GETTING ON WHEELS--OLD COACHES, ROADS AND HIGHWAYMEN--THE ROMANCE OF
THE ROAD.
It is worthy of notice how locomotion in all ages seems to have
classified itself into what we now know as passenger and goods train,
saloon and steerage. Away back in the 18th century when men were only
dreaming of the wonders of the good time coming, when carriages were
actually to "travel without horses," the goods train was simply a long
line or cavalcade of Pack-horses. This was before the age of "fly
waggons," distinguished for carrying goods, and sometimes passengers as
well, at the giddy rate of two miles an hour under favourable
circumstances! Fine strapping broad-chested Lincolnshire animals were
these Pack-horses, bearing on either side their bursting packs of
merchandise to the weight of half-a-ton. Twelve or fourteen in a line,
they would thus travel the North Road, through Royston, from the North
to the Metropolis, to return with other wares of a smarter kind from
the London Market for the country people. The arrival of such caravans
was the principal event which varied the life of Roystonians in the
last century, for was not the Talbot a very caravansarai for
Pack-horses! This old inn, kept at the time of which I am writing by
Widow Dixon, as the Royston parish books show, then extended along the
West side of the High Street, from Mrs. Beale's corner shop to Mr.
Abbott's. The Talbot formed a rendez-vous for the Pack-horses known
throughout the land, and in its stables at the back of the new Post
Office, with an entrance from Melbourn Street, known as the Talbot
Back-yard, there was accommodation for about a score of these
Pack-horses.
{7}
Occasionally a rare sign-board at a way-side public-house bearing a
picture of the Pack-horse may be seen, but it is only in this way, or
in some old print, that a glimpse can now be obtained of a means of
locomotion which has completely passed away from our midst. But
besides the Pack-horses being a public institution, this was really the
chief means of burden-bearing, whether in the conveyance of goods to
market or of conveying friends on visits from place to place. As to
the conveyance of goods, we find that as late as 1789, even the farmers
were only gradually getting on wheels. A few carts were in use, no
wagons, and the bulk of the transit in many districts was by means of
Pack-horses; in the colliery districts, coals were carried by horses
from the mines; and even manure was carried on to the land in some
places on the backs of horses! trusses of hay were also occasionally
met with loaded upon horses' backs, and in towns, builders' horses
might be seen bending under a heavy load of brick, stone, and lime!
Members of Parliament travelled from their constituents to London on
horseback, with long over-alls, or wide riding breeches, into which
their coat tails were tucked, so as to get rid of traces of mud on
reaching the Metropolis! Commercial travellers, then called "riders,"
travelled with their packs of samples on each side of their horses.
Farmers rode from the surrounding villages to the Royston Market on
horseback, with the good wife on a pillion behind them with the butter
and eggs, &c., and a similar mode of going to Church or Chapel, if any
distance, was used on a Sunday. Among the latest in this district must
have been the one referred to in a note by Mr. Henry Fordham, who says:
"I remember seeing an old pillion in my father's house which was used
by my mother, as I have been told, in her early married days." [Mr.
Henry Fordham's mother was a daughter of Mr. William Nash, a country
lawyer of some note.]
Some months ago the writer was startled by hearing, casually dropped by
an old man visiting a shop in Royston, the strange remark--"My
grandfather was chairman to the Marquis of Rockingham." The remark
seemed like the first glimpse of a rare old fossil when visiting an old
quarry. Of the truth of it further inquiry seemed to leave little
doubt, and the meaning of it was simply this: The Marquis of
Rockingham, Prime Minister in the early years of George III., would,
like the rest of the _beau monde_, be carried about town in his Sedan
chair, by smart velvet-coated livery men ["I have a piece of his livery
of green silk velvet by me now," said my informant, when further
questioned about his grandfather] preceded at night by the "link boy,"
or someone carrying a torch to light the way through the dark streets!
I have been unable to find any trace of the use of the Sedan Chair by
any of the residents of Royston, albeit that gifted but ill-fated
youth, John Smith, alias Charles Stuart, alias King Charles I., did,
with the {8} Duke of Buckingham, alias Thomas Smith, come back to his
royal father, King James I., at Royston, from that romantic Spanish
wooing expedition and bring with him a couple of Sedan Chairs, instead
of a Spanish bride!
The old stage wagons succeeding to the pack-horses, which carried goods
and occasionally passengers stowed away, were a curiosity. A
long-bodied wagon, with loose canvas tilt, wheels of great breadth, so
as to be independent of ruts, except the very broadest; with a series
of four or five iron tires or hoops round the feloes, and the whole
drawn by eight or ten horses, two abreast with a driver riding on a
pony with a long whip, which gave him command of the whole team!
Average pace about 1 1/2 to 2 miles an hour, including stoppages, as
taken from old time tallies, for their journeys! These ponderous
wagons, with their teams of eight horses and broad wheels, were
actually associated with the idea of "flying," for I find an
announcement in the year 1772, that the Stamford, Grantham, Newark and
Gainsboro' wagons began "flying" on Tuesday, March 24th, &c. Twenty
and thirty horses have been known to be required to extricate these
lumbering wagons when they became embedded in deep ruts, in which not
infrequently, the wagon had to remain all night. Many a struggling,
despairing scene of this kind has been witnessed at the bottom of our
hills, such as that at the bottom of Reed Hill, before the road was
raised out of the hollow; the London Road, before the cutting was made
through the hill; and along the Baldock Road by the Heath, on to which
wagons not infrequently turned and began those deep ruts which are
still visible, and the example, which every one must regret, of driving
along the Heath at the present day, with no such excuse as the "fly
wagons" had.
[Illustration: OLD STAGE WAGON, A.D. 1800.]
{9}
Bad as were the conditions of travel, however, it should be understood
that for some time before regular mail coaches were introduced in 1784
(by a Mr. Palmer) there had been some coaching through Royston.
Evidence of this is perhaps afforded by the old sign of the "Coach and
Horses," in Kneesworth Street, Royston. This old public-house is
mentioned in the rate-books for Royston, Cambs., as far back as the
beginning of the reign of George III., or about the middle of last
century, and as its old sign, probably a picture of a coach and four,
hanging over the street, was a reflection of previous custom, we may
take it that public coaches passed up and down our High Street,
occasionally, in the first half of the last century, but the palmy days
of coaching were to come nearly a century after this. It is
interesting to note that Royston itself had a much larger share in
contributing to the coaching of the last century, than it had during
the present, and its interest in the traffic was not confined to the
fact of its situation on two great thoroughfares. The most interesting
of all the local coaching announcements for last century, is one which
refers to the existence of a Royston coach at a much earlier date. In
1796 the following announcement was made, which I copy _verbatim_:
* * * * * * * *
TO THE PUBLIC.
THE OLD ROYSTON COACH ONCE MORE REVIVED.
CALLED THE TELEGRAPH.
Will set out on Monday, 2nd May, and will continue to set out during
the summer, every Monday and Friday morning at four o'clock; every
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday at six o'clock, from the Old
Crown Inn, Royston; arrives at the Four Swans Inn, Bishopsgate Street,
London, at ten and twelve o'clock. Returns every day (Sunday excepted)
from the said Inn, precisely at two o'clock, and arrives at Royston at
eight o'clock at night.
The proprietors of this undertaking, being persons who have rose by
their own merit, and being desirous of accommodating the public from
Royston and its environs, they request the favour of all gentlemen
travellers for their support, who wish to encourage the hand of
industry, when their favours will be gratefully acknowledged by their
servants with thanks.
John Sporle, Royston.
Thomas Folkes, London, and Co.
Fare as under:--
From Royston to London, inside, L0 12s. 0d.
" Buntingford ditto, L0 10s. 0d.
" Puckeridge ditto, L0 9s. 0d.
Ware and other places the same as other coaches.
Outsiders, and children in lap, half-price.
N.B.--No parcels accounted for above five pounds, unless paid for and
entered as such.
* * * * * * * *
{10}
A much earlier announcement was that in 1763, of the St. Ives and
Royston Coach, which was announced to run with able horses from the
Bell and Crown, Holborn, at five o'clock in the morning, every Monday
and Friday to the Crown, St. Ives, returning on Tuesday and Saturday.
Fare from London to Royston 8s., St. Ives 13s. This was performed by
John Lomax, of London, and James Gatward, of Royston, and in the
following year the same proprietors extended the route to Chatteris,
March and Wisbech. This James Gatward was probably a brother of the
unfortunate Gatward (son of Mrs. Gatward, for many years landlady of
the Red Lion Inn, at Royston), whose strange career and tragic end will
be referred to presently.
In 1772 I find a prospectus of the Royston, Buntingford, Puckeridge and
Ware "Machine" which set out from the Hull Hotel, Royston, "every
Monday and Friday at half after five o'clock, and returns from the Vine
Inn every Tuesday and Thursday at half after eight o'clock, and dines
at Ware on the return. To begin on 20th of this instant, April, 1772.
Performed by their most humble servant, A. Windus (Ware)."
In 1776 occurs this announcement "The Royston, Buntingford, Puckeridge
and Ware Machine run from Royston (Bull Inn) to London, by Joshua Ellis
and Co." In the same year was announced the Cambridge and London
Diligence in 8 hours--through Ware and Royston to Cambridge, performed
by J. Roberts, of London, Thomas Watson, Royston, and Jacob Brittain,
of Cambridge.
In October, 1786, at two o'clock in the morning, the first coach
carrying the mails came through Royston, and in the same month of the
same year the Royston Coach was "removed from the Old Crown to the Red
Lyon."
In 1788 we learn that "The Royston Post Coach, constructed on a most
approved principle for speed and pleasure in travelling goes from
Royston to London in six hours, admits of only four persons inside, and
sets out every morning from Mr. Watson's the Red Lion."
In 1793, W. Moul and Co. began with their Royston Coach.
Some of the old announcements of Coach routes indicate a spirit of
improvement which had set in even thus early, such as "The Cambridge
and Yarmouth Machine upon steel springs, with four able horses." It
was a common name to apply to public coaches during the last century to
call them "Machines," and when an improved Machine is announced with
steel springs one can imagine the former state of things! It was a
frequent practice, notwithstanding the apparent difficulty of
maintaining one's perch for a long weary journey and sleeping by the
road, for these old coaches to be overloaded at the top, and coachmen
fined for it. In his "Travels in England in 1782," Moritz, the old
German pastor, in his delightful pages, says on this point: {11}
"Persons to whom it is not convenient to pay a full price, instead of
the inside, sit on the top of the coach, without any seats or even a
rail. By what means passengers thus fasten themselves securely on the
roof of these vehicles, I know not."
Reference has been made to the condition of the roads, and the terrible
straits to which the old coaches and wagons of the last century were
sometimes put on this account. The system of "farming" the highways
was responsible for a great deal of this. An amusing instance occurred
in October, 1789. A part of one of the high roads out of London was
left in a totally neglected condition by the last lessee, excepting
that some men tried to let out the water from the ruts, and when they
could not do this, "these labourers employed themselves in scooping out
the batter," and the plea for its neglect was that it was taken, but
not yet entered upon by the person who had taken it to repair, it being
some weeks before his time of entrance commenced! What was its state
in November may be imagined. "When the ruts were so deep that the fore
wheels of the wagons would not turn round, they placed in them fagots
twelve or fourteen feet long, which were renewed as they were worn away
by the traffic" (Gunning's "Reminiscences of Cambridge," 1798).
Some of the ruts were described as being four feet deep. In Young's
_Tours through England_ (1768) the Essex roads are spoken of as having
ruts of inconceivable depth, and the roads so overgrown with trees as
to be impervious to the sun. Some of the turnpikes were spoken of as
being rocky lanes, with stones "as big as a horse, and abominable
holes!" He adds that "it is a prostitution of language to call them
turnpikes--ponds of liquid dirt and a scattering of loose flints, with
the addition of cutting vile grips across the road under the pretence
of letting water off, but without the effect, altogether render these
turnpike roads as infamous a turnpike as ever were made!"
If the early coaches on the main roads were in such a sorry plight,
what was to be expected of traffic on the parish roads? In some
villages in this district lying two or three miles off the Great North
Road, it was not unusual for carts laden with corn for Royston market
to start over night to the high road so as to be ready for a fair start
in the morning, in which case one man would ride on the "for'oss" (fore
horse) carrying a lantern to light the way; and a sorry struggle it
was! Years later when a carriage was kept here and there, it was not
uncommon for a dinner party to get stuck in similar difficulties, and
to have to call up the horses from a neighbouring farm to pull them
through!
The difficulties for the older coaches and wagons were peculiarly
trying in this district on account of the hills and hollows, but one of
the most dreadful pieces of road at that time and for long afterwards,
was {12} that between Chipping and Buntingford, the foundations of
which were often little else but fagots thrown into a quagmire!
But besides bad vehicles and worse roads, there was a weird and a
horrid fascination about coaching in the eighteenth century, arising
from the vision of armed and well-mounted highwaymen, or of a
malefactor, after execution, hanging in chains on the gibbet by the
highway near the scene of his exploits!
Let us take one well authenticated case--the best authenticated perhaps
now known in England--in which a member of a respectable family in
Royston turned highwayman--an amateur highwayman one would fain hope
and believe--and paid the full penalty of the law, and was made to
illustrate the horrible custom of those times by hanging in chains on
the public highway! For this we must take the liberty of going a few
years back before George III. came to the throne. For some years
before and after that time, the noted old Posting House of the Red
Lion, in the High Street, Royston, was kept by a Mrs. Gatward. This
good lady, who managed the inn with credit to herself and satisfaction
to her patrons, unfortunately had a son, who, while attending
apparently to the posting branch of the business, could not resist the
fascination of the life of the highwaymen, who no doubt visited his
mother's inn under the guise of well-spoken gentlemen. Probably it was
in dealing with them for horses that young Gatward caught the infection
of their roving life, but what were the precise circumstances of his
fall we can hardly know; suffice it to say that his crime was one of
robbing His Majesty's mails, that he was evidently tried at the
Cambridgeshire Assizes, sentenced to death and afterwards to hang in
chains on a gibbet, and according to the custom of the times, somewhere
near the scene of his crime. The rest of his story is so well told by
Cole, the Cambridgeshire antiquary, in his MSS. in the British Museum,
that the reader will prefer to have it in his own words:--
"About 1753-4, the son of Mrs. Gatward, who kept the Red Lion, at
Royston, being convicted of robbing the mail, was hanged in chains on
the Great Road. I saw him hanging in a scarlet coat; after he had hung
about two or three months, it is supposed that the screw was filed
which supported him, and that he fell in the first high wind after.
Mr. Lord, of Trinity, passed by as he laid on the ground, and trying to
open his breast to see what state his body was in, not being offensive,
but quite dry, a button of brass came off, which he preserves to this
day, as he told me at the Vice-Chancellor's, Thursday, June 30, 1779.
I sold this Mr. Gatward, just as I left college in 1752, a pair of
coach horses, which was the only time I saw him. It was a great grief
to his mother, who bore a good character, and kept the inn for many
years after."
{13}
There is a tradition, at least, that Mrs. Gatward afterwards obtained
her son's body and had it buried in the cellar of her house in the High
Street. The story is in the highest degree creditable to human nature,
but there is no proof beyond the tradition. As to the spot where the
gibbeting took place, the only clue we have is given in Cole's words:
"Hanged in chains on the Great Road." There seems no road that would
so well answer this description as the North Road or Great North Road,
and, as the spot must have been somewhere within a riding distance of
Cambridge, the incident has naturally been associated with Caxton
gibbet, a half-a-mile to the north of the village of Caxton, where a
finger-post like structure, standing on a mound by the side of the
North Road, still marks the spot where the original gibbet stood.
It seems almost incredible that we have travelled so far within so
short a time! That almost within the limits of two men's lives a state
of things prevailed which permitted a corpse to be lying about by the
side of the public highway, subject now to the insults, now to the
pity, of the passer-by! Yet many persons living remember the fire-side
stories of the dreadful penalties awaiting any person who dared to
interfere with the course of the law, and remove the malefactor from
the gibbet!
Towards the end of the century the horrors of gibbeting, as illustrated
in Gatward's case, were tempered somewhat by a method of public
execution near the spot where the crime was committed, but, apparently
of sparing the victim and his friends the exposure of the body for
months afterwards till a convenient "high wind" blew it down. The
latest instance I have found of an execution of this kind by the
highway occurred in Hertfordshire, and to a Hertfordshire man. This
was James Snook, who had formerly been a contractor in the formation of
the Grand Junction Canal, but turning his attention to the "romance of
the road" was tried at the Hertfordshire Assizes in 1802 for robbing
the Tring mail. He was capitally convicted and ordered to be executed
near the place where the robbery was committed. He was executed there
a few days afterwards. The spot was, I am informed, on the Boxmoor
Common, and his grave, at the same spot, is still, or was until recent
years, marked by a head stone standing, solitary and alone to tell the
sorry tale!
Situate on the York Road, one of the greatest coach roads in England,
with open Heath on all sides, it would have been strange indeed if
Royston and the neighbourhood had not got mixed up with traditions of
Dick Turpin, and that famous ride to York in which we get a flying
vision as the horseman passes the boundaries of the two counties. The
stories of Dick Turpin, regarded as an historical figure, would not
quite fall within the limits assigned to these sketches, but as {14}
the traditions in this district which have become associated with the
name of Turpin, are a real reflection of a state of things which did
undoubtedly prevail in this locality during the latter half of the last
century, a passing reference to them will scarcely be out of place in
this concluding sketch of the old locomotion and its dangers. The
stories have unquestionably been handed down orally from father to son
in this neighbourhood, without, I believe, having appeared in cold type
hitherto. There is, for instance, the tradition of a young person
connected with one of the well-known families still represented in the
town, being accosted by a smart individual in a cocked hat, who
insisted upon kissing her, but gave her this consolation that she would
be able to say that she had been "kissed by Dick Turpin."
Among other stories associated with Dick Turpin, which have gained a
local habitation in Royston and its neighbourhood, the best known is
that which clings around the old well (now closed) in the "Hoops" Yard
in the High Street and Back Street, though other wells have been
coupled with the scene. As the story goes, Turpin on one occasion
played something of the part of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, with his
horses. Having a sort of duplicate of Black Bess, he used this animal
for his minor adventures in this neighbourhood, reserving Black Bess
for real emergencies. He had been out on one of these errands,
probably across the Heath, leaving Black Bess in the stables in the
Hoops Yard in the Back Street. As luck would have it he was so hotly
pursued by the officers of the law, that the pattering of their horses
was pretty close upon him down the street. Finding himself almost at
bay, with the perspiring horse to testify against him, he conceived and
promptly carried out the bold expedient of backing the tell-tale horse
into the well in the inn yard! He had only just accomplished this
desperate feat and rushed into the house and jumped into bed, when his
pursuers rode up and demanded their man. With the utmost coolness the
highwayman denied having been out, and advised them to examine his
mare, which they would find in the stall, and they would see that she
had never been out at all that night. The party proceeded to the
stables where they found, as Turpin had told them, that Black Bess was
indeed without a wet hair upon her and could not have been ridden!
They were obliged to accept this evidence as establishing Turpin's
innocence, and he escaped the clutches of the law by the sacrifice of
one of his steeds!
Another story, reflecting the hero's manner of tempering the demands of
his profession with generosity, is that on one occasion a Therfield
labouring man was returning home across the wilds of Royston Heath,
with his week's wages in his pocket, when he met with Dick Turpin. In
answer to the demand for his money the man pleaded that it was all he
had to support his wife and children. The {15} highwayman's code,
however, was inexorable, and the money had to be handed over, but with
a promise from the highwayman that if he would meet him at a certain
spot another night it should be returned to him. The man made the best
of what seemed a hard bargain, but on going to the trysting place, his
money was returned to him with substantial interest! Upon this one may
very well add the sentiment of the boy who, on finding the place in his
hand for a tip suddenly occupied by one of Turpin's guineas, is made to
remark:--"And so that be Dick Turpin folks talk so much about! Well,
he's as civil speaking a chap as need be; blow my boots if he ain't!"
Of course these are only legends, but the desire to be impartial, is, I
hope, perfectly consistent with a tender regard for the legendary
background of history. To subject a legend or tradition to the logical
process of reasoning and analysis, is like crushing a butterfly or
breaking a scent bottle, and expecting still to keep the beauty of the
one and the fragrance of the other. I do not, therefore, push the
inquiry further than to remark that legend and tradition are generally
the reflection of a certain amount of truth, and the truth in this case
is that highwaymen and their practices were closely identified with
this district. The case of Gatward is the strongest possible proof
that travelling along the great cross roads meeting at Royston, was
very frequently interrupted by the exploits of highwaymen possessing
some at least of the accomplishments indicated by one of the characters
in Ainsworth's story, that it was "as necessary for a man to be a
gentleman before he can turn highwayman, as for a doctor to have his
diploma or an attorney his certificate." I am able to add, on the
authority of the _Cambridge Chronicle_ for the year 1765, the files of
which are preserved in the Cambridge University Library, that Royston
Heath and the road _across it_--for the Heath was then on both sides of
the Baldock Road--and especially that part of the road along what was
then known as Odsey Heath, near the present Ashwell Railway Station,
was at that time (and also later) infested by highwaymen, whom the old
_Chronicle_ describes as "wearing oil-skin hoods over their faces, and
well-mounted and well-spoken."
Intimately connected with the old locomotion, and with the exploits of
highwaymen, were the landmarks, such as old mile-stones and old
hostelries, the one to tell the pace of the traveller, and the other to
invite a welcome halt by the way!
Those who have travelled much along the old turnpike road from Barkway
by the Flint House to Cambridge, must have noticed the monumental
character of the mile-stones with their bold Roman figures, denoting
the distances. These mile-stones, an old writer says, were the first
set up in England. I do not know whether this be true or not, but as
the writer at the same time commented upon the system adopted {16} of
marking the stones with Roman figures, and as the mile-stones still
remaining along that road bear dates, in Roman figures, between thirty
and forty years before the time the above was written, they must be the
identical stones he is referring to.
The following particulars of these old milestones (contributed by Mr.
W. M. Palmer, of Charing Cross Hospital, London) are taken from the MS.
collections for a History of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. [Add. MSS.,
5859, Brit. Mus.]
Dr. William Mowse, Master of Trinity Hall (1586), and Mr. Robert Hare
(1599), left 1,600 pounds in trust to Trinity Hall, the interest of
which was to mend the highways "in et circa villam nostram Cantabrigiae
praecipue versus Barkway."
On October 20th, 1725, Dr. Wm. Warren, Master of Trinity Hall, had the
first five mile-stones set up, starting from Great St. Mary's Church.
On June 25th, 1726, another five stones were set up. And on June 15th,
1727, five more were set up. The sixteenth mile was measured and ended
at the sign of the Angel, at Barkway, but no stone was then set up.
Of these stones, the fifth, tenth, and fifteenth, were large stones,
each about six feet high, and having the Trinity Hall arms cut on them,
viz., sable, a crescent in Fess ermine, with a bordure engrailed of the
2nd. The others were small, having simply the number of miles cut on
them. Between the years 1728 and 1732, Dr. Warren caused all these
small mile-stones to be replaced by larger ones, each bearing the
college arms. The sixteenth mile-stone was set up on May 29th, 1728.
In addition to the Trinity College arms there were placed upon the
first stone the arms of Dr. Mowse, and on the Barkway stone those of
Mr. Hare. The crescent of the Trinity Hall arms may still be easily
recognised on the Barkway stone, and on others along the road to
Cambridge.
Bright spots in the older locomotion were the road-side inns, and if
the testimony of old travellers is to be credited, the way-farer met
with a degree of hospitality which made some amends for the
difficulties and dangers of the road, and of course figured in the bill
to a degree which gave the older Boniface a comfortable subsistence
such as his successors to-day would never dream of. But the most
characteristic thing about these old inns was the outward sign of their
presence, ever seeming to say "know ye all men by these presents," &c.
At the entrance to every village the eye of the traveller would fall
upon an erection having a mixed resemblance to a gibbet, a gallows, and
a triumphal arch, extended across the village street, and in many
villages {18} he would have to pass beneath more than one of these
erections, upon which were suspended the signs of the road-side inns----
Where village Statesmen tallied with looks profound,
And news, much older than their ale, went round.
[Illustration: THE "FOX AND HOUNDS," BARLEY, HERTS.]
These picturesque features of our rural country life have now
disappeared almost as entirely as the parish stocks. Perhaps the most
perfect specimen in existence, and one which could have hardly been
rivalled for picturesqueness even in the old days, is that which still
points the modern wayfarer to the "Fox and Hounds," in the village of
Barley, near Royston, where the visitor may see Reynard making his way
across the beam overhead, from one side of the street to the other,
into the "cover" of a sort of kennel in the thatch roof, with hounds
and huntsmen in full cry behind him! This old picturesque scene was
painted some time ago by Mr. H. J. Thurnall, and the picture exhibited
in one of the Scottish Exhibitions, and as the canvas may out-live the
structure, the artist will have preserved what was an extremely
interesting feature of rural life in the last century.
The illustration on the preceding page gives a good idea of this
characteristic old sign, and of those of the period under review, and
also of the point of view from which Mr. Thurnall's picture is taken,
viz., from the position of a person looking down the hill towards
Royston.
Upon this question of old signs it may not be out of place to add that
when George III. was King local tradesmen in Royston had their signs,
and especially the watchmakers, of which the following are
specimens:--In 1767 we find an announcement of William Warren, watch
and clock-maker at the "Dial and Crown," in the High Street, Royston,
near the Red Lion; and again that:--
"William Valentine, clock and watch-maker at the 'Dial and Sun,' in
Royston, begs leave to inform his friends that he has taken the
business of the late Mr. Kefford" [where he had been previously
employed].
These glimpses of our forefathers "getting on wheels," of the highways,
their passengers, their dangers, and their welcome signs of halting
places by the way, may perhaps be allowed to conclude with the
following curious inscription to be seen upon an old sign on a
chandler's shop in a village over the borders in Suffolk, in 1776:--
Har lifs won woo Cuers a Goose,
Gud Bare. Bako. sole Hare.
The modern rendering of which would be--
Here lives one who cures Agues,
Good Beer, Tobacco sold here.
{19}