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THE BATH ROAD
* * * * *
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
THE BRIGHTON ROAD: Old Times and New on a Classic Highway.
THE PORTSMOUTH ROAD, and its Tributaries, To-day, and in Days of Old.
THE DOVER ROAD: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike.
THE EXETER ROAD: The Story of the West of England Highway. [_In the
Press._
* * * * *
[Illustration: GEORGE THE THIRD TRAVELLING FROM WINDSOR TO LONDON, 1806.
(_After R. B. Davis._)]
THE BATH ROAD
History, Fashion, & Frivolity on an Old Highway
by
CHARLES G. HARPER
Author of "The Brighton Road," "The Portsmouth Road,"
"The Dover Road," &c. &c.
[Illustration]
Illustrated by the Author, and from Old Prints and Pictures
London: Chapman & Hall, Limited
1899
(_All Rights Reserved_)
Printed by
William Clowes and Sons, Limited,
London and Beccles.
TO E. T. COOK, ESQ.
_Dear Mr. Cook,_
_It was by your favour, as Editor of the_ DAILY NEWS, _that the very gist
of this book first saw the light, in the form of two articles in the
columns of that paper. It seems, then, peculiarly appropriate that these
pages--representing, in the measurements common to journalists and
authors, a growth from four thousand to some sixty thousand words--should
be inscribed to yourself._
_Sincerely yours_,
CHARLES G. HARPER.
_Preface_
_This, the fourth volume in a series of books having for its object the
preservation of so much of the Story of the Roads as may be interesting to
the reading public, has been completed after considerable delay. The_
DOVER ROAD, _which preceded the present work, was published so long ago as
the close of 1895, and in that book the_ BATH ROAD _was (prematurely, it
should seem, indeed) described as "In the Press." Attention is drawn to
the fact, partly in order to point out how quickly and how surely the
old-time aspects of the roads are disappearing; for, since the_ BATH ROAD
_has been in progress, no fewer than four of the old inns pictured in
these pages have disappeared, while great stretches of the road, once
rural, have become suburban, and suburban streets have been so altered
that they are in no wise distinguishable from those of town. It is because
they will preserve the appearance and the memory of buildings that have
had their day and are now being swept off the face of the earth, that it
is hoped these volumes will find a welcome with those who care to cherish
something of the records of a day that is done._
CHARLES G. HARPER.
PETERSHAM, SURREY,
_February, 1899_.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
SEPARATE PLATES
PAGE
1. GEORGE THE THIRD TRAVELLING FROM WINDSOR TO LONDON,
1806. (_After R. B. Davis_) Frontispiece.
2. COACHING MISERIES. (_After Rowlandson_) 7
3. PASSENGERS REFRESHED AFTER A LONG DAY'S JOURNEY.
(_After Rowlandson_) 13
4. THE "WHITE BEAR," PICCADILLY 23
5. ALLEN'S STALL AT HYDE PARK CORNER, ABOUT 1756 35
6. HYDE PARK CORNER, 1797 41
7. KENSINGTON HIGH STREET, SUMMER SUNSET 47
8. COLNBROOK, A DECAYED COACHING TOWN 101
9. AN ENGLISH ROAD 125
10. MAIDENHEAD THICKET 131
11. THE STAGE WAGGON. (_After Rowlandson_) 139
12. THEALE 143
13. WOOLHAMPTON 147
14. RAIL AND RIVER: THE KENNET AND THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY 151
15. AT THE 55TH MILESTONE 155
16. HUNGERFORD 169
17. MARLBOROUGH 189
18. FYFIELD 195
19. MARLBOROUGH DOWNS, NEAR WEST OVERTON 199
20. THE WHITE HORSE, CHERHILL 207
21. THE OLD MARKET HOUSE, CHIPPENHAM 211
22. BOX VILLAGE 225
23. BATHAMPTON MILL 229
24. PRIOR PARK 247
25. BATH ABBEY: THE WEST FRONT 261
26. THE ROMAN BATH, RESTORED 265
ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT
Old Village Lock-up, Cranford (_Title-page_)
Sign of the "White Bear," now at Fickles Hole 25
The "White Horse" Inn, Fetter Lane. Demolished 1898 30
Courtyard of the "Old Bell," Holborn. Demolished 1897 32
Hyde Park Corner, 1786 37
Hyde Park Corner, 1792 39
The "Halfway House," 1848 43
"Oldest Inhabitant" 50
Thackeray's House, Young Street 54
The "White Horse." Traditional Retreat of Addison 55
The "Red Cow," Hammersmith. Demolished 1897 57
Robin Hood and Little John 64
The "Old Windmill" 65
The "Old Pack Horse" 67
Kew Bridge, Low Water 69
Cottages, supposed to have been the Haunts of Dick Turpin 72
A Bath Road Pump 85
The "Berkeley Arms" 86
Cranford House 88
The "Old Magpies" 90
The "Gothic Barn," Harmondsworth 95
Old Flail, Harmondsworth 96
The County Boundary 98
Almshouses, Langley 104
The Stolen Fountain 105
Windsor Castle, from the Road near Slough 106
The "Bell and Bottle" Sign 133
Palmer's Statue 135
Thatcham 149
Inscription, Newbury Church 157
Old Cloth Hall, Newbury 160
The last of the Smock-frocks and Beavers 164
Curious old Toll-house 165
Hungerford Tutti-men 171
Littlecote 176
The Haunted Chamber 178
Roadside Inn, Manton 194
Avebury 201
Silbury Hill 202
Cross Keys 218
The Hungerford Almshouse, Corsham Regis 221
Entrance to Box Quarries 224
The Sun God 233
Roman inscribed tablet 235
The Batheaston Vase 242
"Sham Castle" 249
Old Pulteney Bridge 253
Illustrations to Old Advertisements 258, 259
THE ROAD TO BATH
London (Hyde Park Corner) to-- MILES
Kensington--
St. Mary Abbots 1-3/4
Addison Road 2-1/2
Hammersmith 3-1/4
Turnham Green 5
Brentford--
Star Gates 6
Town Hall (cross River Brent and Grand Junction Canal) 7
Isleworth (Railway Station) 8-1/2
Hounslow (Trinity Church) 9-3/4
Cranford Bridge (cross River Crane) 12-1/4
Harlington Corner 13
Longford (cross River Colne) 15-1/4
Colnbrook (cross River Colne) 17
Langley Broom ("King William IV." Inn) 18-1/2
Slough ("Crown" Hotel) 20-1/2
Salt Hill 21-1/4
Maidenhead (cross River Thames) 26
Littlewick 29-1/4
Knowl Hill 31
Hare Hatch 32-1/4
Twyford (cross River Loddon) 34
Reading (cross River Kennet) 39
Calcot Green 41-1/2
Theale 44
Woolhampton 49-1/4
Thatcham (cross River Lambourne) 52-3/4
Speenhamland}
} 55-3/4
Newbury }
Church Speen 56-3/4
Hungerford (cross River Kennet) 64-1/2
Froxfield (cross River Kennet) 67
Marlborough 74-1/2
Fyfield 77
Overton 78
West Kennet (cross River Kennet) 79-1/4
Beckhampton Inn 81
Cherhill 84
Quemerford (cross tributary of River Marden) 86-1/4
Calne (cross River Calne) 87-1/4
Black Dog Hill 88-3/4
Derry Hill (Swan Inn) 90-3/4
Chippenham (cross River Avon) 93-1/4
Cross Keys 96-1/2
Pickwick ("Hare and Hounds" Inn) 97-1/4
Box 100-1/4
Batheaston 103-1/2
Walcot 104-1/2
Bath (G. P. O.) 105-3/4
The BATH ROAD
I
The great main roads of England have each their especial and unmistakeable
character, not only in the nature of the scenery through which they run,
but also in their story and in the memories which cling about them. The
history of the Brighton Road is an epitome of all that was dashing and
dare-devil in the times of the Regency and the reign of George the Fourth;
the Portsmouth Road is sea-salty and blood-boltered with horrid tales of
smuggling days, almost to the exclusion of every other imaginable
characteristic of road history; and the story of the Dover Road is a very
microcosm of the nation's history. Nothing strongly characteristic of
England, Englishmen, and English customs but what you shall find a hint of
it on the Dover Road. As for the Holyhead Road, it traverses the Midland
territory of the fox-hunting and port-drinking squires, and reeks of
toasts and conjurations of "no heel-taps;" the great North Road is an
agricultural route pre-eminently; the Exeter Road the running-ground of
some of the fleetest and best-appointed coaches of the Coaching Age; while
the Bath Road was at one time the most literary and fashionable of them
all.
The best period of the Bath Road was peculiarly the era of powder and
patches; of tie-wigs, long-skirted coats, and gorgeous waistcoats; of silk
stockings and buckled shoes; when the test of a well-bred gentleman was
the making a leg and the nice carriage of a clouded cane; when a grand
lady would "protest" that a thing which challenged her admiration was
"monstrous fine," and a gallant beau would "stap his vitals" by way of
emphasis. It was a period of rigid etiquette and hollow artificiality; but
a period also of a grand literary upheaval, and an era in which people
were not, as now, merely clothed, but dressed.
Bath at this time was the most fashionable place in all England. Did my
lady suffer from that mysterious eighteenth-century complaint "the
vapours," she journeyed to "the Bath." Did my lord experience in the gout
a foretaste of the torments of that place popularly supposed to be paved
with good intentions, he also went to Bath, in his private carriage,
cursing as he went; while the halt, the lame, the afflicted of many
diseases, came this way; some posting, others by stage-coach, and yet more
riding horseback. Every invalid, hypochondriac, and _malade imaginaire_
who could afford it went to Bath, for continental spas had not then become
possible for English people, and the nauseating waters of Aix, Baden, and
other places simply trickled unheeded away.
[Sidenote: _THE BEGGARS OF BATH_]
Every invalid, in fact, who could afford it, went to Bath, and the
mentally afflicted, who could not go, were sent thither; so that the
saying which is now become proverbial (and whose origin and subtle
innuendo seem in danger of being lost) arose, "Go to Bath," with the
rider, "and get your head shaved;" the lunatics who were sent to those
healing waters usually being thus tonsured. This derisive phrase was used
toward any one who propounded a more than ordinarily crack-brained
project. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to say that it has no sort of
connection with the modern music-hall vulgarism, "Get your hair cut!"
Another theory--but one more ingenious than acceptable--has it that the
phrase derives from Bath having always been a resort of beggars. What,
then, more natural, we are asked, than for one accosted by a mendicant to
recall this topographical notoriety, and bid the rogue "go to Bath"? For,
according to Fuller, that worthy author of the "Worthies," there were
"many in that place; some natives there, others repairing thither from all
parts of the land; the poor for alms, the pained for ease. Whither should
fowl flock in a hard frost but to the barn-door? Here, all the two
seasons, being the general confluence of gentry. Indeed, laws are daily
made to restrain beggars, and daily broken by the connivance of those who
make them; it being impossible, when the hungry belly barks and bowels
sound, to keep the tongue silent. And although oil of whip be the proper
plaister for the cramp of laziness, yet some pity is due to impotent
persons. In a word, seeing there is the Lazar's-bath in this city, I
doubt not but many a good Lazarus, the true object of charity, may beg
therein." The road, then, to this City of Springs must have witnessed a
motley throng.
II
The history of travelling, from the Creation to the present time, may be
divided into four periods--those of no coaches, slow coaches, fast
coaches, and railways. The "no-coach" period is a lengthy one, stretching,
in fact, from the beginning of things, through the ages, down to the days
of the Romans, and so on to the era when pack-horses conveyed travellers
and goods along the uncertain tracks, which in the Middle Ages were all
that remained of the highways built by that masterful race. The
"slow-coach" era was preceded by an age when those few people who
travelled at all went either on horseback, with their women-folk clinging
on behind them, or else were wealthy enough to be able to afford the keep
or hire of a "chariot," as the carriages of that time were named. That
sinful old reprobate, Samuel Pepys, lived in the last days of the
"no-coach" period, and saw the arrival of the slow coaches. He was one of
those who used a chariot, and his "Diary" is full of accounts of how, on
his innumerable journeys, he lost his way because of the badness of the
roads, which then ran through vast stretches of unenclosed, uncultivated,
and sparsely inhabited country, and were so fearfully bad that in many
places the drivers did not dare to attempt such veritable "sloughs of
despond," but drove around them over the hedgeless fields, thus making
new tracks for themselves. In this way the origin of the winding character
which many of our roads still retain is sufficiently accounted for.
[Sidenote: _THE "FLYING MACHINE"_]
The "slow-coach" era was, absurdly enough, that of the "flying machines,"
and in that era, with the year 1667, the coaching history of the Bath Road
may be said to begin, when some greatly daring person issued a bill
announcing that a "flying machine" would make the journey. It is not to be
supposed that this was some emulator of Icarus or predecessor of the
ambitious folks who for the last hundred years, more or less, have been
trying to navigate the air with balloons or mechanical flying machines.
Not at all. This was simply the figurative language employed to convey to
those whom it might concern the wonderful feat that was to be attempted
("God permitting," as the advertiser was careful to add), of travelling by
road from the "Bell Savage," on Ludgate Hill, to Bath in three days. But
here is the announcement:--
"FLYING MACHINE.
"All those desirous to pass from London to Bath, or any other Place on
their Road, let them repair to the 'Bell Savage' on Ludgate Hill in
London, and the 'White Lion' at Bath, at both which places they may be
received in a Stage Coach every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, which
performs the Whole Journey in Three Days (if God permit), and sets
forth at five o'clock in the morning.
"Passengers to pay One Pound five Shillings each, who are allowed to
carry fourteen Pounds Weight--for all above to pay three-halfpence per
Pound."
The rush of fashionables to take the waters, and see and be seen, had
obviously not then commenced, since one crawling "flying machine" sufficed
to accommodate the traffic; and it was not until thirty-six years later
that it did begin, when Queen Anne (who, alas! is dead) resorted to "the
Bath" for the benefit of the gout. What says Pope?
"Great Anna, whom Three Realms obey,
Does sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tay."
If she had taken tea more consistently and drank less port, she would have
been just as great and not so gouty--and Bath would have remained in that
semi-obscurity in which it had long languished. No crowds of fashionables,
no truckling statesmen, no wits, would have hastened down the road and
peopled it so brilliantly had not Anne's big toe twinged with the torments
of the damned; and it seems likely enough that this book would never have
been written. Under the circumstances, therefore, the most appropriate
toast for the author and the Mayor and Corporation of Bath to honour is
that favourite old one, "High Church, High Farming, and Old Port for
Ever," especially the last, "coupling with it," as they used to say before
the custom of giving toasts died out, the honoured memory of Queen Anne.
Another three-days-a-week coach then began to ply between London and Bath.
In 1711 it had a rival, and five years later saw the establishment of the
first daily coach from London. Thomas Baldwin, citizen and cooper of
London, saw money in the venture, and, like the hero of one of Bret
Harte's verses, who "saw his duty a dead sure thing," he "went for it,
there and then." He would seem to have secured it, too, for he held the
road for many years against all rivals, and was, moreover, landlord of one
of the foremost hostelries on the road--the "Crown," at Salt Hill.
[Illustration: COACHING MISERIES. (_After Rowlandson._)]
His rivals were many, and, considering the popularity to which Bath soon
attained, they must all have done well. Indeed, the establishment of a new
coach to Bath would now appear to have been a favourite form of
speculation, and Londoners found many such advertisements as the
following:--
"_Daily Advertiser._ April 9, 1737.
"For Bath.
"A good Coach and able Horses will set out from the 'Black Swan' Inn,
in Holborn, on Wednesday or Thursday.
"Enquire of WILLIAM MAUD."
[Sidenote: _COACHING MISERIES_]
The invalid who trusted himself to the stage-coach of that period had,
however, many risks to run. Doctors might recommend the waters, but before
the patient reached them he had to endure a two days' journey, and even at
that to bear a very martyrdom of bumps and jolts. For that was just before
the time when coach-proprietors began to announce "comfortable" coaches
"with springs," just as, a little earlier, they had laid great stress on
their conveyances being glazed, and (to skip the centuries) as railway
companies nowadays advertise dining and drawing room cars. Here are some
coaching woes:--
"Just as you are going off, with only one other person on your side of
the coach, who, you flatter yourself, is the last--seeing the door
opened suddenly, and the landlady, coachman, guard, etc., cramming
and shoving and buttressing up an overgrown, puffing, greasy human
being of the butcher or grazier breed; the whole machine straining and
groaning under its cargo from the box to the basket. By dint of
incredible efforts and contrivances, the carcase is at length weighed
up to the door, where it has next to struggle with various obstacles
in the passage."
The pictorial commentary upon this text is appended, together with a view
representing passengers refreshed by being overturned into a wayside pond.
The first mail-coach that ever ran in England ran between London and
Bristol, and set out on Monday, August 2, 1784. Hitherto the letters had
been conveyed by mounted post-boys, often provided with but sorry hacks,
and always open to attack at the hands of any bad characters who might
think it worth their while to intercept the post-bags. This risk led the
more cautious persons, and those whose correspondence was of particular
importance, to despatch their letters by the stage-coach, although the
cost in that case was 2_s._ as against the ordinary postal charge of only
4_d._ for places between 80 and 120 miles distant.
[Sidenote: _THE FIRST MAIL COACH_]
A clever and enterprising man resident at Bath had noted these things.
This was John Palmer, the proprietor of the Bath Theatre. He not only
noted them, but devised a plan by which the post was rendered swifter and
more secure. The stage-coaches of that time took thirty-eight hours to
accomplish the journey between London and Bath, and, although safer for
the carriage of correspondence than by post-boy, were not so speedy.
Palmer had frequently travelled the roads, and he rightly conceived
thirty-eight hours to be too long a time to take for a journey of 106
miles. He drew up a scheme for a mail-coach to carry four inside
passengers, a coachman, and a guard, and to be drawn by four horses at the
rate of between eight and nine miles an hour. In this manner, he argued,
the journey between Bath and London should be accomplished, including
stoppages, in sixteen hours. This plan, which he made as an instance, to
be extended, if successful, to the other main roads throughout the
kingdom, he communicated to the General Post Office. Two years passed
before Palmer could get his proposals tried, but arrangements were
eventually made, agreements entered into with five innkeepers along the
London, Bath, and Bristol Road, for the horsing of the coach, and the
first mail despatched from Bristol to London, August 2, 1784. The mounted
post-boy's day was nearing its close, and by the summer of 1786, the trunk
roads knew him and his post-horn no more.
The mail-coaches enjoyed great privileges, of which the greatest was their
exemption from all turnpike tolls, and the right exercised by the Post
Office of indicting roads which might be out of repair or in any way
dangerous. By the year 1810, mail-coaches had increased so greatly that
the estimated annual loss of the various turnpike trusts on this exemption
was L50,000. And all the while the postal business was increasing by leaps
and bounds, although the price of postage was increased from time to time
to help supply the Government, which speedily came to recognize the
Department as a milch cow, and to demand increasing annual payments from
it, to help pay the costs of waging Continental wars.
Let us see what the postage between London, Bath, and Bristol was at
different periods. The charges were regulated by distances, and one of the
schedule measurements, "exceeding 80 miles and not exceeding 150 miles,"
just includes these two towns. We find, then, that it was possible to get
a letter conveyed that distance in 1635 for 4_d._, while a bulky package
weighing one ounce cost 9_d._ in transmission; not extravagant charges for
that far-off time, even allowing for the greater purchasing power of money
in the first half of the seventeenth century. Twenty-five years later the
scale was altered, and one could despatch a note for a penny less,
although it cost 3_d._ more for an ounce weight. From 1711 to 1765, the
scale was--
Letter. One ounce.
4_d._ 1_s._ 4_d._
and from 1765 to 1784 the charges were again raised, to 5_d._ and 1_s._
8_d._ respectively. Matters then went from bad to worse. In the beginning
of 1797, the figures were 7_d._ and 2_s._ 4_d._; while the climax was
finally reached at the beginning of this century, for on July 9, 1812, it
cost 9_d._ to send a note between London, Bath, or Bristol, and 3_s._ for
one ounce. A singular fact, in face of these repeated increases, was the
growth of the Post Office revenues. In 1796, the net profit was L479,000;
ten years later it had risen to considerably over one million sterling.
The Bristol profit on Post Office business was L469 in 1794-5, and at that
time the postmaster received a salary of L110 per annum. The Bath
postmaster's billet was the best in the service, for he received L150,
and, moreover, had the assistance of one clerk and three letter-carriers.
[Illustration: PASSENGERS REFRESHED AFTER A LONG DAY'S JOURNEY. (_After
Rowlandson._)]
Meanwhile the stage-coaches had increased greatly. It was about 1800 that
the "Sick, Lame, and Lazy"--a sober conveyance so called from the nature
of its passengers, invalids, real and imaginary, on their way to Bath--was
displaced by the new post coach that performed the journey in a single
day; and thus the comfortable, _and_ expensive, beds of the "Pelican" at
Speenhamland, where "the coach slept," began to be disestablished.
III
[Sidenote: _"GOD-PERMITS"_]
Our forefathers of the coaching age were properly pious. Desirous, when
they travelled, of a "happy issue out of all their afflictions," as the
Prayer-book has it--which in their case included such varied troubles as
highwaymen's attacks, being upset, or finding themselves snowed up, with
the extreme likelihood in winter-time of being severely frostbitten--they
made their wills, and fervently committed themselves to the protection
of Providence before starting and putting themselves in the care of
the coachman. Coach proprietors, for their part, always advertised
their conveyances to run "D.V.;" and the more slangy among our
great-grandparents were accordingly accustomed to speak of these coaches
as "God-permits." Express trains, which stop for nothing in heaven above
or the earth beneath, short of a cataclysm of nature, have relegated that
joke to the domains of archaeology. Then, however, it had its poignant
side.
"The perils of the road in winter and foul weather," says one who braved
them, "were formidable. On one occasion I rode sixteen hours under a
deluging downpour of rain that never ceased for a single minute, and was
so crushing in its effect as to disable every umbrella on the roof before
the first hour had elapsed. On another occasion I started at six on a
winter's morning outside the Bath "Regulator," which was due in London at
eight o'clock at night. I was the only outside passenger. It came on to
snow about an hour after we started--a snowstorm that never ceased for
three days. The roads were a yard deep in snow before we reached Reading,
which was exactly at the time we were due in London. Then with six horses
we laboured on, and finally arrived at Fetter Lane at a quarter to three
in the morning. Had it not been for the stiff doses of brandied coffee
swallowed at every stage, this record would never have been written. As it
was, I was so numbed, hands and feet, that I had to be lifted down, or
rather, hauled out of an avalanche or hummock of snow, like a bale of
goods. The landlady of the 'White Horse' took me in hand, and I was thawed
gradually by the kitchen fire, placed between warm pillows, and dosed with
a posset of her own compounding. Fortunately, no permanent injury
resulted."
[Sidenote: _SNOWSTORMS_]
That was as late as 1816. Happily, although the term "an old-fashioned
winter," is one frequently employed nowadays to denote one of exceptional
severity, there is no reason to believe that such winters were less
exceptional then than they are now. But the great frosts and snowstorms of
those times belong to history, and although they only occurred (as they do
now) at considerable intervals, they bulk largely in the records of the
past.
The great snowstorm of December 26, 1836, dislocated the coach service all
over the country. The drifts on Marlborough Downs varied in depth from
fourteen to sixteen feet. The Duke of Wellington, who was travelling down
the road to the Duke of Beaufort's place at Badminton, arrived at
Marlborough on the Monday night, in the thick of it, and put up at the
"Castle." He was journeying in a carriage and four, with outriders, and
started again the next morning, to be promptly stuck fast in a wheatfield.
A number of labourers were procured, who dug him out.
On that memorable occasion, the Bath and Bristol mails, which were due at
those places on the Tuesday morning, were abandoned eighty miles from
London, the mail-bags being brought up by the two guards in a post-chaise
with four horses. For seventeen miles they had to come by way of the
fields.
Three outside passengers died of the cold when one of the stage coaches
reached Chippenham, and frostbites were innumerable.
But if all the untoward coaching incidents were recounted that befell upon
the Bath Road, this would resolve itself into a dismal record, and it
might then be supposed that coaching was invariably dangerous and
uncomfortable, which was not the case. One of the most singular of these
happenings was that in which a home-coming sailor was killed. A gunner
named John Baker was wrecked on board the frigate _Diomede_, off the coast
of Trincomalee, and narrowly escaped being drowned. Being picked up, he
recovered sufficiently to be able to take a part in the storming of that
place, and was sent home with the ship bearing the despatches. When he set
foot again in England, he must naturally have thought all dangers past;
but, coming up from Bath in January, 1796, the coach capsized at Reading,
and the unhappy gunner, who had survived all perils of battle and the
breeze, was killed.
A not dissimilar accident happened in July, 1827, when the Bath mail was
overturned between Reading and Newbury, through the horses bolting into a
gravel-pit. A naval officer was killed, and most of the passengers
injured.
[Sidenote: _FOGS_]
Although the latter accident happened in an age of very fast coaches, it
is a fact that disasters were actually fewer than they had been in more
leisurely times. The reasons for this increased safety in times when speed
was vastly greater may be found in the facts that the roads were better
kept, and the coaches better built. A whole series of Turnpike Acts had
been passed in the course of the previous fifty years, resulting in roads
as nearly perfect as roads can be, while the coachbuilder's trade had
become almost an exact science. Had it not been for the occasional
recklessness or drunkenness of drivers, and the winter fogs, there would
be little to record in the way of accidents. As it was, coachmen sometimes
(but very rarely) took a convivial glass too much; or, more often, raced
opposition coaches to a final smash; and then there were the "pea-soupers"
of fogs, which led the most experienced astray.
The following story belongs to the first quarter of this century, and is
told by one of the old drivers: "I recollect," he says, "a singular
circumstance occasioned by a fog. There were eight mails that passed
through Hounslow. The Bristol, Bath, Gloucester, and Stroud took the
right-hand road; the Exeter, Yeovil, Poole, and 'Quicksilver' Devonport
(which was the one I was driving) went the straight road towards Staines.
We always saluted each other when passing with 'Good night, Bill,' 'Dick,'
or 'Harry,' as the case might be. I was once passing a mail, mine being
the fastest, and gave my wonted salute. A coachman named Downs was driving
the Stroud mail. He instantly recognized my voice, so said, 'Charley, what
are you doing on my road?' It was he, however, who had made the mistake;
he had taken the Staines instead of the Slough road out of Hounslow. We
both pulled up immediately; he had to turn round and go back--a feat
attended with some difficulty in such a fog. Had it not been for our usual
salute, he would not have discovered his mistake before arriving at
Staines."
IV
One of the most striking differences between the coaching age and these
railway times lies in the altered relations between passenger and driver.
No railway passenger ever thinks of the man who drives the engine. He, in
fact, rarely sees him. The coachman, on the other hand, was very much in
evidence, and was not only seen, but expected to be "remembered" as well.
And "remembered" the old coachmen were, too: for half a crown each to
driver and guard was the least one could do in those times. How great a
tax this was upon the traveller may be guessed when it is said that the
coachman was generally changed about every fifty miles or so. The guard
would probably accompany the coach all the way to Bath, but on the longer
journeys there were at least two. There was a very simple formula used, as
a hint to passengers that a tip should be forthcoming. "I go no further,
gentlemen," the coachman would observe, putting his head in at the window.
A simultaneous dipping of the hands into fobs on the part of the
passengers resulted from this piece of information, and the coachman would
depart, richer by considerably over half a sovereign. Imagination does not
go to the length of picturing the driver or the guard of a train doing the
like.
[Sidenote: _TIPS_]
It is not, however, to be supposed that coach passengers greatly delighted
in the practice, even in those fine open-handed days. There were many who
could not afford it, and others who regarded it as an imposition. But they
tipped all the same, because, as Mr. Chaplin, the great coach proprietor
in those palmy days, observed, if they did not the guard and coachman
"would look very hard at them." Better to face a lioness robbed of her
cubs than a coachman defrauded of his tip. Passengers, therefore, resigned
themselves with a sigh to the expenditure, and travelled as little as they
possibly could. There can, indeed, be no doubt that tipping, grown to a
regular system, injured the coach proprietors' business; and it was
eventually, if not abolished entirely, at least shorn of its more
grandiose proportions. The first man to tackle the question was Thomas
Cooper. He was proprietor of a line of coaches running between London and
Bristol from 1827 to 1832. "Cooper's Old Company," he called his business.
He had originally been landlord of the "Castle Hotel" at Marlborough, but
gave it up and removed to Thatcham, where he took a cottage and built
stables for his coaching stud. Here he was practically halfway between
London and Bristol, and his day and night coaches stopped to dine and sup
at "Cooper's Cottage," as, with a sense of the value of alliteration, he
called it. All his advertisements bore the announcement, "No fees," and
the same pleasing legend was writ large on the backs of his coaches.
Cooper paid his coachmen and guards considerably higher wages, to
compensate them for the loss of their tips. He became bankrupt in 1832,
and sold his business to Chaplin, who afterwards, through his interest in
the railway world, obtained him the post of stationmaster at Richmond,
near London. From this position he eventually retired on a pension, and
died about fifteen years ago.
We all know the cantankerous passenger in the railway carriage who makes
himself objectionable in a variety of ways, but a coach was a much more
fruitful source of contention. Fortunately, however, it was not often that
the incident of the strong man in the Bath coach bound for London was
repeated. A corpulent person of prodigious strength tried to secure a
place in the mail, but, all the seats being booked, he was told that it
was impossible to convey him that night. Relying upon his strength and the
unlikelihood of any one daring to disturb him, he got in while the coach
was still standing in the stable yard, and waited. He had to wait so long,
and had dined so well, that he fell asleep, and the coachman, finding him
there, snoring, put his team into another coach, leaving the fat man in
peaceable possession of his seat. He awoke in the middle of the night,
still, of course, in the stable yard of the "White Lion" at Bath, while
the road echoed with the laughter of the coachman and his friends all the
way up to London.
[Sidenote: _"FULL INSIDE"_]
In that incident the passengers were fortunate. The "insides" were less to
be congratulated who bore a part in the memorable journey down to Bath
from Piccadilly with an extra passenger. It is of the Bath mail that the
story is told. Mail coaches carried four inside. One night, when the mail
was ready to start from Piccadilly, full up, inside and out, a gentleman
who wanted to go to Marlborough came hurrying up. He was well known to
coachman and guard as a regular customer; but, although they did not
want to leave him behind, there seemed to be no alternative. He solved the
difficulty himself by squeezing in as the coach started; and so, packed as
tightly as herrings in a barrel, they rumbled away, amid the muttered
curses of the original occupants. The misery of that journey may be better
imagined than described, and when the coach halted at the "Bear" at
Maidenhead, it might be supposed that the "insides" would have been only
too pleased to get out for a momentary relief when the guard appeared at
the door and made what was usually the pleasant announcement, "Time to get
a cup of coffee here, gentlemen." Did they get out? Oh no! They were so
tightly wedged that they dared not move, afraid lest they should not be
able to get in again. So they endured to the bitter end, and there can be
no doubt whatever that when Marlborough was reached, they "sped the
parting guest" with exceptional heartiness.
[Illustration: THE "WHITE BEAR," PICCADILLY.]
[Illustration: SIGN OF THE "WHITE BEAR," NOW AT FICKLES HOLE.]
The inn from which this coach started was the "White Bear," Piccadilly,
which stood, until about the year 1860, on the site now occupied by the
Criterion Restaurant. It was a curious old place, chiefly of wood, and had
a great effigy of a polar bear on its frontage. This "White Bear" sign is
still in existence, but rusticated to the lonely hamlet of Fickles Hole,
near Croydon, where it stands in the little garden of the "White Bear"
inn.
V
A very swagger stage-coach, the "York House," was started between Bath and
London in 1815, followed by a rival, the "Beaufort Hunt." The first-named
started from the "York House Hotel" at Bath; the "Beaufort Hunt" from the
"White Lion." Both were fast day coaches; and, perhaps because of racing,
the "Beaufort Hunt" was upset twice in a fortnight, soon after it had been
put on the road. It was a sporting age, but not so sporting that
passengers were prepared to risk life and limb in taking part in this
keen rivalry. Accordingly, the "Beaufort Hunt" fell upon evil times, and
the proprietor had to dismiss his too zealous drivers. He was, however,
fortunate in his new coachman, who was exceptionally civil and obliging,
and eventually regained the position of the coach, which, although it kept
up a furious pace of eleven miles an hour, remained for years a prime
favourite with the more dashing travellers along the road.
This and the other crack coaches, which continued running until the Great
Western Railway finally took them away on trucks, quite cut out the mails,
which, from being the fastest coaches on the road, soon came to occupy a
very middling position.
[Sidenote: _THE AUGUSTAN AGE_]
In 1821, the mail-coaches had reached a speed of nearly eight and
three-quarter miles an hour, including stoppages. They started from the
General Post Office at 8 p.m., and reached Bristol at 10 a.m. the
following morning. At the same period the two fast stage-coaches just
described were doing their eleven miles an hour, and in 1830 were actually
timed a mile an hour faster, while the mail was very little accelerated,
if at all. Some years later, indeed (in 1837), the Bristol mail was
wakened up, and performed the 121 miles in 11 hrs. 45 min., or at the rate
of ten miles and a quarter an hour, including changes, of which there were
fourteen. This was the fine flower of the Coaching Age on the Bath Road.
There were then about fifteen or sixteen day and night coaches between
London and Bath, and two mails, all running full. On June 4, 1838, the
Great Western Railway was opened as far as Slough, and the coaches ran
only between that place and Bath. In March, 1840, the railway was open as
far as Reading; and June 30, 1841, saw trains running between London,
Bath, and Bristol, and the road deserted.
The difference between those times and these is sufficiently striking to
demand some attention. Fares by mail were 4_d._ a mile; by stage-coach,
from 4_d._ to 3-1/2_d._ a mile inside, and 2_d._ outside. Or, if one
wanted to travel somewhat cheaper, and did not mind an all-night journey,
the fares by night coach were about 2-1/2_d._ and 1-1/2_d._ respectively.
The cost of travelling to Bath was therefore anything from 35_s._ down to
14_s._ To these figures 5_s._ or 6_s._ should be added, for coachmen and
guards always expected to be tipped, while something like half a sovereign
for refreshments was essential.
For those whose time was of no consequence, and whose pockets were not
well lined, there were the slow lumbering stage-waggons, which progressed
at about four miles an hour and stopped everywhere. The fare by these was
something under a penny a mile, and refreshments were correspondingly
cheap, for the landlords of the wayside inns, who despised this kind of
travellers, provided a supper of cold beef at 6_d._ a head, and a
shake-down of clean straw in the stable-loft at a nominal price.
If, on the other hand, one desired to do the thing in style, it was always
possible to post down. Only the great men of the earth did that, for the
cost was more than considerable, tolls alone for a carriage and pair
amounting to 9_s._ In fact, posting pair-horse to Bath would not have
cost less than L11. Nor would there then have been any advantage in pace,
for post-chaises generally attained a speed of ten miles an hour, when the
best coaches were doing twelve. Still, there were those who posted, ready
to pay, both in money and time, for their privacy; for the wealthy Briton
of that day was apt to be an extremely haughty and insufferable person,
and preferred to travel like a Grand Llama, even though he paid heavily
for it in coin and discomfort.
[Sidenote: _THE FIRST MOTOR-CAR_]
Almost the last scene in this "strange eventful history" of
road-travelling in the past was enacted in 1829, when Mr. Gurney's
"steam-carriage" conveyed a number of people from London to Bath. The
vehicle did not meet with the approval of the rustics, and at Melksham an
angry mob, armed with stones, assailed the travellers, loudly denouncing
the unholy thing. From Cranford Bridge to Reading, the speed was at the
rate of sixteen miles an hour, and so delighted were those concerned with
the result of the experiment that an announcement was made that "immediate
measures" would be taken "to bring carriages of the sort into action on
the roads." It has, however, been left to these last few years to
re-introduce the motor-car, with results yet to be seen.
Such was travel on the road in olden times. To-day one travels to Bath in
a fraction of the time at less than half the cost; the 107 miles railway
journey from Paddington occupies exactly two hours, and a third-class
ticket costs 8_s._ 11_d._
As these lines are being written, the last of the old coaching inns from
which some of the Bath stages started, is being demolished. The "White
Horse," in Fetter Lane, Holborn, fell upon evil days when railways
revolutionized its custom. Where Lord Eldon stayed in 1766, and whence
many another aristocratic traveller set forth, tramps and fourpenny
"dossers" found refuge. The "White Horse" inn became the "White Horse
Chambers"--not the kind of chambers understood in St. James's, but rather
the cheap cubicles of St. Giles's.
[Illustration: THE "WHITE HORSE" INN, FETTER LANE. DEMOLISHED 1898.]
[Sidenote: _DEPARTED GLORIES_]
Cary's "Itinerary" for 1821 (Cary was a guide, philosopher, and friend
without whom our grandfathers never travelled) gives no fewer than
thirty-seven stage-coaches which started from this old house. There was
the "Accommodation" to Oxford, at seven o'clock in the morning; the Bath
and Bristol Light Post coach, at two in the afternoon, arriving at
Bristol at eight o'clock the following morning; and the Worcester,
Cheltenham, and Woodstock coaches, which all travelled along the Bath road
to Maidenhead. Then there were the York "Highflier," a crack Light Post
coach, every morning, at nine o'clock; the "Princess Charlotte," to
Brighton; the Lynn, Dover, Cambridge, Ipswich, and other coaches too
numerous to mention in detail. It will, therefore, not be surprising to
learn that the stables of this busy hostelry were large enough to hold
seventy horses.
At the foot of the staircase, near the entrance, was the office, and
everywhere were long passages and interminable suites of rooms. But how
different the circumstances in later years! The vast apartment that was
the public dining-room became, in fact, a kind of socialistic kitchen.
There, when his day's work was done, the kerbstone merchant came to grill
the cheap chop he had purchased. There the professional cadger toasted a
herring, while his companions cooked scraps of meat or toasted cheese.
This part of Holborn was once famous for its old inns. Indeed, on the
opposite side of that main artery of traffic were the "Black Bull" and the
"Old Bell." There is nothing left of the first now except the great black
effigy of a bull with a golden zone about the middle of him, and beyond
the archway a courtyard which was once the galleried courtyard of the inn,
but is now just the area of a block of peculiarly dirty "model" dwellings.
[Illustration: COURTYARD OF THE "OLD BELL," HOLBORN. DEMOLISHED 1897.]
[Sidenote: _THE "OLD BELL"_]
What Londoner did not know the "Old Bell" Tavern, in Holborn, whose
mellowed red brick frontage gave so great an air of distinction to that
now commonplace thoroughfare. Among the last of the old galleried inns,
some of its timbers dated back to 1521. The front of the house was
comparatively juvenile, dating only from 1720. What its galleried
courtyard was like let this sketch record. The site was sold for L11,600,
and the house demolished, at the close of 1897, although its structural
stability was unquestioned, and the place a favourite dining and luncheon
house. Twenty-one coaches left that old house daily in the full flush of
the coaching age; among them two Cheltenham coaches, the coaches to
Faringdon, and Abingdon, Oxford, Woodstock, and Blenheim, all of which
went by the Bath Road so far as Maidenhead, where they branched off _via_
Henley. In addition, there was the stage which ran twice a day to
Englefield Green, branching off at Hounslow. The "Old Bell" could, indeed,
claim the credit of being the last actual coaching-house in London, for it
is only a few years since the last three-horsed omnibus was discontinued
that ran between it and Amersham, in Bucks. When the Metropolitan Railway
extension reached that place, the conveyance, of course, became quite
unnecessary, and the last remote echo of the genuine coaching age died
away.
VI
The Bath Road is measured from Hyde Park Corner, and is a hundred and five
miles and six furlongs in length. The reasons for this being reckoned as
the starting-point of this great highway are found in the fact that when
coaches were in their prime, Hyde Park Corner was at the very western
verge of London. Early in the eighteenth century Londoners would have
considered it in the country; and, indeed, the turnpike gate which until
1721 crossed Piccadilly, opposite Berkeley Street, gave a quasi-official
confirmation of that view. In that year, however, it was removed to Hyde
Park Corner, just westward of the thoroughfare now known as Grosvenor
Place, and so remained until October, 1825, when it was disestablished in
favour of a turnpike gate opposite the spot where the Alexandra Hotel now
stands. Beyond it--in the country--was the pretty rural village of
Knightsbridge, with a gate by the barracks; and, beyond that, the remote
village of Kensington, to which the Court retired for change of air, far
away from London and its cares!
From 1721 to 1825, therefore, we may well regard Hyde Park Corner as the
beginning of town. This was so well recognized that local allusions to the
fact were plentiful. For instance, where Piccadilly Terrace now stands was
an inn called the "Hercules' Pillars," a favourite sign for houses on the
outskirts of large towns, just as churches dedicated to St. Giles were
anciently placed outside the city walls. "Hercules' Pillars" was the
classic name for the Straits of Gibraltar, regarded then as the boundary
of civilization; hence the peculiar fitness of the sign.
On the western side of this inn, a place greatly resorted to by the
'prentice lads who wanted to take their lasses for a country outing in
Hyde Park, was a little cottage, long known as "Allen's Stall," which
stood here from the time of George the Second until 1784, when Apsley
House was erected on its site. The ground is said to have been a present
from George the Second to a discharged soldier named Allen, who had
fought under his command at Dettingen.
[Illustration: ALLEN'S STALL AT HYDE PARK CORNER, ABOUT 1756.]
[Sidenote: _ALLEN'S STALL_]
The story is a pretty one, and tells how the King was riding into Hyde
Park, when he noticed the soldier, still wearing a tattered uniform,
taking charge of the stall in company with his wife.
"What can I do for you?" asked the King, replying to the military salute
which the ragged veteran offered.
[Illustration: HYDE PARK CORNER, 1786.]
"I ask nothing better than to earn an honest living, your Majesty,"
replied the soldier; "but I am like to be turned away by the Ranger. If
your Majesty were to give me a grant of the ground my stall stands on, I
would be happy."
"Be happy, then," answered the King, and saw to it that Allen had his
request satisfied.