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THE MANCHESTER AND

GLASGOW ROAD

CONTENTS.

WORKS BY CHARLES G. HARPER

PREFACE

LONDON TO MANCHESTER

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

SEPARATE PLATES

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT

THE MANCHESTER AND GLASGOW ROAD

III

VII

VIII

XII

XIII

XIV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

XXVII

XXVIII

XXIX

XXX

XXXI

XXXII

XXXIII

WORKS BY CHARLES G. HARPER

=The Portsmouth Road=, and its Tributaries: To-day and in Days of Old.

=The Dover Road=: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike.

=The Bath Road=: History, Fashion, and Frivolity on an Old Highway.

=The Exeter Road=: The Story of the West of England Highway.

=The Great North Road=: The Old Mail Road to Scotland. Two Vols.

=The Norwich Road=: An East Anglian Highway.

=The Holyhead Road=: The Mail-Coach Road to Dublin. Two Vols.

=The Cambridge, Ely, and King’s Lynn Road=: The Great Fenland Highway.

=The Newmarket, Bury, Thetford, and Cromer Road=: Sport and History

on an East Anglian Turnpike.

=The Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford Haven Road=: The Ready Way to

South Wales. Two Vols.

=The Brighton Road=: Speed, Sport, and History on the Classic Highway.

=The Hastings Road= and the “Happy Springs of Tunbridge.”

=Cycle Rides Round London.=

=A Practical Handbook of Drawing for Modern Methods of Reproduction.=

=Stage Coach and Mail in Days of Yore.= Two Vols.

=The Ingoldsby Country=: Literary Landmarks of “The Ingoldsby

Legends.”

=The Hardy Country=: Literary Landmarks of the Wessex Novels.

=The Dorset Coast.=

=The South Devon Coast.=

=The Old Inns of Old England.= Two Vols.

=Love in the Harbour=: a Longshore Comedy.

=Rural Nooks Round London= (Middlesex and Surrey).

=Haunted Houses=; Tales of the Supernatural.

=The North Devon Coast.=

[_In the Press._

[Illustration: THE MAIL CHANGE.

[_By J. Herring, 1844._]

THE

MANCHESTER

AND

GLASGOW ROAD

_THIS WAY TO GRETNA GREEN_

By CHARLES G. HARPER

_ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR, AND FROM

OLD-TIME PRINTS AND PICTURES_

Vol. I.—LONDON TO MANCHESTER

[Illustration: Guard]

LONDON

CHAPMAN & HALL, LTD.

1907

PRINTED AND BOUND BY

HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,

LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

PREFACE

[Illustration]

“_Onward and onward the highway runs to the distant city, impatiently

bearing Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of hate, of

doing and daring._”

THE GOLDEN LEGEND.

_Those lines, instinct with the dramatic possibilities of the road in

far-off days, call to mind the old engravings and wood-cuts of the

Durer school, in whose back-grounds, on the Hill Terrible, sits the

City Beautiful, reached along a delectable road that wanders, now

across open heaths and then disappears in the welcome shade of hoary

woods; reappearing to reach its goal beside mountain streams and

torrents, whose boulderous course it spans by high-arched bridges. Down

such roads as these, in woodcuts such as those, go horsed and armed

knights, very plumy and steely, ladies fair on their palfreys, with

high-horned head-dresses; pages, men-at-arms, peasants,

and all the mediæval traffic of the highways; while the verminous

hermit in his cell by the bridge comes to his door as the wayfarers

go by, scratching himself with one hand, and in the other holding a

scallop-shell for the alms he, in a pitiful voice and in the name of

God and all the saints, implores._

_Those lines, in that modern versification of the terrible old legend

by Jacobus de Voragine, bring all these things vividly before the

imagination. You may almost scent the hawthorn blossom on the wayside

hedges, can all but feel the soft breath of the wind, or the heat o’

the sun, and can even smell the hermit, rich in pietistic dirt. Joy and

disaster, love and hate, doing and daring, all had their place on the

highway in those times: Romance and the Road were terms convertible._

_Now all those things are as tales that are told; but for centuries

the Road retained that old distinction: the mediæval company had

passed away: the knights and the ladies to their altar-tombs in the

old country churches, the rest none knows whither; but after then came

later generations, all travelling, living, hating, and loving along

the highways, and so they continued to do, through the coaching era

and until railways for a_ _long series of years rendered the Road an

obsolete institution._

_When did the immemorial co-partnership of Romance and the Road begin

to be dissolved? Let us consider. The first beginnings are found in

the introduction of telegraphic signalling, when signal-stations were

erected on the hills, and messages were passed on from one to another

by means of revolving shutters or semaphore arms. The system originated

about 1795, and came into use along this road in 1803. We read in

the “Observer” of that period the startling announcement: “A line of

communication, by means of telegraphs, is to be established between

London and the north, by which intelligence will be conveyed in six

hours at the distance of 400 miles.” Here, then, we find the parting of

the ways! Instead of the horsed messenger, performing that distance in,

let us say, forty-five hours, the telegraphists sent messages through

in a fraction of that time, providing conditions were favourable. A

very serious draw-back to the system was that in dull or stormy weather

it was unworkable._

_What the mechanical telegraph began the railways and the electric

telegraph completed, and the roads—save for the cycles and the

motor-cars from whose presence Romance flies abashed—have_ _lost their

intimate touch with life. They are largely removed from the sordid

instant, and that is why we love them. Present-day romance will only

be found by the next generation when, to adopt an American locution,

it has become a “back number”: for ourselves, we are fain to the poor

recourse of listening to the elfin harmonies of the winds in the

wayside telegraph-poles, and to deduce romantic messages from those

sounds; but alas! so little romantic may they be that the wires are

probably flashing market reports to the effect that “grey shirtings are

quiet,” or “bacon was steady.” Yet, on the other hand, a police message

may be passing, to lead to the arrest of some fugitive: some fraudulent

Napoleon of finance or one of the smaller fry: you never know!_

_In the old days, the criminal, visible to our physical eyes, would

be seen, fleeing from justice, and after him, at a decent interval,

the officers of the law, tailing away in a long perspective, properly

exhausted and furious, their horses foaming and reeking with sweat in

most appropriate style. You only see that sort of thing nowadays at

Drury Lane or the Adelphi, but they do it very well there, even though

the foam and the reek be applied with sponge and soap-suds._

_He who would now find sights like these along the roads would need to

wait long. The fugitives are as many as ever, but they are in yonder

train. The telegraph has already outstripped such an one before he has

gone a quarter of his journey, and the police are waiting at the other

end, where, quite emotionless and regardless of dramatic necessities,

they will presently arrest him._

_Long stretches of the roads themselves are altered, with the growth

of towns, into something new and strange, and where Terror stalked

starkly in days of yore and Romance sped, flaunting, by, smug suburbs

spread their vistas of red-brick, paved, and kerbed and lighted, and

only the doctor, the collectors of rates and taxes, and the cries

of the evening newspaper-boys stir the pulses of the inhabitants.

The tragedies that sometimes await the doctor’s visits are a poor

substitute for the soul-stirring days of old—they are too domestic: and

that occasional inability to meet the demands of the tax-gatherer and

the rate-collector which even the most respectable suburbs occasionally

know is not tragedy in the inspiring sort._

_The pilgrim of the roads therefore finds his account in the past;

and it is to illustrate the long leagues for him that these pages

are wrought_ _out of long-forgotten things. Such an one, cycling,

perchance, down the first few tramway-infested miles and cleansing

himself after the almost inevitable muddy skid, may make shift to call

a Tapleian philosophy to his aid, and exclaim with gratitude: “After

all, it is an improvement upon two hundred years ago. Why, if I had

been travelling here_ THEN, _I should probably have been robbed and

beaten—perhaps even murdered—by the highwaymen!_”

CHARLES G. HARPER,

PETERSHAM, SURREY,

_October, 1907_.

THE MANCHESTER AND GLASGOW ROAD

LONDON TO MANCHESTER

MILES

London (General Post Office) to

Islington (the “Angel”) 1-1/4

Highgate Archway 4-1/4

East End, Finchley 5-3/4

Brown’s Wells, Finchley Common (“Green Man”) 7

North Finchley: “Tally-ho Corner” 7-1/2

Whetstone 9-1/4

Greenhill Cross 10-1/4

Barnet 11-1/4

South Mimms 14-1/2

Ridge Hill 16

London Colney 17-1/2

(Cross River Colne.)

St. Albans (“Peahen”) 20-3/4

Redbourne 25

Friar’s Wash 27-1/2

Markyate 29

Dunstable (“Crown”) 33-1/2

Hockliffe 37-1/2

Woburn 42

Woburn Sands 43-3/4

Wavendon 45-1/4

Broughton 47-1/2

Newport Pagnell 50-1/2

(Cross River Ouse.)

Lathbury 51-1/4

Gayhurst 53-1/4

Stoke Goldington 55

Eakley Lane 56-1/2

Horton 59

Piddington 59-1/4

Hackleton 60

Queen’s Cross 64

Northampton (All Saints’ Church) 65-1/4

Kingsthorpe 67

Brixworth 71-3/4

Lamport 74-1/4

(Level Crossing, Lamport Station.)

Maidwell 75-1/4

Kelmarsh 76-3/4

Clipston Station 78-3/4

Oxendon 79-1/4

(Cross River Welland.)

Market Harborough 82

(Cross Union Canal.)

Kibworth 87-3/4

Great Glen 90-3/4

Oadby 93

Leicester 96-3/4

Belgrave 98-1/2

(Cross River Soar.)

Mountsorrel 103-3/4

Quorndon 105-1/4

Loughborough (“Bull’s Head”) 107-3/4

Dishley 109-3/4

Hathern 110-1/2

Kegworth 113-3/4

Cavendish Bridge 117-1/4

(Cross River Trent.)

Shardlow 117-3/4

Alvaston 121-3/4

Osmaston 122-3/4

(Cross Derby Canal.)

Derby (Market Place) 124-3/4

Mackworth 127-1/4

Kirk Langley 129

Brailsford 131-1/2

Ashbourne 137-3/4

Hanging Bridge 139-1/4

(Cross River Dove.)

Swinescote 140-3/4

Milk Hill Gate 144-1/4

Waterhouses 145

Winkhill 146-3/4

Bottom Inn (“Green Man”) 148

Bradnop 150-3/4

Low Hill 151-1/2

Leek (Market Place) 152-1/2

Pool End 154-1/4

Rushton Marsh 157-1/2

(Cross River Dane.)

Bosley 160

Macclesfield 165-1/2

Titherington 166

Flash 167-3/4

Hope Green 171-3/4

Poynton 172-1/2

Hazel Grove 174-3/4

Stockport 177-1/2

(Cross River Mersey.)

Heaton Norris 179

Heaton Chapel 179-3/4

Levenshulme 180-1/2

Grindley Marsh 181-1/2

Longsight 182

Ardwick Green 183-1/4

(Cross Manchester and Ashton-under-Lyne Canal.)

Manchester (St. Ann’s Square) 184-3/4

[Illustration: LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS]

SEPARATE PLATES

THE MAIL CHANGE (_By J. Herring_) _Frontispiece_

PAGE

THE GLASGOW MAIL, ABOUT 1830 (_After J. Pollard_) 7

THE GLASGOW MAIL LEAVING THE YARD OF THE “BULL

AND MOUTH” (_After C. Cooper Henderson_) 17

THE “COURIER,” MANCHESTER, CARLISLE AND GLASGOW

COACH (_After C. B. Newhouse_) 27

MAILS LEAVING THE YARD OF THE “SWAN WITH TWO

NECKS,” 1834 (_After J. Pollard_) 35

THE “MANCHESTER TELEGRAPH,” 1834 (_After Robert

Havell_) 39

ISLINGTON GREEN, 1825 113

THE MANCHESTER MAIL CHANGING HORSES AT THE “OLD

WHITE LION,” FINCHLEY, 1835

(_After James Pollard_) 117

QUEEN ELEANOR CROSS (_From a photograph taken

before the restoration of 1884_) 181

NORTHAMPTON: MARKET PLACE AND ALL SAINTS’

CHURCH 191

MARKET HARBOROUGH 213

MOUNTSORREL 249

THE CHASE AND THE ROAD (_After H. Atken_) 255

STAGE-COACH TRAVELLING, 1828 (DERBY AND SHEFFIELD)

(_After J. Pollard_) 295

CHURCH STREET, ASHBOURNE 313

THE MANCHESTER MAILS PASSING ONE ANOTHER NEAR

ASHBOURNE (_After J. Pollard_) 327

MACCLESFIELD, FROM THE ROAD TO STOCKPORT 343

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT

Monken Hadley Church 120

The Fire-Pot, Monken Hadley 122

The Gateway, Dyrham Park 124

The “Fleur-de-Lis” 127

Relics of the Saxon Church in the North Transept,

St. Albans 131

Lord Grimthorpe 138

Shrine of St. Alban and Tomb of Duke Humphrey 141

Gorhambury 151

Markyate Cell 153

Woburn Abbey 161

Woburn 163

Newport Pagnell 167

Lathbury Church 170

Gayhurst 172

The “George and Dragon,” Eakley Lane 173

Horton Inn 175

Piddington Church 177

Interior, Church of the Holy Sepulchre 195

Brixworth Church 201

Lamport Church 205

Paxton 208

Monument to Judge Nichols 209

St. Nicholas and the Roman Wall 225

The Roman Milestone 227

St. Margaret’s 231

Trinity Hospital Porridge-Pot 234

St. Mary’s 235

In the Courtyard, the Old Town Hall 241

Church and Cavern, Woodhouse Eaves 253

From the Monument to John Farnham 258

Gotham 265

The Causeway, Swarkestone Bridge 268

Swarkestone Bridge 273

“The Balcony,” Swarkestone 277

Cavendish Bridge 280

The Trent, and Cavendish Bridge, from Shardlow 282

Elvaston Castle 285

Courtyard of the “Bell” Inn 291

“Young Men and Maidens” 299

All Saints’ 301

St. Alkmund’s 303

St. Mary’s Bridge 305

Penelope Boothby’s Monument 316

The “Green Man and Black’s Head,” Ashbourne 322

Hanging Bridge 325

Swinscoe 330

Waterhouses 331

Bottom Inn: The “Green Man” 332

Leek 334

Prestbury 345

The “Village of Hazel Grove” 351

Old Town House of the Ardernes, Stockport 356

[Illustration: The Manchester and Glasgow Road]

Beyond any possible doubt, there is more history—and more varied

history—to the mile, along the lengthy road from London to Glasgow

than on any other highway in this historic England of ours; with the

sole possible exception of the road to Dover. The Great North Road

itself is romantically historic, and there are 389 miles of it, but it

is not so compact of historic and domestic incident as the Manchester

and Glasgow Road—and it is not quite so long. The difference, to be

sure, is trifling—merely a matter of 11-1/4 miles—but the long miles

to Manchester, and on to Glasgow, are more plentifully set with towns

and villages than the Great North Road, which, upon the whole, takes an

austere and aloof course; and there is a wealth of detail on the way

that presents at times an embarrassing choice for the historian.

The Manchester and Glasgow Road, according to the best modern

authorities, measures from the General Post Office, London, to the

Royal Exchange, Glasgow, 400-1/4 miles. Before Telford in 1816,

under authority of the Government of that day, took the Carlisle and

Glasgow division of it in hand, and eventually shortened it by various

engineering expedients, the whole distance was 409-1/4 miles.

There is not the slightest hesitancy to be entertained about the course

of this great road. It suited the Post Office in the old mail-coach

days to send the mails along the Great North Road to Boroughbridge,

and thence across country to Penrith, and so forward to Glasgow, and

the contractors made the distance only 397-3/4 miles; but the route

was that adopted here; through St. Albans, the historic towns of

Northampton, Leicester, and Derby, Manchester, Preston, Lancaster, and

Carlisle. The mere names of those places conjure up many a scene in

the stirring annals of the nation, and suggest crowded incidents in

the scarcely less interesting story of industrial progress; while the

scenery along the road is in many districts of a high order of beauty,

ranging between such extremes as the quiet pastoral country beyond St.

Albans, through Northamptonshire and Leicestershire, to the wild moors

of Staffordshire, the solemn beauty of Lancaster and Solway Sands,

the stark heights of Shap Fell, and the bleak moors between Moffat and

Douglas Mill.

[Sidenote: _THE FIRST GLASGOW COACH_]

The first stages of the road are common to the Great North Road and

the Holyhead Road. At Hadley Green, beyond Barnet, we bid good-bye to

the first, and at Hockliffe, 37-1/2 miles from our starting-point, we

branch off to the right from the second of those great highways.

Through communication between London and Glasgow was undreamed of in

the earliest days of coaching; and never, in the very nature of things,

was the journey often made without a break, until railway travelling

came to entirely alter the complexion of affairs. But Glasgow was

early convinced of the necessity for public conveyances between itself

and other parts; and at so remote a date as 1678 had succeeded in

establishing what would appear to have been a municipally supported

coach service between Glasgow and Edinburgh. This coach was maintained

by William Hoorn, Hoon, or Hume, “marchand in Edinburge,” who received

a grant of £22 4_s._ 5_d._, and an annual subsidy of £11 2_s._ 3_d._,

paid two years in advance, and for a term of five-and-a-half years,

from the magistrates. The fare was 8_s._ in summer, and 9_s._ in

winter; the burgesses of Glasgow to have the preference.

It set forth once a week, and by dint of much labour its six horses

dragged it the 44 miles in three days.

How long a time this daring service lasted is not known, but probably

not for any extended period. Again, in 1743, the Town Council of

Glasgow is found attempting to set up a stage-coach or “lando,” to go

once a week in winter and twice in summer. Negotiations were opened

with one John Walker, and the fare proposed was 10_s._; but it was not

until 1749 that regular communication between Glasgow and Edinburgh was

established.

Meanwhile there was nothing in the nature of a coach service between

Glasgow and London. To reach the metropolis by public conveyance,

you were obliged to go first by this rate-aided conveyance of Mr.

William Hume, and then, arrived at Edinburgh, to secure a seat for the

tremendous journey southward. It is no mere figure of speech to name

that early coach-journey to London “tremendous”; for it took, according

to circumstances and the season of the year, from nine to twelve days.

The enterprise of Glasgow, it will thus be perceived, was not equal to

so great an undertaking.

At a time when the able-bodied—who, after all, were the only people who

could endure this kind of thing—were the only people who travelled,

except under the extremest pressure of necessity, a horseman would

ride the distance in six or seven days, and the postboys who carried

the mails before the establishment of mail-coaches commonly did it

in five; and so, possibly, those enterprising Glasgow town-councilmen

considered there was no necessity at that period to support a coach to

London.

[Sidenote: _STAGE AND MAIL TO GLASGOW_]

It was thus comparatively late in the history of coaching that Glasgow

and London were connected by a direct coach service, but London and

Carlisle Post Coaches were announced, going by Boroughbridge, and

starting from December 26th, 1773. They travelled between the “George

and Blue Boar,” Holborn, and the “Bush,” Carlisle; setting out from

London on Wednesday evenings, and from Carlisle on Sunday evenings, and

performing the journey in three days. They held six inside passengers,

and two outsides; and the fares were, inside, £3 16_s._, and out, £2

6_s._ Passengers taken up on the road paid from twopence to threepence

per mile. Dogs were strictly forbidden, under a penalty of £5.

It is not until 1788 that we learn of “Plummer’s Glasgow and London

Coach,” which travelled the distance in sixty-five hours. In the

same year, on July 7th, the first mail-coach arrived at Glasgow from

London, after a journey of sixty-six hours; at a speed averaging about

6 miles an hour. Its route was along the Great North Road, so far as

Boroughbridge, whence it continued by Leeming Lane, Catterick, Greta

Bridge, and Brough, on to the Manchester and Glasgow Road at Penrith.

Arrived at Carlisle, it halted, and a second coach took up the running

to Glasgow.

In the era of mails carried on horseback, thus brought to an end,

Glasgow had received and despatched its London post through Edinburgh,

at second-hand, as it were, and this newly won independence wrested

from the rival city was greeted with becoming enthusiasm, crowds of

rejoicing citizens riding out to view the coming of the mail, and to

escort it to its destination.

What the mail looked like in the first twelve years or so of its

existence we perceive in the illustration after James Pollard, on the

opposite page; although we may be quite sure that the coach never in

its slowest time progressed in the slow and stately fashion—resembling

the mournful deliberation of a funeral—pictured here. This is merely

the early Pollard convention, seen in many of his productions.

The first Glasgow mail was by no means direct, and between

Boroughbridge and Penrith it passed over wild and difficult country, so

that it often did not succeed in keeping time. But, in spite of these

difficulties, this route was kept—varied only by occasional divagations

taking in Leeds and Ripon—until 1835, and, owing to road improvements

between London and Doncaster, a number of accelerations were even

possible.

[Illustration: THE GLASGOW MAIL, ABOUT 1800.

[_After J. Pollard._

]

It must have been at an early period of these revisions of the

time-table that Professor John Wilson, the athletic “Christopher

North,” accomplished the walking exploit credited to him. Disappointed

at not securing a place on the up mail from Penrith to Kendal, he gave

his coat to the coachman and set off to walk the 26 miles, arriving

at Kendal some time before the coach. He then walked on to his home at

Elleray.

[Sidenote: _ACCELERATIONS_]

When that fine old sportsman, Colonel Hawker, travelled from London

to Glasgow in 1812, the journey occupied close upon fifty-seven hours

of continuous unrelaxing effort on the part of the many relays of

coachmen, guards, and horses, and of passive fortitude on that of the

travellers, who, after all, had the worst of it; for while horses,

guards, and coachmen were changed frequently on the way, and passed

like fleeting ghosts before their wearied vision, they endured to

the bitter end. Well for those who were obliged to go through at one

sitting, if it were summer when these three nights and two days of

discomfort were being endured; but the stoutest might have quailed

before the prospect of such a journey in winter.

In 1821 the coach arrived at Carlisle in what was considered the

excellent time of 41 hours 40 minutes from London, a speed, for the

311 miles, of something under 7-3/4 miles an hour. But still it was

only at 1.40 on the afternoon of the third day that the mail entered

Carlisle; reaching Glasgow at 4.50 the next morning. Time, from London

to Glasgow, 56 hours 50 minutes.

By 1825, however, a further acceleration was made. The mail came

dashing into Carlisle at 6.7 a.m.; so much as 7 hours 33 minutes

earlier. People held up their hands in astonishment, and were of

opinion that wonders would never cease: a frame of mind fully shared

by the Glasgow folk, who with satisfaction ill-concealed by natural

Scottish calm, saw the mail draw up at the Post Office proportionately

early.

They were absolutely correct: wonders did _not_ cease; for in 1837

a further saving of 1 hour 50 minutes was effected to Carlisle, the

mail-coach arriving at 4.17 a.m. on the second morning from London,

time, 32 hours 17 minutes; and drawing up at Glasgow at two o’clock

that same afternoon: forty-two hours for the entire journey. This truly

astonishing advance upon early performances was only made possible by

the long series of improvements effected on the road between Carlisle

and Glasgow from 1798 to 1834, by which not only had the gradients and

the surface been improved, but newer and shorter stretches of road had

been struck out, reducing the actual mileage from 405 miles to 397

miles 6 furlongs.[1]

The mail at this final period was not, throughout, one of the crack

coaches run under the direction of the Post Office; coming only

thirteenth in the list for speed, and showing a performance of an

average 9·34 miles per hour as compared with that of the swift Bristol

mail, speeding along the road at 10·3, almost a mile an hour quicker.

Analysed, however, it discloses for the 95 miles along Telford’s

splendid Carlisle and Glasgow Road an even slightly higher speed than

that of the Bristol mail itself; and there were for many years after

the disappearance of the coaches admiring oldsters who recollected with

an admiration not unmixed with terror the terrific speed of the up

Glasgow mail as it tore down the side of Stanwix Brow, outside Carlisle.

[Sidenote: _THE MAILS_]

The accompanying official time-bills of the London and Carlisle and the

Carlisle and Glasgow mails, as run in 1837, will prove interesting:

GENERAL POST OFFICE-THE EARL OF LICHFIELD. HER MAJESTY’s

POSTMASTER-GENERAL.

_Time Bill, London and Carlisle Mail._

+------------+---------+--------+-------------------------------------+

+------------+---------+--------+-------------------------------------+

| | | | |

| | | H. M. | |

| | | |to . |

|Sherman | 11 2 | 1 18 |Arrived at Barnet, 9.18 |

| | 8 4 | |Hatfield. |

| | 5 4 | 1 28 |Arrived at Welwyn, 10.46. |

| | | | |

|W. & G. | 6 3 | |Stevenage. |

| Wright | 5 7 | 1 20 |Arrived at Baldock, 12.6. |

| | 7 5 | |Biggleswade. |

| | 1 4 | 0 56 |Arrived at Caldecot, 1.2 a.m. |

| | 8 4 | 0 53 |Arrived at Eaton Socon, 1.55. |

| | | | |

| | 5 1 | 1 4 |Arrived at Alconbury, 2.59. |

| | | | |

|Coveney | 9 2 | 0 57 |Arrived at Stilton, 3.56. |

| | | | |

| | 6 0 | 1 32 |Arrived at Stamford, 5.28. |

| | | | |

|H. Whincup | 8 0 | 0 50 |Arrived at Stretton, 6.18. |

| | | | |

| | 8 1 | 1 22 |Arrived at Grantham, 7.40. |

| | | | |

| | | | |

| | | 0 40 |Forty minutes allowed. |

| | 6 0 | 0 36 |Arrived at Foston, 8.56. |

| | | | |

|Lawton | 8 0 | 0 48 |Arrived at Newark, 9.44. |

| | 13 1 | 1 19 |Arrived at Ollerton, 11.3. |

| | | | |

|Lister | 8 4 | 0 49 |Arrived at Worksop, 11.52. |

| | | | |

|Dawson | 8 3 | 0 48 |Arrived at Bagley, 12.40. |

| | 4 1 | 0 23 |Arrived at Wadsworth, 1.3 p.m. |

| | | | |

|Dunhill | 4 1 | 0 23 |Arrived at Doncaster, 1.26. |

| | | | |

|Outhwaite | 14 3 | 1 27 |Arrived at Pontefract, 2.53. |

| | 10 0 | 0 59 |Arrived at Aberford, 3.52. |

| | | | |

|Cleminshaw | 7 4 | 0 44 |Arrived at Wetherby, 4.36. |

| | | | |

| | | 0 35 |Thirty-five minutes allowed. |

| | 12 1 | 1 12 |Arrived at Boroughbridge, 6.23. |

| | | | |

|Cook | 12 1 | 1 12 |Arrived at Leeming Lane, 7.35. |

| | | | |

|Couldwell | 11 0 | 1 6 |Arrived at Catterick Bridge, 8.41. |

| | | | |

|Fryer | 9 0 | 0 54 |Arrived at Foxhall, 9.35. |

| | | | |

|Martin | 4 4 | 0 27 |Arrived at New Inn, |

| | 10 0 | 1 8 |Arrived at New Spital, 11.10. |

| | 9 4 | 1 5 |Arrived at Brough, 12.15. |

| | | | |

|Fryer | 8 0 | 0 52 |Arrived at Appleby, 1.7 a.m. |

| | | | |

|Doulim | 13 4 | 1 21 |Arrived at Penrith, 2.28. |

| | | | |

|Teather | 9 3 | 0 55 |Arrived at Hesketh, 3.23. |

| | | | |

|Barton | 8 6 | 0 54 |Arrived at the Post Office, |

| +---------+--------+ By timepiece ; by |

| |302 7 | 32 17 | clock . |

+------------+---------+--------+-------------------------------------+

_Time Bill, Carlisle and Glasgow Mail._

+------------+---------+--------+-------------------------------------+

+------------+---------+--------+-------------------------------------+

| | | H. M. | |

|Teather, | 9 6 | 0 55 |Arrived at Gretna, 5.55. |

| | | | |

|Burn & Paton| 9 2 | 0 53 |Arrived at Ecclefechan, 6.48. |

| | 5 6 | |Lockerbie. |

| | 5 0 | 1 1 |Arrived at Dinwoodie Green, 7.49. |

| | | | |

|Wilson | 9 3 | 0 53 |Arrived at Beattock Bridge Inn, 8.42.|

| | 14 0 | 1 44 |Arrived at Abington, 10.26. |

| | 4 3 | | |

| | | | |

|Burn & Paton| 9 0 | 0 52 |Arrived at Douglas Mill, 11.18. Bags |

| | 6 0 | 0 46 |Arrived at Knowknack, 12.4. |

| | 2 0 | | |

| | 9 3 | 0 53 |Arrived at Hamilton, 12.57. |

| | 11 0 | 1 3 |Arrived at the Post Office, Glasgow, |

| +---------+--------+ |

| | 94 7 | 9 0 | |

+------------+---------+--------+-------------------------------------+

In their last years, however, the Carlisle and Glasgow and the Carlisle

and Edinburgh mails were run to clear 11 miles an hour: the time

between Carlisle and Glasgow being cut down to 8 hours 32 minutes.

Cautious folk steered clear of such performances, for accidents were

frequent. But it was not speed that caused the dreadful accident to the

up Manchester mail from Carlisle, overturned at Penrith on September

25th, 1835. The coach was passing the “Greyhound” inn when the horses,

startled by a sudden thunderstorm, upset the coach. A gentleman on

the roof was killed, and three other outsiders and the coachman were

stunned.

But this was not the full measure of the Glasgow mails. The London

and Manchester mail, once proceeding no further than Manchester, was

extended by a second coach to Carlisle. This and the regular old

Glasgow mail were in later years timed to meet at Penrith at four

o’clock in the morning, and went on together to Carlisle. Carlisle was

thus a busy centre for the mails, and in addition sent out, besides

its local coaches and a mail for Edinburgh, a four-horse mail-coach

for Portpatrick, carrying the mails for the north of Ireland. This

also went along the main road so far as Gretna, whence it branched

for Dumfries; continuing from that town to Portpatrick as a two-horse

affair.

The cost of being conveyed by mail-coach from London to Glasgow was

enormous. It is possible to voyage in these days to America, a distance

of 3,000 miles, for less. In 1812 it cost an inside passenger, all

the way to Glasgow, for fare alone, apart from the necessary tips to

coachmen and guards, and exclusive of expenditure for food and drink

all those weary hours, no less than £10 8_s._: at the rate of about

6-1/8_d._ a mile. To-day, the fastest train takes exactly eight hours,

and the first-class fare, answering to the mail-coach fare, is £2

18_s._; while one may travel, third class, in greater luxury than the

old passengers by mail, for 33_s._

[Sidenote: _DISCOMFORTS OF TRAVELLING_]

III

No one ever in coaching days thought it worth while to write the story

of the Glasgow mail. The hard, dry facts of it may be sought, and with

some diligence found and collated, in Parliamentary Papers, and in the

pages of Cary, or in the coaching information common to directories

of that age; but intimate accounts are sought in vain. Travellers who

experienced the miseries of long-distance journeys were only too glad

to be done with them, and to dismiss the memory of their sufferings.

To have passed nearly forty-two hours continuously on the roof of a

coach in severe weather, with every hair standing up like a porcupine’s

quills, and with rain, dew, and hoar-frost as one’s dreary portion,

forbade all that glamour with which that old era is regarded at this

convenient distance of time.

Those who could endure such a journey without a break were few; and

to those few, obliged from any cause to hasten from end to end, the

recollection must have seemed a veritable phantasmagoria of dimly

shifting scenes and aching, weary limbs.

[Illustration: THE GLASGOW MAIL LEAVING THE YARD OF THE “BULL AND

MOUTH.”

[_After C. Cooper Henderson._

]

Thus it is that we obtain only brief and disconnected glimpses of the

mail’s progress. The most eloquent picture of misery is undoubtedly

that presented by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, writing in November 1800,

describing a journey from Carlisle to London:

“After passing a sleepless night at Carlisle, I was hurried away next

morning without a morsel of breakfast, and grew so very sick and ill

in a little while that I had almost fainted twice. When we stopt at

Penrith and took up an old gentleman, I then got a large dram of gin,

which did me much service; and we proceeded through snow and ice far

and far, and farther than I can tell, till I fell asleep and got a much

better night’s rest than at that accursed Carlisle. During the night

(but Heaven knows where) we picked up two men going to London; and, lo!

about daylight another qualm seized me. And when we got to Stilton, it

blew such a hideous storm, with hail, snow, and wind, that for an hour

and twenty minutes the six horses would not move forward, but attempted

always to retreat to the stables. Such kicking, such rearing of beasts,

such cursing and swearing of men (who had a stronger smack of the big

brute in them than even their cattle), I never met with before; and

after every cudgel in the house—yea, even my landlady’s private stick

wherewith she corrects her spouse—had been bent or broken over their

backs, they got on so slowly that we reached London only at eight in

the morning. Here was no peace for the wicked. The ‘Bull and Mouth,’

which is the filthiest place you ever saw, gave me such an aversion to

remaining where I was, that I took a place in the heavy coach which

went on at one that day, and lay down on a bed till the time for

departure. Here my head grew very bad indeed, so that I slept not a

wink.”

[Sidenote: _AN AFFECTED TRAVELLER_]

“Stinking, noisy stye,” he elsewhere calls the “Bull and Mouth,” but

we must recollect that Sharpe was very affected, a bundle of fine

feelings, and a _poseur_: one, in short, born a hundred years before

his time, and by no means one of those robust Englishmen to whom noise

and stable-smells were but the ordinary and commonplace incidents of

coach-journeys and coaching hostelries.

Nothing, you clearly perceive, could have roused Sharpe to enthusiasm.

But there were some wildly enthusiastic people on the road then, and

they had often cause, in the stirring news they brought with them,

to feel exultation of spirits. For with the mail came news of the

Battles of the Nile, of Trafalgar, of Waterloo; and many a wayside

park was despoiled of laurel branches to deck out the coach in the

emblems of victory. Many a time did the mail enter Glasgow in that

fashion: decorated with the bays, a red flag flying from the roof,

the guard in his best scarlet coat and gold-laced hat, sounding his

bugle as the horses galloped at a thundering pace along the Gallowgate.

Arrived at the foot of Nelson Street, at about seven o’clock in the

morning, his duty was, on these historic occasions, to thrice discharge

his blunderbuss in the air. Every one then rushed to the “Tontine”

coffee-room to learn the news and get the papers: some one with a

stentorian voice being generally elected to read the despatches aloud,

for the common benefit.

A thrilling story of those old days, when we were generally at war with

France, is that of one Archibald Campbell, a Glasgow merchant who had

omitted to insure one of his ships, and, in the last few weeks before

she fell due, repented of his omission. Alarmed, he sought to effect

insurance with a Glasgow office, but found the premium so high that

he resolved to insure ship and cargo in London. Accordingly, he wrote

to his London broker, instructing him to insure on the best terms

possible. The letter was posted and left by the up mail-coach at 2

p.m. At seven o’clock that night he received an express from Greenock,

announcing the safe arrival of his ship, and instantly despatched his

head clerk in pursuit of the coach, with instructions to overtake it if

possible, or, if he could not do so, to proceed to London and deliver a

note to the broker, countermanding the insurance.

But, in spite of making every effort to urge on the postillions, the

clerk was unable to overtake the mail, with its five hours’ start. He

arrived in London shortly after, and proceeded, early in the morning,

to the residence of the broker, before the morning delivery, and thus

countermanded the order; with the result that an insurance which would

have cost £1,500 was saved at the expense of £100.

[Sidenote: _FASTER THAN THE MAIL_]

Such were the incidents that accompanied the mail on its long journey;

but they had already faded from general knowledge, and were treasured

chiefly in the memories of a few oldsters, when its last days were

come, in February 1848. They had been “piping times of peace” ever

since the echoes of Waterloo had died away, in 1815; and for two

reasons the news of great issues was no longer brought by the mail.

Firstly, because great national events had become more rare; and

secondly, because when there was especially momentous intelligence,

enterprising folks, travelling even faster than the mail-coach, and

setting out at any hour they chose, had stolen away the prime position

of that old-time national intelligencer. For example, when at length

the great Reform Bill passed the House of Lords, after a long period

of hazardous political agitation, at 6.35 in the morning of Saturday,

April 14th, 1832, a Mr. Young, of _The Sun_ newspaper, left the Strand

sixty-five minutes later in a post-chaise and four, with copies of _The

Sun_ he had caused to be printed between 6.30 and 7.30, containing a

report of the debate and division, and travelled literally “post-haste”

to Glasgow. At 7.30 p.m. on the next day, Sunday, he alighted at the

house of his agent, Thomas Atkinson, Miller Street, Glasgow, having

performed the journey in 35 hours 50 minutes: a speed, including

stoppages for changing horses, of 11-1/4 miles an hour throughout.

There were, it would appear, others on the road on this occasion,

similarly engaged, for John Bright spoke in after years of having

travelled up from Manchester to London at the time, by the “Peveril

of the Peak,” and of having, in common with the other passengers,

“observed something coming towards us. We saw horses galloping, and

carriages coming at great speed. By-and-by we saw two chaises with four

horses, each chaise with two or three men inside. They were throwing

out parcels from each window as they went past, galloping as fast as it

was possible for horses to travel. These were express chaises, coming

from London, bringing the news to all the people of the country—for

there were then no telegraphs and no railways—of the glorious triumph

of popular principles, even in the House of Lords, for that House had

sat all night, and it was not until the morning that the House divided

and the second reading of that great measure was carried by a majority

of nine votes.” Men thought the millennium was come, but events have

proved that it had not; and, according to latest advices, it has not

been signalled, even yet.

[Sidenote: _THE “FLYING COACH”_]

Manchester, less than half the way to Glasgow, was in later years very

abundantly supplied with coaches from London; but London and Manchester

were not in direct communication by coach until 1754; and had London

been left to establish a line of coaches to Manchester, the date would

no doubt have been much later. Indeed, it is to be noted that, almost

without exception, the earlier coaches between London and the provinces

were established by provincials seeking to reach London. The metropolis

was always magnificently indifferent; but when the provincial

manufacturing towns began to arise, the manufacturers, seeking business

with that greatest of markets, and finding nothing for it but to ride

horseback to and from London, speedily set up coach services. Thus it

was that the first coach ever to run between Manchester and London was

established by an association of Manchester men. This was the “Flying

Coach” of 1754, which was announced with the statement that “However

incredible it may appear, this coach will actually (barring accidents)

arrive in London in four days and a half after leaving Manchester.”

Really and truly! as the children say. Here we smile; but those

eighteenth-century projectors manifestly took things very seriously, as

they had every reason to do; and doubtless considered the establishment

of this flier a wonderful achievement.

Six years later, in 1760, Messrs. Handforth, Howe, Glanville &

Richardson’s coach is found performing the journey in three days “or

thereabouts”; and in 1770 the “London Flying Machine,” by Samuel

Tennant, began to wing its way every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in

summer, in two days, from the “Royal Oak,” Market Street. It set out in

summer at the shocking hour of one o’clock in the morning, but conceded

4 a.m. in the winter months; when, however, it required another whole

day for the journey.

The earlier coaches seem to have been discontinued, for Tennant’s

“Flying Machine” was in 1770 the only one between London and

Manchester; but for the less moneyed and more leisured classes whose

time was of small value, and expedition was therefore of little

moment, there were Matthew Pickford’s stage-waggons (“Flying Waggons”

he called them), which, generally at a penny a mile, conveyed

passengers and goods between London and Manchester in four and a half

days. They went from the “Swan,” Market Street Lane, on Wednesdays

and Saturdays; but had several rivals: notably Bass’s waggons, on

Fridays, from the “Fountain”; Cooper’s, from the “Star,” Deansgate, on

Wednesdays and Saturdays; Hulse’s, from the “Windmill,” on the same

days; Washington’s, from the “Pack Horse,” Mill Street Lane, Tuesdays;

and Wood’s, from the “Coach and Horses,” Deansgate, Wednesdays and

Saturdays.

[Sidenote: _THE MANCHESTER MAIL_]

In 1776-7, serious competition began for the coaching traffic between

London and Manchester, two rival concerns—the “London New and Elegant

Diligence” and the “New Diligence”—each setting out from Manchester

three times a week and taking only two days to perform the journey. The

“New and Elegant” competitor set out from the “Upper Royal Oak” inn,

Market Street Lane, and went by Macclesfield and Derby. Its complement

was thirteen passengers, who were allowed 14 lb of luggage each, free;

and the fare was £2 6_s._ or 3_d._ a mile. Among the proprietors of

this coach occurs the name of Pickford.

The “New Diligence” (which appears to have been established before its

“New and Elegant” fellow) went by way of Matlock and Derby.

The next great event was the establishment of the Manchester mail,

in 1785. It left the yard of the “Swan with Two Necks,” in Lad Lane,

every weekday evening at 7.30 p.m., and the General Post Office half an

hour later, and came to H. C. Lacy’s “Bridgewater Arms,” Manchester,

at 6 p.m. the next day. Time, 22 hours; a speed of close upon 8-1/2

miles an hour. At its best period, from 1825 to the end, in 1837, it

accomplished the journey in exactly 19 hours, at the average speed of

9·66 miles per hour.

Meanwhile, during the fifty-two years that witnessed the whole career

of the mail-coach, down to its final run, stage-coaching along the road

to Manchester was utterly revolutionised. Rivalry and competition,

as fierce as that on any road, brought the coaches to such a degree

of perfection that for comfortable travel, as then understood, it was

ahead of all other routes; and to such a turn of speed that it was

equal to the best for rapid transit.

During all this period, the districts north of Manchester were more or

less beyond the ken of the London stage-coach proprietors, to whom the

comparatively lean traffic of the road on to Lancaster, Carlisle, and

Glasgow offered no great inducements for through bookings. Moreover,

Manchester and Carlisle were themselves great coaching centres, whose

coach proprietors were very well able to work by themselves and take

such long-distance competition at a disadvantage. From the “Bridgewater

Arms,” High Street, Manchester, went numbers of branch mails; from the

“Star” inn, Deansgate, and the “Mosley Arms,” Market Place, went a long

list of stage-coaches to Lancaster, Kendal, Carlisle, and Glasgow, as

well as others along the important cross-roads; while from the “Swan”

inn, the “Flying Horse,” the “Palace” inn, and the “Talbot,” Market

Street; the “Golden Lion” and “Bush,” Deansgate; “Lower Turk’s Head,”

Shude Hill; “Buck,” Hanging Ditch; “Boar’s Head,” Hyde’s Cross, and

others a swarm of short-distance coaches set out.

[Illustration: THE “COURIER,” MANCHESTER, CARLISLE, AND GLASGOW COACH.

[_After C. B. Newhouse._

]

The chief mail contractor at Manchester in the early days of coaching

was Alexander Paterson, who removed from the “Lower Swan” inn,

Market Street Lane, to the “Bridgewater Arms” in 1788. He was succeeded

by H. C. Lacy, who in 1827 removed to what had until then been a

private mansion at the corner of Market Street and Mosley Street, and

opened it as the “Royal Hotel and New Bridgewater Arms.”

The older inn has long since been converted into warehouses, occupied

at the present time by Messrs. Woodhouse, Hambly & Co.

[Sidenote: _THE DAY COACHES_]

Among the few stage-coaches advertised to run through the whole

distance from London to Manchester and Glasgow was the “Courier,” which

was started in later years and ran until the opening of the railway. It

set out from the “Belle Sauvage,” Ludgate Hill, and from the “Castle

and Falcon,” Aldersgate Street, every weekday at 3 p.m., and connected

by a branch coach at Carlisle with Edinburgh.

Strange portents were seen upon the road to Manchester in the early

years of last century. About 1824 began the era of the fast day

coaches, and fine vehicles, handsome horses, and decent harness were

provided for the travelling public, instead of the springless tubs,

wretched cattle, and harness composed chiefly of odd pieces of worn

leather eked out with string, which made up the uncomfortable old night

coaches. It was a new era in more than one sense, for this was that

now historic period when horseless vehicles were first put upon the

public roads.

The ’twenties of the nineteenth century were almost as remarkable for

those early horseless vehicles, the steam carriages, as the present

era is for petrol-driven and electric motor-cars. Railways, too, began

early to threaten stage-and mail-coaching; and long, whirling, and

involved controversies on road and rail traffic occupied the columns of

the press, and overflowed into innumerable pamphlets.

Few people had sufficient imagination to foresee an era of mechanical

locomotion; but one pamphleteer, who unfortunately elected to

remain anonymous, published in 1824 what modern journalists with an

insufficient English vocabulary would doubtless call a _brochure_ on

the subject. This booklet, entitled _The Fingerpost_, is, according to

its title page, “By???.” Whoever he may have been who thus veiled his

identity behind those triple notes of interrogation, he certainly was a

seer. He foresaw our own times with limpid vision—and smelt them, too.

He thought it “reasonable to conclude that the nervous man will ere

long take his place in a carriage drawn or impelled by a Locomotive

Engine with more unconcern and with far better assurance of safety

than he now disposes of himself in one drawn by four horses of unequal

powers and speed, endued with passions that acknowledge no control but

superior force, and each separately, momentarily, liable to all the

calamities that flesh is heir to. Surely an inanimate power, that can

be started, stopped, and guided at pleasure by the finger or foot of

man, must promise greater personal security to the traveller than a

power derivable from animal life.”

[Sidenote: _A GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE_]

The Manchester and Glasgow Road, Volume 1 (of 2) This Way to Gretna Green · 第 1 / 18 段