TRAVELLING BY COACH, FERRY, AND RAILWAY
In my early days much of the passenger transit of South Wales and the
south-westerly part of England passed over the old Passage Ferry across
the Severn from Beachley to Aust, and consequently the coaches all
passed our park gates. It was said there were fourteen coaches a day. On
this I am unable to offer an opinion, but there were a great number, and
amongst them were two mails. The road to the head of the old Passage
Pier, from Chepstow, was about three and a half miles in length, and
very hilly (going up one ascent, long or short as the case might be, to
go down another), with the exception of two lengths of flat “galloping
ground.” These well deserved their name, and I can still remember the
swing of violent speed at which the high, piled-up vehicle tore past us,
causing children and accompanying dogs to allow it a very free passage.
The journey was not without risk of disaster, for on one occasion in
turning a sharp angle, on the incline of a steep shore-hill, without due
care, the coach lurched to the outward side of the curve and made a
distribution of its outside passengers on the greensward by our park
gates. It certainly would have been a great help in those days if the
wish (though not exactly as he expressed it) of the driver of one of the
more old-fashioned of the coaches could have been carried out, and “a
little akyduct” made to convey the road from the top of one hill to the
next, thus avoiding the dangerous descent.
The view from the tops of the coaches as they galloped along the flat
road at the summit of the Severn cliffs down to the Ferry pier was very
beautiful. On one side was the Severn, a mile wide at the narrowest,
with the red Aust cliffs opposite, the Sedbury cliffs above; and, in the
distance, about thirty miles away up the river, the hills, near or
beyond Gloucester, could be faintly seen. On the other side, about a
field or two from the road, was the lowest part of the Wye at its point
of juncture with the Severn, and the noble estuary itself opening out
from about four miles width till it was lost to view in the distance of
the Severn Sea.
[Illustration:
TIME-TABLE ILLUSTRATING THE METHOD OF TRAVELLING 200 YEARS AGO.
]
YORK Four Days
Stage-Coach.
Begins on Friday the 12th of April 1706.
ALL that are desirous to pass from London to York
or from York to London, or any other Place
on that Road; Let them Repair to the Black Swan in
Holbourn in London, and to the Black Swan in Coney
Street in York.
At both which Places, they may be received in a
Stage Coach every Monday, Wednesday and Friday,
which performs the whole Journey in Four Days, (if
God permits.) And sets forth at Five in the Morning.
And returns from York to Stamford in two days,
and from Stamford by Huntington to London in two
days more. And the like Stages on their return.
Allowing each Passenger 14lb weight, and all above 3d. a Pound.
{ Benjamin Kingman,
Performed By { Henry Harrison,
{ Walter Baynes.
Also this gives Notice that Newcastle Stage Coach sets
out from York, every Monday, and Friday, and
from Newcastle every Monday, and Friday.
Rec’d in ‘pt.’ 05.00.0 of Mr. Bodingfold for 5 places
for Monday the 3 of June 1706.
The Old Passage, though probably as well managed as was reasonably
possible, was, in many respects, a most inconvenient necessity. On one
occasion, while fourteen passengers were crossing in a sailing boat,
every living thing, except one dog, perished in mid-transit. It was on a
stormy Sunday in September, 1838, and the boat was heavily laden with
horses as well as the passengers. How the accident happened was never
known. One of my brothers had been watching the boat from our cliffs,
and on looking again, after a minute or so, she was gone. The
conjectural cause of the disaster was that one of the horses had become
unruly. The assignment of the disaster to a judgment for travelling on
Sunday, may be looked on as a state of feeling very desirable to be
removed by changing times, which have brought a larger charitableness
and greater common sense.
[Illustration:
PLATE XIII.
OLD CHEPSTOW BRIDGE, REBUILT IN 1816, WITH POST-CHAISE CROSSING IT.
_From an old picture signed W. Williams, 1783._
]
A novel custom was associated with the Old Passage. A man suspected of
possible infection of hydrophobia, was put into the salt water, and
towed about in the Severn at the stern of a boat. In the event of a man
having been bitten by a stray dog, this operation made his village
acquaintances much easier in their minds about him. They had also the
fun, and in any case the patient would not be the worse for a thorough
good washing!
The appliances of the ferry were a steam boat and various sailing boats,
including one known as the Mail-boat, as well as on the Beachley side,
an apparatus acting as a telegraph. This consisted of an arrangement of
board which, when at rest, resembled a wooden window shutter about a
couple of yards square, fastened to one of the buildings; and, by some
code of signals of an exceedingly simple sort, requisite directions were
conveyed across the river as to the boat service.
On our side there was one solidly built pier, serviceable for shipment
of passengers or goods at all states of the tide, and accessible for all
kinds of carriage use from the good road which terminated at the top in
front of a small kind of hotel; it likewise had the desirable security,
for the greater part of its length, of strong posts with chains between
them. On the Aust side there was a high- and also a low-water pier, not
far apart, a little way below the inn, and if the tide served for boats
to reach these all went fairly well after disembarking, but it was a
different matter at half-tide. The half-tide pier was a considerable
distance from the others—a quarter or half a mile away beneath the
cliffs, and mud and stones and the roughest imaginable affairs in the
guise of road had to be got through or over on the way to the inn. The
effect of this on the springs, paint, &c., of a good Long Acre-built
barouche, when by some unhappy necessity it had to be committed to such
a method of transit, may be easily imagined. The passage for a carriage
was, at the best, not well arranged. A muster of fishermen or boatmen
was made, and the carriage was turned on the pier and dragged more or
less rapidly on board, and there, I presume, secured from movement, but,
certainly, by no means from danger, for part of the freight might
consist of half a dozen or a dozen bullocks, which shifted to one side
or the other as the vessel lurched. On the whole the transit by the Old
Passage Ferry, so well known in former days, was one link in a chain of
necessities which left much room for changing times to improve.
* * * * *
The great change in the method of travelling may be said to have been
publicly inaugurated in the spring of 1830[22] by the opening of the
Canterbury and Whitstable line of railway.
In the same year the Bill for the Warrington railway was passed by both
Houses of Parliament, and permission was also granted to construct a
line from Leicester to Swannington, Robert Stephenson being appointed
chief engineer to both lines. But the great railway event of that year
was the opening, with an imposing ceremonial, on September 15th, of the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway. This left nothing to be desired in
showing high appreciation of the importance of advance in methods of
locomotion. Although a complete success, from the point of view of
capabilities of safe and also of rapid travelling, the day was one of
great trouble and anxiety. As the train neared Manchester the mob
crowded on the lines, and while to have gone forward at any moderate
pace would have been death to hundreds, on the other hand, the slow
movement allowed the populace to swarm on the carriages and display
their political aversion to “the Duke” (Wellington) by throwing
brickbats, and by other objectional irregularities. The riot was not so
much remembered as the accident which resulted in the death of
Huskisson. I can recollect the unsophisticated story of something being
seen going along the line at such a speed that it was hardly
discernible; and also that a horn was used for train signalling in place
of the steam whistle. Carelessness of life through ignorance of the
danger was everywhere conspicuous; discipline was much needed. My father
while waiting at a station took pleasure in walking along the line to
while away the time. Tying horse-carriages on open trucks was not an
unusual practice with carriage-people who could afford to pay for the
luxury. My father long travelled in his own carriage thus attached, and
stepped from the truck on which it stood to the next, but of course at
considerable danger to his person.
[Illustration:
PLATE XIV.
A WEST OF ENGLAND ROYAL MAIL _en route_.
_Original lent by Arthur Ackermann & Son, 191, Regent Street, W._
]
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