London occurs to the average tourist as the center from which his
travels in the Kingdom will radiate, and this idea, from many points of
view, is logically correct. Around the city cluster innumerable literary
and historic associations, and the points of special interest lying
within easy reach will outnumber those in any section of similar extent
in the entire country. If one purposes to make the tour by rail, London
is pre-eminently the center from which to start and to which one will
return at various times in his travels. All the principal railways lead
to the metropolis. The number of trains arriving and departing each day
greatly exceeds that of any other city in the world, and the longest
through journey in the island may be compassed between sunrise and
sunset.
The motorist, however, finds a different problem confronting him in
making London his center. I had in mind the plan of visiting the famous
places of the city and immediate suburbs with the aid of my car, but it
was speedily abandoned when I found myself confronted by the actual
conditions. One attempt at carrying out this plan settled the matter
for me. The trip which I undertook would probably be one of the first to
occur to almost anybody--the drive to Hampton Court Palace, about twelve
or fifteen miles from the central part of the city. It looked easy to
start about two or three o'clock, spend a couple of hours at Hampton
Court and get back to our hotel by six. After trying out my car--which
had reached London some time ahead of me--a few times in localities
where traffic was not the heaviest, I essayed the trip without any
further knowledge of the streets than I had gained from the maps. I was
accompanied by a nervous friend from Iowa who confessed that he had been
in an automobile but once before. He had ridden with a relative through
a retired section of his native state, traversed for the first time by
an automobile, and he had quit trying to remember how many run-aways and
smash-ups were caused by the fractious horses they met on the short
journey. Visions of damage suits haunted him for months thereafter. In
our meanderings through the London streets, the fears for the other
fellow which had harassed him during his former experience, were
speedily transferred to himself. To his excited imagination, we time and
again escaped complete wreck and annihilation by a mere hair's breadth.
The route which we had taken, I learned afterwards, was one of the worst
for motoring in all London. The streets were narrow and crooked and
were packed with traffic of all kinds. Tram cars often ran along the
middle of the street, with barely room for a vehicle to pass on either
side. The huge motor busses came tearing towards us in a manner most
trying to novices, and it seemed, time after time, that the dexterity of
the drivers of these big machines was all that saved our car from being
wrecked. We obtained only the merest glimpse of Hampton Palace, and the
time which we had consumed made it apparent that if we expected to reach
our hotel that night, we must immediately retrace our way through the
wild confusion we had just passed. It began to rain, and added to the
numerous other dangers that seemed to confront us was that of "skidding"
on the slippery streets. When we finally reached our garage, I found
that in covering less than twenty-five miles, we had consumed about four
hours and we had been moving all the time. The nervous strain was a
severe one and I forthwith abandoned any plan that I had of attempting
to do London by motor car. With more knowledge and experience I would
have done better, but a local motorist, thoroughly acquainted with
London, told me that he wouldn't care to undertake the Hampton Court
trip by the route which we had traveled.
On Saturday afternoons and Sundays, the motorist may practically have
freedom of the city. He will find the streets deserted everywhere. The
heavy traffic has all ceased and the number of cabs and motor busses is
only a fraction of what it would be on business days. He will meet
comparatively few motors in the city on Sunday, even though the day be
fine, such as would throng the streets of Chicago or New York with cars.
The Englishman who goes for a drive is attracted from the city by the
many fine roads which lead in every direction to pleasure resorts. One
of the most popular runs with Londoners is the fifty miles to Brighton,
directly southward, and the number of motors passing over this highway
on fine Sundays is astonishing. I noted a report in the papers that on a
certain Sunday afternoon no less than two hundred cars passed a police
trap, and of these, thirty-five were summoned before the magistrates for
breaking the speed limit. To the average American, this run to Brighton
would not be at all attractive compared with many other roads leading
out of London, on which one would scarcely meet a motor car during the
day and would be in no danger from the machinations of the police. Of
course the places frequented by tourists are often closed on Sunday--or
at least partially so, as in the case of Windsor Castle, where one is
admitted to the grounds and court, but the state apartments, etc., are
not shown. Even the churches are closed to Sunday visitors except
during the regular services.
Within a radius of thirty miles of London, and outside its immediate
boundaries, there are numerous places well worth a visit, most of them
open either daily or at stated times. A few of such places are Harrow on
the Hill, with its famous school; Keston, with Holwood House, the home
of William Pitt; Chigwell, the scene of Dickens' "Barnaby Rudge;"
Waltham Abbey Church, founded in 1060; the home of Charles Darwin at
Downe; Epping Forest; Hampton Court; Rye House at Broxborne; Hatfield
House, the estate of the Marquis of Salisbury; Runnymede, where the
Magna Charta was signed; St. Albans, with its ancient cathedral church;
Stoke Poges Church of Gray's "Elegy" fame; Windsor Castle; Knole House,
with its magnificent galleries and furniture; Penshurst Place, the home
of the Sidneys; John Milton's cottage at Chalfont St. Giles; the ancient
town of Guildford in Surrey; Gad's Hill, Dickens' home, near Rochester;
the vicarage where Thackeray's grandfather lived and the old church
where he preached at Monken Hadley; and Whitchurch, with Handel's
original organ, is also near the last-named village. These are only a
few of the places that no one should miss. The motor car affords an
unequalled means of reaching these and other points in this vicinity;
since many are at some distance from railway stations, to go by train
would consume more time than the average tourist has at his disposal.
While we visited all the places which I have just mentioned and many
others close to London, we made only three or four short trips out of
the city returning the same or the following day. We managed to reach
the majority of such points by going and returning over different
highways on our longer tours. In this way we avoided the difficulty we
should have experienced in making many daily trips from London, since a
large part of each day would have been consumed merely in getting in and
out of the city.
[Illustration: HARVESTING IN HERTFORDSHIRE.