and speedy communication with the south heard, the London mail went by
mounted post-boys, through Edinburgh. At that time the road to Glasgow
went through Moffat and steeply up over Ericstane Brae, where it was
improved or “turnpiked,” about 1776, but improved, it would seem, in
no very substantial manner, for it is recorded that “seventy carts of
merchants’ goods” using it weekly had caused it to fall into disrepair.
Such remained the condition of affairs when mail-coaches were
established elsewhere, and gave the growing commercial city of Glasgow
hopes of acquiring a direct service of its own. Such a service meant
much to the Glasgow of that day, already grown commercially important.
It was pointed out to the Post Office that already, since 1776, the
Glasgow and Carlisle Diligence had found it possible to travel this
route; and what was possible to private enterprise should be possible
also to Government. To induce the Post Office to establish a mail by
this route, through Carlisle, the Glasgow merchants and the Chamber of
Commerce went so far as to subscribe handsomely to eke out the slender
pay offered contractors, and on this basis the mail was established in
June 1788. But the Post Office was not content. The road in general was
rough and stony, and the Secretary was for ever threatening to withdraw
the coach, if the worst places were not repaired. In 1795, Provost
Dunlop was informed that the Carlisle and Glasgow mail might have to
be discontinued in favour of the old route by Edinburgh, involving a
loss of one whole day. Glasgow appealed to the Government to stay this
threatened calamity, and to repair the road south of Elvanfoot. It was
pointed out that Lord Douglas had expended £4,000 on the road between
Lesmahagow and the Hassockwell Burn, near the Devil’s Beef Tub, and
that the city had already done much for it. The road, it was added,
was not, after all, a local highway, but part of the great national
route, north and south, and, as such, rightly the especial charge of
the Government. Going through the wild, little-travelled watershed
between Clyde and Annan, it could never be adequately repaired from the
proceeds of any tolls it was possible to charge. It was further urged
that the Government had itself impoverished the road, the mail-coaches
being by law exempt from all tolls, and thus being able to carry
passengers more cheaply than the stage-coaches, which paid heavily,
and, unable to compete on equal terms, had, between 1788 and 1795, been
driven off the route. Thus the turnpikes lost their dues at every turn.
To all this the Post Office turned a deaf ear. The Department knew
perfectly well how greatly Glasgow appreciated the expediting of its
mails by one day, and was convinced that its merchants would make
considerable sacrifices to retain the advantage. The Department was
entirely correct. An Act was obtained, at the instance of the Glasgow
Chamber of Commerce, empowering the Evan Water Trustees to make and
maintain a new road over the watershed, in place of the old road at
Ericstane Brae, described in the Act, George the Third, c. 21, 1798, as
“very steep and hazardous for all wheel carriages, and dangerous for
travellers.”
But it was one thing to “empower” the Trustees to do this, and quite
another, and not so easy an one, to find the money. It was eventually
raised by subscriptions. The merchants of Glasgow, the public
institutions of the city, and a number of English mill-owners between
them subscribed £6,000, and the road was begun; firstly from Elvanfoot
to Summit Level, and thence down Evan Water to Beattock, there
joining the Edinburgh, Moffat, and Dumfries turnpike; and secondly, a
continuation of this road by a diagonal line across the level Dale of
Annan to Dinwoodie Green, eleven miles south of Moffat, on the Glasgow,
Moffat, and Carlisle turnpike.
The works, as already said, were begun, and the first section, from
Elvanfoot to Beattock, was completed in 1808; but then the funds became
exhausted, and the Dumfriesshire people, who had been expected to do
the rest, would not, or could not, do it. So the road had to go, after
all, round by Moffat; turning sharply to the left at Langbedholm, two
miles north of Beattock, and thence made its way by the Chapel Brae
to Moffat, and south, as before, by Wamphray, Woodfoot, and Dinwoodie
Green.
[Illustration: THE GLASGOW MAIL.
[_After James Pollard._
]
Even this half-realised plan was preferable to the rugged round by
Ericstane Muir; but no sooner was the new road made than the old
question of repairs was again raised. The tolls were insufficient to
pay expenses, and the wear and tear of the elements and the traffic
could not be made good. What it was like in 1812 we learn from the
writings of Colonel Hawker, who, travelling this way at that time,
describes it as having been mended with large soft quarry-stones, at
first like brickbats, and afterwards like sand. Bad as this was, it
was the best that could be done with the resources available; and
the Post Office continued hard-hearted, Hasker, the Superintendent
of Mail Coaches, threatening continually to withdraw the mail and
send it round by Edinburgh. In 1810, the various Trusts concerned
had approached Parliament for a redress of their grievances, without
result, but at last, in 1813, an Act was passed repealing the exemption
of mail-coaches from toll in Scotland, where the population was (it
was at length conceded) scanty, and tolls yielded a miserably small sum.
[Sidenote: _CHECK AND CHECKMATE_]
But the Post Office had as many turns as an old and often-hunted
dog-fox, and, declining to be baulked, violated the spirit of this
concession by an ingenious trick. What had been given by the Act, the
Department took away again by the simple expedient of raising the
postage on letters to Scotland by one halfpenny each, aggregating an
increase of £6,000 per annum. It was quite like a game of chess.
To this move the Scottish Trusts replied by raising their tolls against
the mails, with the result that the Post Office was made to pay £12,000
per annum more. They cried metaphorically, if not actually, “Check!”
The next move was with the Superintendent, who responded by taking off
a number of the mails, by way of warning to Glasgow.
Checkmate!
This was, of course, very interesting as a trial of strength and
endurance, but was, after all, a little unworthy, and scarcely the way
to conduct the business of a nation. The fact, indeed, seems to have
been soon realised, for the Government, on December 7th, 1814, took
the whole matter up, and the Treasury instructed Telford to “make a
proper survey, plan, and estimate” for amending the whole course of the
road between Carlisle and Glasgow, and to report to a special House of
Commons Committee. Telford surveyed the road, and in 1815 reported:
“The existing declivities, direction, and construction are so bad
that for many years the road has been with difficulty kept open.” He
submitted detailed plans for its improvement, and assured the Committee
that they would, if adopted, shorten the distance, then 102-1/2 miles,
by nearly 9 miles, and the time occupied in travelling by at least the
equivalent of 9 more.
Hasker’s evidence before the Committee showed that the Post Office
seriously contemplated sending the mail by Edinburgh—a six-hours’
longer journey each way.
A commendable feature of those times was that when it did at last
come to a Committee being appointed, results were very soon shown. On
June 28th, 1815, not long after Telford’s report had been received,
the Committee in its turn reported unanimously that his plan ought to
be carried out, and that the Government should grant substantial aid
towards the cost, estimated at £80,000. A year later—July 1st, 1816—an
“Act for a grant of £50,000 for the Road from the City of Glasgow to
the City of Carlisle” was passed; the work to be managed by the already
existing Commissioners of Highland Roads and Bridges. Voluminous
reports, with plans, exist, among the Parliamentary papers of that age,
showing how the work progressed to its completion; and the traveller of
to-day who explores the districts between Carlisle and Glasgow will see
for himself, in the contrast between the extravagant gradients of the
old road in the neighbourhood of Moffat, and the easy rise and fall of
Telford’s new stretches of highway, how thoroughly the work was done.
XXXIII
[Sidenote: _MOFFAT_]
Moffat, in these days a neat and quiet townlet relying upon the waters
of its Sulphur Well for its prosperity, lies in a hollow of the
mountains. As to which is the neater and cleaner of the two—Lockerbie
or Moffat—I will not be so rash as to hazard an opinion, but no one
is likely to dispute the fact that “Moaffet” is the quieter. For one
thing, this quietude is one of its principal assets, and although it
has a railway station, the fact of its being merely the terminus of
a two-mile branch from Beattock will be sufficient to prove that the
quiet is not greatly disturbed by trains.
There is nothing very striking in the appearance of Moffat, beyond this
remarkable neatness and the breadth of its High Street; the centre of
the town, in its mingling of shops and villas, and the ever-present
spaciousness, indeed, resembling the ordinary suburbs of less restful
places. But one singular object that has claims neither to antiquity
nor beauty, stands in midst of the broad street and tells the stranger
that Moffat and its neighbourhood are celebrated for something else
than a medicinal spa and a great hydropathic establishment. This is
the Colvin Fountain, presented to the town by William Colvin, of
the neighbouring Craigielands, and surmounted by the effigy of a
contemplative-looking ram, in allusion to the sheep-farming that has
given prosperity to the district.
The Auld Kirk of Moffat, belonging to an era very different from this,
stands appropriately secluded in the old kirkyard that is locked and
barred against casual entry. The Auld Kirk is in ruins, and that is
appropriate too; for what bond of sympathy can there be between the
rather smug, self-satisfied character of the modern hypochondriacs who,
metaphorically (and sometimes actually) lapped in cotton-wool, now
resort to Moffat, and the stern Covenanters who were dragooned in the
surrounding braes and on the inclement fells, and passed a night in
prison in the Auld Kirk, before being conducted to the small mercies
awaiting them in Edinburgh? No: the historic building is rightly left
alone to its memories.
But this thorough locking of the old churchyards in Scotland is a
little revolting to an Englishman. It seems to emphasise, to the point
of callousness, the fact that the day of the dead is indeed done; and
hints that they not only have no part in the world, but none in the
thoughts of their own kin.
Here lies the great road-reformer, John Loudon Macadam, and few are
those who, turning aside to seek his epitaph, trouble further to have
the gates unlocked. Macadam was born at Ayr in 1756, and died at
Duncrieff House, Moffat, in 1836, after having made an imperishable
name in the annals of the road, and contributing a new verb, “to
macadamise,” to the language.
[Sidenote: _BURNS_]
Situated on one of the two roads from Carlisle to Edinburgh, Moffat had
of old-time a goodly number of inns. Among them the “Annandale Arms”
and the “Spur” were immediate competitors. There are Burns associations
with the “Spur,” but much more intimate ones with the “Old Black Bull”
inn, which remains very much the same plain whitewashed stone house it
was in the poet’s day. The tale is told how he, with some cronies, was
drinking in a window-seat of the inn when they saw two ladies ride by
on horseback; one of them so pretty and so small that she was known as
“one of the Graces in miniature.” “Odd,” said one of the public-house
loungers, “that one should be so little and the other so big”;
whereupon Burns wrote on a window-pane:
Ask why God made the gem so small,
And why so huge the granite?
Because God meant mankind should set
The greater value on it.
A very pretty compliment to the little lady, but uncommonly hard, by
implication, on the full-sized one. The pane of glass was long ago
removed, and is supposed to be now at Dumfries.
The famed Sulphur Well is situated a mile and a half away from Moffat,
in a Swiss-like châlet on a rugged hillside 300 feet above the town.
Some walk to it, others ride, and for two-pence you can drink as much
of the almost incredibly nasty water as you please. The first tumbler
is, to taste and smell (it smells like “election eggs” or assafœtida),
more than enough for the strongest stomach, and seems to be brewed in
an inner laboratory of the infernal regions. But the second glass—if
you are ill enough or courageous enough to take a second—seems not
so bad, and visitors by degrees become perfect gluttons for it. The
water is a specific for rheumatism and gout, among other things, and
was known so long ago as 1633, when Rachel Whiteford, daughter of the
parson of Moffat, benefited by it. In 1659, Dr. Matthew McKaile, of
Edinburgh, wrote a pamphlet in Latin about its virtues, and thereafter
the fame of the Well has taken care of itself. But the invigorating air
of the mountains has, no doubt, at least an equal share in restoring
many of the invalids to health.
The rugged and forbidding scenery around Moffat culminates on the
Edinburgh Road at the gloomy hollow of the hills called the “Devil’s
Beef Tub,” which is said to have acquired its name from this being a
favourite place among the cattle-thieves of yore to hide their stolen
cattle. The “Beef Tub” is really a deeper and more rugged version of
the “Devil’s Punch Bowl” on the Portsmouth Road. Sir Walter Scott,
who romantically says “It looks as if four hills were laying their
heads together to shut daylight from the dark, hollow space between
them,” tells in “Redgauntlet” how a prisoner being marched past the
spot, breaking from his guards, escaped by throwing himself down and
_rolling_ to the bottom.
[Sidenote: _TRAGEDY OF THE SNOW_]
This wild country was the scene of a mail-coach tragedy on February
1st, 1831, when the Dumfries and Edinburgh mail was snowed up at
Moffat. Eager to perform their duty, the driver and guard procured
saddle-horses and flung the mail-bags across them, but a few minutes’
effort proved that it was impossible to proceed with the horses,
and the two undaunted men sent them back to Moffat, and went on by
themselves, afoot. It was an enterprise of the most hopeless kind,
impossible to be accomplished. They sank down exhausted, near this
gorge, and perished in the snow. Their bodies were found, a week later,
and the mail-bags they had carefully hung upon a wayside snow-post,
hard by.
To-day, in the old kirkyard of Moffat, two stones to the memory
of these brave men, “faithful unto death,” may be found, with the
inscriptions:
Erected by Subscription in 1835.
Sacred to the Memory of James MacGeorge, Guard of the Dumfries
and Edinburgh Royal Mail, who unfortunately perished at the age
of 47, near Tweedshaws, after the most strenuous exertions in the
performance of his duty, during that memorable snowstorm 1st February
1831,
and
In memory of John Goodfellow, Driver of the Edinburgh Mail Coach,
who perished on Errick Stane in a snowstorm on 1st February 1831, in
kindly assisting his fellow-sufferer, the Guard, to carry forward the
Mail-Bags.
The local _Courier_ newspaper of the time, with more truth than
feeling, described the act of these devoted servants of the Post
Office as “an exaggerated sense of duty.”
If you go far enough past the Devil’s Beef Tub and Tweedshaws, where
the river Tweed rises, you come, along this old road to Edinburgh, to
the “Crook” inn, where the poet Campbell had a curious experience.
Taking a generous glass of toddy, he went to bed. Presently there came
a knock at the door, and there entered the pretty maiden who had given
him supper. “Please, sir, could ye tak’ a neebour into your bed?”
“With all my heart,” exclaimed the poet, starting up gaily.
“Thank you, sir; for the Moffat carrier’s come in, a’ wat, and there’s
no’ a single other place.”
This was not what the poet expected. Up came the big reeking man, and
exit the little woman.
XXXIV
The old Glasgow road, that goes up from Moffat past Meikleholmside,
and so across Ericstane Muir, is everything a road should not be. It
is steep, narrow, exposed, and rugged, and, except as an object-lesson
in what our ancestors had to put up with, is a very undesirable route
and one in which no one would wish to find himself. It has not even the
merit of being picturesque.
The road that Telford made continues onward from Beattock in more suave
fashion. It follows the glen of Evan Water for nine miles, and the
three of them—road, river, and Caledonian Railway—go amicably side by
side under the hills, to Beattock Summit and down to Elvanfoot, where
the Elvanfoot Inn of other days now stands as a shooting-lodge.
[Illustration: BROKEN BRIDGE.]
Elvanfoot Bridge, that carries the road over the Evan (_i.e._ Avon)
Water, looks down upon a pretty scene of rushing stream, boulders, and
ferns, or “furruns,” as a Scotsman would enunciate the word.
[Sidenote: _A SMASH IN THE DARK_]
It was here, late on the tempestuous and rainy night of October 25th,
1808, that the most terrifying and dramatic accident of any that ever
befell the mail coaches occurred. It is not without due thought and
choice of words that we have called it dramatic, for the happening
was precisely of that thrilling spectacular character cherished by
theatrical managers whose public demands sensation.
The Evan Water was in flood this black and boisterous night, and,
raving in its stony bed, tore furiously at the newly rebuilt bridge
that spanned the torrent. Down through the wild obscurity from the
heights above Douglas Mill came the mail from Glasgow for Carlisle, and
no sooner did the horses place foot upon the bridge than it collapsed,
as suddenly and completely as any stage property. It was near ten
o’clock, the insides had composed themselves to that semblance of sleep
which coach travellers could command, and the outsides had wrapped
themselves up in their greatcoats, and had so fixed their minds upon
more pleasant circumstances than riding in the rain on a cold October
night, that they were practically oblivious of their surroundings,
when they were suddenly plunged, with the coach, coachman, horses, and
guard, into the foaming water underneath the broken arch. There were
two outside passengers: one a City merchant named Lund, the other a Mr.
Brand of Ecclefechan. Both were instantly killed. The four insides, a
lady and three gentlemen, were more fortunate, and escaped with bruises
and a fright. The horses suffered severely, the leaders being killed
in falling, and one of the wheelers crushed to death, as it lay below,
by falling stones from the crumbling arch. The coach and harness were
utterly destroyed, and Alexander Cooper, the coachman, although found
protected from being washed away by two huge boulders, only survived
by a few weeks the injuries his spine had received. The guard, Thomas
Kingham, was found with his head cut open, but soon recovered. He
always considered his escape from being killed was due to his not
having strapped himself into his seat on that fatal night, so that,
instead of being involved with the coach, he was shot clear of it, into
the water.
It was due to the presence of mind shown by the lady passenger that the
down mail, at that moment due to pass this tragical spot, did not meet
the fate that had already overtaken this unfortunate coach. She had
found a temporary refuge on a friendly rock rising amidst the surging
water, and crouching there, saw the lamps of the oncoming coach glaring
through the mist and rain. Shrieking at the highest pitch of her voice,
she fortunately attracted the attention of the coachman, who drew up on
the very verge of destruction.
[Sidenote: _MODESTY OUT OF PLACE_]
The first care of the guard belonging to the new arrival was to
rescue this lady from her position. Hugh Campbell was not like the
conventional heroes of the theatre, who make nothing of grasping the
heroine round the waist, and, striking an attitude, so removing her to
a place of safety with an air suggesting a whimsical combination of a
Chesterfield and a bold bad bandit. No, he set about the task with a
modest diffidence which somewhat exasperated the lady herself. Climbing
down with the broken reins lashed together, so that those above could
haul her up, he asked doubtfully, “Whaur will I grip her?”
“Grip me whaur ye like,” said she, “but grip me sicker”; and he
accordingly tied her up securely and she was hoisted to the road above,
without more ado.
The down mail returned to Moffat with a heavy and mournful load,
including the dead and injured passengers of the up coach. The only
uninjured horse was led behind.
For many years the bridge was not properly mended, funds being scarce
on these roads; and the mail, slowing for it, lost five minutes on
every journey. The part that fell may still be traced by the shorter
lime stalactites hanging from the repaired arch. It is still known as
“Broken Bridge,” in addition to “Milestone Brig,” from the milestone on
it, marking the midway distance between Carlisle and Glasgow: “Carlisle
47-1/2 miles. Glasgow 47 miles.”
The Caledonian Railway, approaching this scene, crosses the Evan Water
on a bridge which looks as though a Norman consulting architect had
been raised from the dead to design. It passes in a shallow cutting
over a scrubby moor, protected against being embedded in winter’s snows
by a close palisade of timber on either side.
The road now, with Crawford in the distance, sharply bends, and crosses
the infant Clyde at New Bridge.
Crawford, situated in a wide strath, or green vale, where several
streams join the Clyde, is a scattered village whose white houses
show pleasantly at great distances. It is a favourite place among the
wealthier Glasgow folk who like rural holidays. The New Crawford Inn of
coaching days, a substantial, mansion-like building, opened in 1822,
on the completion of this portion of Telford’s new road, is still in
business as the “Cranstoun Hotel.” The old road, from Elvanfoot, goes
straighter than the new one to Abington, but with severe gradients;
while the new continues its even way alongside the river, to Abington,
where it bids good-bye to the Clyde altogether, until Bothwell is
reached.
[Illustration: “BRIG O’ CLYDE.”]
[Sidenote: _ABINGTON_]
Abington is a typical Scottish anglers’ resort: just a tiny place
with an inn, a post-office, a few cottages, and a fine park or two;
very neat, very still, and looking very expensive and exclusive. A
gamekeeper, or an angler in waders, with rod and creel, are almost the
only figures seen here, in the road.
Beyond Abington, the river and the rail alike turn aside and leave
the road to solitude. Not even Telford’s road-engineering genius
could abolish the ghastly pull-up over the bleak and beastly moor
that stretches between this point and Douglas Mill. You deceptively
descend to it, to Denighton Bridge, crossing a little stream that comes
down the valley from Crawfordjohn, but then rise to an exposed lonely
plateau, bleaker than Shap and without its interest. Down at Denighton
Bridge, where the view ranges along the gloomy valley wherein the
Covenanters skulked and the troopers of Montrose hunted them, the sheep
graze and the lambkins frisk in spring. Even a wet and cold cyclist
(who is not easily amused) must shriek with laughter at the antics of
the lambs, which are a good deal funnier than those of any low comedian
I have ever seen. No need to encore them either, for they continue all
day, or at least until, exhausted with laughter, you depart, to face
the muir above.
Heaven send the traveller who travels here by his own efforts has fine
weather and a following wind, otherwise his progress is slow martyrdom
along eight miles of shivery loneliness, and thrice welcome is the
longed-for descent to Douglas Mill.
The Douglas Water runs in a deep and beautifully wooded valley at
Douglas Mill, where the wayside Douglas Mill Inn stood in the coaching
era, and where, behind an imposing gravelled sweep, the entrance to the
beautiful park of the Earl of Home is seen. For five miles another
stretch of old road goes to the right, across Broken Cross Muir, as
far as Lesmahagow: the new road pursuing an eventful course, past the
Newfield Inn.
Lesmahagow, _i.e._ the Court, or Place, of Mahego, an early Gaelic
saint, was once the site of an Abbey. It is now a small, but
prosperous, town, looking very new and neat, in spite of the fact that
it is situated on the edge of the Lanark coal-field. The traveller
who pursues a dogged way along the road, and looks to neither right
nor left, will know nothing of Lesmahagow, which lies slightly to the
left hand; and I am sure he will not miss much. But, in the crossing
of old and new roads here, at the bridging of the little river Nethan,
and with the railway passing near by, a singular complexity of ways is
produced.
[Sidenote: _THE LANARKSHIRE COALFIELD_]
From this point, on to the very outskirts of Glasgow, the great
industrial districts of Lanark display their activities before the
traveller in no uncertain manner. Passing Blackwood, the centre of the
colliery district is reached at Larkhall, and miners, going to and
from work, are the chief wayfarers. The coal of the Lanarkshire pits
is of an inferior kind, and by no means well-suited for domestic use,
burning dull, and apt to fly in explosive red-hot embers on to carpets
and hearth-rugs. But it is not a gassy coal, and the miners are able to
go to their work with naked lights. Hence the little oil-lamp which,
strung to his cap, is the mark of every Lanark coal-getter.
[Illustration: HAMILTON PALACE.]