnant of an ancient
galleried hostelry of the time of Chaucer, and it is characteristic of the
continuity of English social, as well as political history that, although
waggons and coaches no longer come to or set out from the "George," its
spacious yard is now a railway receiving-office for goods, where the
railway vans, those descendants of the stage-waggon, thunderously come and
go all day.
It will be observed that the traffic in those days went to and from
Southwark, which was then the great business centre for the carriers. Not
yet was the Brighton road measured from Westminster Bridge, for the
adequate reason that there was no bridge at Westminster until 1749: only
the ferry from the Horseferry Road to Lambeth.
Widow Smith's waggon halted at Lewes, and it is not until ten years later
than the date of her advertisement that we hear of the Brighthelmstone
conveyance. The first was that announced by the pioneer, James Batchelor,
in _The Sussex Weekly Advertiser_, May 12th, 1756:
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the LEWES ONE DAY STAGE COACH or CHAISE
sets out from the Talbot Inn, in the Borough, on Saturday next, the
19th instant.
When likewise the Brighthelmstone Stage begins.
Performed (_if God permit_) by
JAMES BATCHELOR.
The "Talbot" inn, which stood on the site of the ancient "Tabard," of
Chaucerian renown, disappeared from the Borough High Street in 1870. What
its picturesque yard was like in 1815, with the waggons of the Sussex
carriers, let the illustration tell.
Let us halt awhile, to admire the courage of those coaching and waggoning
pioneers who, in the days before "the sea-side" had been invented, and few
people travelled, dared the awful roads for what must then have been a
precarious business. Sussex roads in especial had a most unenviable name
for miriness, and wheeled traffic was so difficult that for many years
after this period the farmers and others continued to take their womenkind
about in the pillion fashion here caricatured by Henry Bunbury.
[Sidenote: SUSSEX ROADS]
Horace Walpole, indeed, travelling in Sussex in 1749, visiting Arundel and
Cowdray, acquired a too intimate acquaintance with their phenomenal depth
of mud and ruts, inasmuch as he--finicking little gentleman--was compelled
to alight precipitately from his overturned chaise, and to foot it like
any common fellow. One quite pities his daintiness in the narration of his
sorrows, picturesquely set forth by that accomplished letter-writer
arrived home to the safe seclusion of Strawberry Hill. He writes to George
Montagu, and dates August 26th, 1749:
"Mr. Chute and I returned from our expedition miraculously well,
considering all our distresses. If you love good roads, conveniences, good
inns, plenty of postilions and horses, be so kind as never to go into
Sussex. We thought ourselves in the northest part of England; the whole
county has a Saxon air, and the inhabitants are savage, as if King George
the Second was the first monarch of the East Angles. Coaches grow there no
more than balm and spices: we were forced to drop our post-chaise, that
resembled nothing so much as harlequin's calash, which was occasionally a
chaise or a baker's cart. We journeyed over alpine mountains" (Walpole,
you will observe, was, equally with the evening journalist of these happy
times, not unaccustomed to exaggerate) "drenched in clouds, and thought of
harlequin again, when he was driving the chariot of the sun through the
morning clouds, and was so glad to hear the _aqua vitae_ man crying a
dram.... I have set up my staff, and finished my pilgrimages for this
year. Sussex is a great damper of curiosity."
Thus he prattles on, delightfully describing the peculiarities of the
several places he visited with this Mr. Chute, "whom," says he, "I have
created _Strawberry King-at-Arms_." One wonders what that mute, inglorious
Chute thought of it all; if he was as disgusted with Sussex sloughs and
moist unpleasant "mountains" as his garrulous companion. Chute suffered in
silence, for the sight of pen, ink, and paper did not induce in _him_ a
fury of composition; and so we shall never know what he endured.
Then the pedantic Doctor John Burton, who journeyed into Sussex in 1751,
had no less unfortunate acquaintance with these miry ways than our
_dilettante_ of Strawberry Hill. To those who have small Latin and less
Greek, this traveller's tale must ever remain a sealed book; for it is in
those languages that he records his views upon ways and means, and men and
manners, in Sussex. As thus, for example:
"I fell immediately upon all that was most bad, upon a land desolate and
muddy, whether inhabited by men or beasts a stranger could not easily
distinguish, and upon roads which were, to explain concisely what is most
abominable, Sussexian. No one would imagine them to be intended for the
people and the public, but rather the byways of individuals, or, more
truly, the tracks of cattle-drivers; for everywhere the usual footmarks of
oxen appeared, and we too, who were on horseback, going along zigzag,
almost like oxen at plough, advanced as if we were turning back, while we
followed out all the twists of the roads.... My friend, I will set before
you a kind of problem in the manner of Aristotle:--Why comes it that the
oxen, the swine, the women, and all other animals(!) are so long-legged in
Sussex? Can it be from the difficulty of pulling the feet out of so much
mud by the strength of the ankle, so that the muscles become stretched, as
it were, and the bones lengthened?"
A doleful tale. Presently he arrives at the conclusion that the peasantry
"do not concern themselves with literature or philosophy, for they
consider the pursuit of such things to be only idling," which is not so
very remarkable a trait, after all, in the character of an agricultural
people.
[Illustration: THE "TALBOT" INN YARD. BOROUGH, ABOUT 1815. _From an old
drawing._]
Our author eventually, notwithstanding the terrible roads, arrived at
Brighthelmstone, by way of Lewes, "just as day was fading." It was, so he
says, "a village on the sea-coast; lying in a valley gradually sloping,
and yet deep. It is not, indeed, contemptible as to size, for it is
thronged with people, though the inhabitants are mostly very needy and
wretched in their mode of living, occupied in the employment of fishing,
robust in their bodies, laborious, and skilled in all nautical crafts,
and, as it is said, terrible cheats of the custom-house officers." As who,
indeed, is not, allowing the opportunity?
Batchelor, the pioneer of Brighton coaching, continued his enterprise in
1757, and with the coming of spring, and the drying of the roads, his
coaches, which had been laid up in the winter, after the usual custom of
those times, were plying again. In May he advertised, "for the convenience
of country gentlemen, etc.," his London, Lewes, and Brighthelmstone
stage-coach, which performed the journey of fifty-eight miles in two days;
and exclusive persons, who preferred to travel alone, might have
post-chaises of him.
[Sidenote: EARLY COACHING]
Brighthelmstone had in the meanwhile sprung into notice. The health-giving
qualities of its sea air, and the then "strange new eccentricity" of
sea-bathing, advocated from 1750 by Dr. Richard Russell, had already given
it something of a vogue among wealthy invalids, and the growing traffic
was worth competing for. Competitors therefore sprang up to share
Batchelor's business. Most of them merely added stage-coaches like his,
but in May, 1762, a certain "J. Tubb," in partnership with "S. Brawne,"
started a very superior conveyance, going from London one day and
returning from Brighthelmstone the next. This was the:
LEWES and BRIGHTELMSTONE new FLYING MACHINE (by Uckfield), hung on
steel springs, very neat and commodious, to carry FOUR PASSENGERS,
sets out from the Golden Cross Inn, Charing Cross, on Monday, the 7th
of June, at six o'clock in the morning, and will continue MONDAY'S,
WEDNESDAY'S, and FRIDAY'S to the White Hart, at Lewes, and the Castle,
at Brightelmstone, where regular Books are kept for entering
passenger's and parcels; will return to London TUESDAY'S, THURSDAY'S,
and SATURDAY'S Each Inside Passenger to Lewes, Thirteen Shillings; to
Brighthelmstone, Sixteen; to be allowed Fourteen Pound Weight for
Luggage, all above to pay One Penny per Pound; half the fare to be
paid at Booking, the other at entering the machine. Children in Lap
and Outside Passengers to pay half-price.
Performed by J. TUBB.
S. BRAWNE.
[Illustration: ME AND MY WIFE AND DAUGHTER. _From a caricature by Henry
Bunbury._]
Batchelor saw with dismay this coach performing the whole journey in one
day, while his took two. But he determined to be as good a man as his
opponent, if not even a better, and started the next week, at identical
fares, "a new large FLYING CHARIOT, with a Box and four horses (by
Chailey) to carry two Passengers only, except three should desire to go
together." The better to crush the presumptuous Tubb, he later on reduced
his fares. Then ensued a diverting, if by no means edifying, war of
advertisements; for Tubb, unwilling to be outdone, inserted the following
in _The Lewes Journal_, November, 1762:
THIS IS TO INFORM THE PUBLIC that, on Monday, the 1st of November
instant, the LEWES and BRIGHTHELMSTON FLYING MACHINE began going in
_one day_, and continues twice a week during the Winter Season to
Lewes only; sets out from the White Hart, at Lewes, MONDAYS and
THURSDAYS at Six o'clock in the Morning, and returns from the Golden
Cross, at Charing Cross, TUESDAYS and SATURDAYS, at the same hour.
Performed by J. TUBB.
N.B.--Gentlemen, Ladies, and others, are desired to look narrowly into
the Meanness and Design of the other Flying Machine to Lewes and
Brighthelmston, in lowering his prices, whether 'tis thro' conscience
or an endeavour to suppress me. If the former is the case, think how
you have been used for a great number of years, when he engrossed the
whole to himself, and kept you two days upon the road, going fifty
miles. If the latter, and he should be lucky enough to succeed in it,
judge whether he wont return to his old prices, when you cannot help
yourselves, and use you as formerly. As I have, then, been the remover
of this obstacle, which you have all granted by your great
encouragement to me hitherto, I, therefore, hope for the continuance
of your favours, which will entirely frustrate the deep-laid schemes
of my great opponent, and lay a lasting obligation on,--Your very
humble Servant,
J. TUBB.
To this replies Batchelor, possessed with an idea of vested interests
pertaining to himself:
WHEREAS, Mr. TUBB, by an Advertisement in this paper of Monday last,
has thought fit to cast some invidious Reflections upon me, in respect
of the lowering my Prices and being two days upon the Road, with other
low insinuations, I beg leave to submit the following matters to the
calm Consideration of the Gentlemen, Ladies, and other Passengers, of
what Degree soever, who have been pleased to favour me, viz.:
That our Family first set up the Stage Coach from London to Lewes, and
have continued it for a long Series of Years, from Father to Son and
other Branches of the same Race, and that even before the Turnpikes on
the Lewes Road were erected they drove their Stage, in the Summer
Season, in one day, and have continued to do ever since, and now in
the Winter Season twice in the week. And it is likewise to be
considered that many aged and infirm Persons, who did not chuse to
rise early in the Morning, were very desirous to be two Days on the
Road for their own Ease and Conveniency, therefore there was no
obstacle to be removed. And as to lowering my prices, let every one
judge whether, when an old Servant of the Country perceives an
Endeavour to suppress and supplant him in his Business, he is not well
justified in taking all measures in his Power for his own Security,
and even to oppose an unfair Adversary as far as he can. 'Tis,
therefore, hoped that the descendants of your very ancient Servants
will still meet with your farther Encouragement, and leave the Schemes
of our little Opponent to their proper Deserts.--I am, Your old and
present most obedient Servant,
J. BATCHELOR.
_December 13, 1762._
The rivals both kept to the road until the death of Batchelor, in 1766,
when his business was sold to Tubb, who took into partnership a Mr. Davis.
Together they started, in 1767, the first service of a daily coach in the
"Lewes and Brighthelmstone Flys," each carrying four passengers, one to
London and one to Brighton every day.
Tubb and Davis had in 1770 one "machine" and one waggon on this road, fare
by "machine" 14_s._ The machine ran daily to and from London, starting at
five o'clock in the morning. The waggon was three days on the road.
Another machine was also running, but with the coming of winter these
machines performed only three double journeys each a week.
In 1777 another stage-waggon was started by "Lashmar & Co." It loitered
between the "King's Head," Southwark, and the "King's Head," Brighton,
starting from London every Tuesday at the unearthly hour of 3 a.m., and
reaching its destination on Thursday afternoons.
On May 31st, 1784, Tubb and Davis put a "light post-coach" on the road,
running to Brighton one day returning to London the next, in addition to
their already running "machine" and "post-coach." This new conveyance
presumably made good time, four "insides" only being carried.
[Sidenote: GROWTH OF COACHING]
Four years later, when Brighton's sun of splendour was rising, there were
on the road between London and the sea three "machines," three light
post-coaches, two coaches, and two stage-waggons. Tubb now disappears, and
his firm becomes Davis & Co. Other proprietors were Ibberson & Co.,
Bradford & Co., and Mr. Wesson.
On May 1st, 1791, the first Brighton Mail coach was established. It was a
two-horse affair, running by Lewes and East Grinstead, and taking twelve
hours to perform the journey. It was not well supported by the public, and
as the Post Office would not pay the contractors a higher mileage, it was
at some uncertain period withdrawn.
About 1796 coach offices were opened in Brighton for the sole despatch of
coaching business, the time having passed away for the old custom of
starting from inns. Now, too, were different tales to tell of these roads,
after the Pavilion had been set in course of building. Royalty and the
Court could not endure to travel upon such evil tracks as had hitherto
been the lot of travellers to Brighthelmstone. Presently, instead of a
dearth of roads and a plethora of ruts, there became a choice of good
highways and a plenty of travellers upon them.
Numerous coaches ran to meet the demands of the travelling public, and
these continually increased in number and improved in speed. About this
time first appear the firms of Henwood, Crossweller, Cuddington, Pockney &
Harding, whose office was at No. 44, East Street: and Boulton, Tilt,
Hicks, Baulcomb & Co., at No. 1, North Street. The most remarkable thing,
to my mind, about those companies is their long-winded names. In addition
to the old service, there ran a "night post-coach" on alternate nights,
starting at 10 p.m. in the season. One then went to or from London
generally in "about" eleven hours, if all went well. If you could afford
only a ride in the stage-waggon, why then you were carried the distance by
the accelerated (!) waggons of this line in two days and one night.
IV
Erredge, the historian of Brighton, tells something of the social side of
Brighton Road coaching at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Social
indeed, as you shall see:
"In 1801 two pair-horse coaches ran between London and Brighton on
alternate days, one up, the other down, driven by Messrs. Crossweller and
Hine. The progress of these coaches was amusing. The one from London left
the Blossoms Inn, Lawrence Lane, at 7 a.m., the passengers breaking their
fast at the Cock, Sutton, at 9. The next stoppage for the purpose of
refreshment was at the Tangier, Banstead Downs--a rural little spot,
famous for its elderberry wine, which used to be brought from the cottage
'roking hot,' and on a cold wintry morning few refused to partake of it.
George IV. invariably stopped here and took a glass from the hand of Miss
Jeal as he sat in his carriage. The important business of luncheon took
place at Reigate, where sufficient time was allowed the passengers to view
the Baron's Cave, where, it is said, the barons assembled the night
previous to their meeting King John at Runymeade. The grand halt for
dinner was made at Staplefield Common, celebrated for its famous black
cherry-trees, under the branches of which, when the fruit was ripe, the
coaches were allowed to draw up and the passengers to partake of its
tempting produce. The hostess of the hostelry here was famed for her
rabbit-puddings, which, hot, were always waiting the arrival of the coach,
and to which the travellers never failed to do such ample justice, that
ordinarily they found it quite impossible to leave at the hour appointed;
so grogs, pipes, and ale were ordered in, and, to use the language of the
fraternity, 'not a wheel wagged' for two hours. Handcross was a little
resting-place, celebrated for its 'neat' liquors, the landlord of the inn
standing, bottle in hand, at the door. He and several other bonifaces at
Friars' Oak, etc., had the reputation of being on pretty good terms with
the smugglers who carried on their operations with such audacity along the
Sussex coast.
"After walking up Clayton Hill, a cup of tea was sometimes found to be
necessary at Patcham, after which Brighton was safely reached at 7 p.m. It
must be understood that it was the custom for the passengers to walk up
all the hills, and even sometimes in heavy weather to give a push behind
to assist the jaded horses."
[Sidenote: COMPETITION]
But it was not always so ideal or so idyllic. That there were discomforts
and accidents is evident from the wordy warfare of advertisements that
followed upon the starting of the Royal Brighton Four Horse Company in
1802. As a competitor with older firms, it seems to have aroused much
jealousy and slander, if we may believe the following contemporary
advertisement:
THE ROYAL BRIGHTON Four Horse Coach Company beg leave to return their
sincere thanks to their Friends and the Public in general for the very
liberal support they have experienced since the starting of their
Coaches, and assure them it will always be their greatest study to
have their Coaches safe, with good Horses and sober careful Coachmen.
They likewise wish to rectify a report in circulation of their Coach
having been overturned on Monday last, by which a gentleman's leg was
broken, &c., no such thing having ever happened to either of their
Coaches. The Fact is it was one of the BLUE COACHES instead of the
Royal New Coach.
As several mistakes have happened, of their friends being BOOKED at
other Coach offices, they are requested to book themselves at the
ROYAL NEW COACH OFFICE, CATHERINE'S HEAD, 47, East Street.
The coaching business grew rapidly, and in an advertisement offering for
sale a portion of the coaching business at No. 1, North Street, it was
stated that the annual returns of this firm were more than L12,000 per
annum, yielding from Christmas, 1794, to Christmas, 1808, seven and a
half per cent. on the capital invested, besides purchasing the interest of
four of the partners in the concern. In this last year two new businesses
were started, those of Waldegrave & Co., and Pattenden & Co. Fares now
ruled high--23_s._ inside; 13_s._ outside.