Читать книгу The Brighton Road: The Classic Highway to the South - Charles G. Harper - Страница 7

SOCIETY: THEN AND NOW

The coaching and waggoning history of the road to Brighthelmstone (as it then was called) emerges dimly out of the formless ooze of tradition in 1681. In De Laune’s “Present State of Great Britain,” published in that year, in the course of a list of carriers, coaches, and stage-waggons in and out of London, we find Thomas Blewman, carrier, coming from “Bredhempstone” to the “Queen’s Head,” Southwark, on Wednesdays, and, setting forth again on Thursdays, reaching Shoreham the same day: which was remarkably good travelling for a carrier’s waggon in the seventeenth century. Here, then, we have the Father Adam, the great original, so far as records can tell us, of all the after charioteers of the Brighton Road. It is not until 1732, that, from the pages of “New Remarks on London,” published by the Company of Parish Clerks, we hear anything further. At that date a coach set out on Thursdays from the “Talbot,” in the Borough High Street, and a van on Tuesdays from the “Talbot” and the “George.” In the summer of 1745 the “Flying Machine” left the “Old Ship,” Brighthelmstone at 5.30 a.m., and reached Southwark in the evening.

But the first extended and authoritative notice is found in 1746, when the widow of the Lewes carrier advertised in The Lewes Journal of December 8th that she was continuing the business:

Thomas Smith, the Old Lewes Carrier, being dead, THE BUSINESS IS NOW CONTINUED BY HIS WIDOW, MARY SMITH, who gets into the “George Inn,” in the Borough, Southwark, EVERY WEDNESDAY in the afternoon, and sets out for Lewes EVERY THURSDAY morning by eight o’clock, and brings Goods and Passengers to Lewes, Fletching, Chayley, Newick and all places adjacent at reasonable rates.

Performed (if God permit) by MARY SMITH.

We may perceive by these early records that the real original way down to the Sussex coast was by the Croydon, Godstone, East Grinstead and Lewes route, and that its outlet must have been Newhaven, which, despite its name, is so very ancient a place, and was a port and harbour when Brighthelmstone was but a fisher-village.

STAGE WAGGON, 1808.

From a contemporary drawing.

That is the only glimpse we get of the widow Smith and her waggon; but the “George Inn, in the Borough,” that she “got into,” is still in the Borough High Street. It is a fine and flourishing remnant of an ancient galleried hostelry of the time of Chaucer, and it is characteristic of the continuity of English social, as well as political history that, although waggons and coaches no longer come to or set out from the “George,” its spacious yard is now a railway receiving-office for goods, where the railway vans, those descendants of the stage-waggon, thunderously come and go all day.

It will be observed that the traffic in those days went to and from Southwark, which was then the great business centre for the carriers. Not yet was the Brighton road measured from Westminster Bridge, for the adequate reason that there was no bridge at Westminster until 1749: only the ferry from the Horseferry Road to Lambeth.

Widow Smith’s waggon halted at Lewes, and it is not until ten years later than the date of her advertisement that we hear of the Brighthelmstone conveyance. The first was that announced by the pioneer, James Batchelor, in The Sussex Weekly Advertiser, May 12th, 1756:

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the LEWES ONE DAY STAGE COACH or CHAISE sets out from the Talbot Inn, in the Borough, on Saturday next, the 19th instant.

When likewise the Brighthelmstone Stage begins.

Performed (if God permit) by JAMES BATCHELOR.

The “Talbot” inn, which stood on the site of the ancient “Tabard,” of Chaucerian renown, disappeared from the Borough High Street in 1870. What its picturesque yard was like in 1815, with the waggons of the Sussex carriers, let the illustration tell.

Let us halt awhile, to admire the courage of those coaching and waggoning pioneers who, in the days before “the sea-side” had been invented, and few people travelled, dared the awful roads for what must then have been a precarious business. Sussex roads in especial had a most unenviable name for miriness, and wheeled traffic was so difficult that for many years after this period the farmers and others continued to take their womenkind about in the pillion fashion here caricatured by Henry Bunbury.

SUSSEX ROADS

Horace Walpole, indeed, travelling in Sussex in 1749, visiting Arundel and Cowdray, acquired a too intimate acquaintance with their phenomenal depth of mud and ruts, inasmuch as he—finicking little gentleman—was compelled to alight precipitately from his overturned chaise, and to foot it like any common fellow. One quite pities his daintiness in the narration of his sorrows, picturesquely set forth by that accomplished letter-writer arrived home to the safe seclusion of Strawberry Hill. He writes to George Montagu, and dates August 26th, 1749:

“Mr. Chute and I returned from our expedition miraculously well, considering all our distresses. If you love good roads, conveniences, good inns, plenty of postilions and horses, be so kind as never to go into Sussex. We thought ourselves in the northest part of England; the whole county has a Saxon air, and the inhabitants are savage, as if King George the Second was the first monarch of the East Angles. Coaches grow there no more than balm and spices: we were forced to drop our post-chaise, that resembled nothing so much as harlequin’s calash, which was occasionally a chaise or a baker’s cart. We journeyed over alpine mountains” (Walpole, you will observe, was, equally with the evening journalist of these happy times, not unaccustomed to exaggerate) “drenched in clouds, and thought of harlequin again, when he was driving the chariot of the sun through the morning clouds, and was so glad to hear the aqua vitæ man crying a dram.... I have set up my staff, and finished my pilgrimages for this year. Sussex is a great damper of curiosity.”

Thus he prattles on, delightfully describing the peculiarities of the several places he visited with this Mr. Chute, “whom,” says he, “I have created Strawberry King-at-Arms.” One wonders what that mute, inglorious Chute thought of it all; if he was as disgusted with Sussex sloughs and moist unpleasant “mountains” as his garrulous companion. Chute suffered in silence, for the sight of pen, ink, and paper did not induce in him a fury of composition; and so we shall never know what he endured.

Then the pedantic Doctor John Burton, who journeyed into Sussex in 1751, had no less unfortunate acquaintance with these miry ways than our dilettante of Strawberry Hill. To those who have small Latin and less Greek, this traveller’s tale must ever remain a sealed book; for it is in those languages that he records his views upon ways and means, and men and manners, in Sussex. As thus, for example:

“I fell immediately upon all that was most bad, upon a land desolate and muddy, whether inhabited by men or beasts a stranger could not easily distinguish, and upon roads which were, to explain concisely what is most abominable, Sussexian. No one would imagine them to be intended for the people and the public, but rather the byways of individuals, or, more truly, the tracks of cattle-drivers; for everywhere the usual footmarks of oxen appeared, and we too, who were on horseback, going along zigzag, almost like oxen at plough, advanced as if we were turning back, while we followed out all the twists of the roads.... My friend, I will set before you a kind of problem in the manner of Aristotle:—Why comes it that the oxen, the swine, the women, and all other animals(!) are so long-legged in Sussex? Can it be from the difficulty of pulling the feet out of so much mud by the strength of the ankle, so that the muscles become stretched, as it were, and the bones lengthened?”

A doleful tale. Presently he arrives at the conclusion that the peasantry “do not concern themselves with literature or philosophy, for they consider the pursuit of such things to be only idling,” which is not so very remarkable a trait, after all, in the character of an agricultural people.

THE “TALBOT” INN YARD. BOROUGH, ABOUT 1815.

From an old drawing.

Our author eventually, notwithstanding the terrible roads, arrived at Brighthelmstone, by way of Lewes, “just as day was fading.” It was, so he says, “a village on the sea-coast; lying in a valley gradually sloping, and yet deep. It is not, indeed, contemptible as to size, for it is thronged with people, though the inhabitants are mostly very needy and wretched in their mode of living, occupied in the employment of fishing, robust in their bodies, laborious, and skilled in all nautical crafts, and, as it is said, terrible cheats of the custom-house officers.” As who, indeed, is not, allowing the opportunity?

Batchelor, the pioneer of Brighton coaching, continued his enterprise in 1757, and with the coming of spring, and the drying of the roads, his coaches, which had been laid up in the winter, after the usual custom of those times, were plying again. In May he advertised, “for the convenience of country gentlemen, etc.,” his London, Lewes, and Brighthelmstone stage-coach, which performed the journey of fifty-eight miles in two days; and exclusive persons, who preferred to travel alone, might have post-chaises of him.

EARLY COACHING

Brighthelmstone had in the meanwhile sprung into notice. The health-giving qualities of its sea air, and the then “strange new eccentricity” of sea-bathing, advocated from 1750 by Dr. Richard Russell, had already given it something of a vogue among wealthy invalids, and the growing traffic was worth competing for. Competitors therefore sprang up to share Batchelor’s business. Most of them merely added stage-coaches like his, but in May, 1762, a certain “J. Tubb,” in partnership with “S. Brawne,” started a very superior conveyance, going from London one day and returning from Brighthelmstone the next. This was the:

LEWES and BRIGHTELMSTONE new FLYING MACHINE (by Uckfield), hung on steel springs, very neat and commodious, to carry Four Passengers, sets out from the Golden Cross Inn, Charing Cross, on Monday, the 7th of June, at six o’clock in the morning, and will continue Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Friday’s to the White Hart, at Lewes, and the Castle, at Brightelmstone, where regular Books are kept for entering passenger’s and parcels; will return to London Tuesday’s, Thursday’s, and Saturday’s Each Inside Passenger to Lewes, Thirteen Shillings; to Brighthelmstone, Sixteen; to be allowed Fourteen Pound Weight for Luggage, all above to pay One Penny per Pound; half the fare to be paid at Booking, the other at entering the machine. Children in Lap and Outside Passengers to pay half-price.

Performed by J. TUBB.

S. BRAWNE.

ME AND MY WIFE AND DAUGHTER.

From a caricature by Henry Bunbury.

Batchelor saw with dismay this coach performing the whole journey in one day, while his took two. But he determined to be as good a man as his opponent, if not even a better, and started the next week, at identical fares, “a new large Flying Chariot, with a Box and four horses (by Chailey) to carry two Passengers only, except three should desire to go together.” The better to crush the presumptuous Tubb, he later on reduced his fares. Then ensued a diverting, if by no means edifying, war of advertisements; for Tubb, unwilling to be outdone, inserted the following in The Lewes Journal, November, 1762:

THIS IS TO INFORM THE PUBLIC that, on Monday, the 1st of November instant, the LEWES and BRIGHTHELMSTON FLYING MACHINE began going in one day, and continues twice a week during the Winter Season to Lewes only; sets out from the White Hart, at Lewes, Mondays and Thursdays at Six o’clock in the Morning, and returns from the Golden Cross, at Charing Cross, Tuesdays and Saturdays, at the same hour.

Performed by J. TUBB.

N.B.—Gentlemen, Ladies, and others, are desired to look narrowly into the Meanness and Design of the other Flying Machine to Lewes and Brighthelmston, in lowering his prices, whether ’tis thro’ conscience or an endeavour to suppress me. If the former is the case, think how you have been used for a great number of years, when he engrossed the whole to himself, and kept you two days upon the road, going fifty miles. If the latter, and he should be lucky enough to succeed in it, judge whether he wont return to his old prices, when you cannot help yourselves, and use you as formerly. As I have, then, been the remover of this obstacle, which you have all granted by your great encouragement to me hitherto, I, therefore, hope for the continuance of your favours, which will entirely frustrate the deep-laid schemes of my great opponent, and lay a lasting obligation on,—Your very humble Servant,

J. TUBB.

To this replies Batchelor, possessed with an idea of vested interests pertaining to himself:

WHEREAS, Mr. Tubb, by an Advertisement in this paper of Monday last, has thought fit to cast some invidious Reflections upon me, in respect of the lowering my Prices and being two days upon the Road, with other low insinuations, I beg leave to submit the following matters to the calm Consideration of the Gentlemen, Ladies, and other Passengers, of what Degree soever, who have been pleased to favour me, viz.:

That our Family first set up the Stage Coach from London to Lewes, and have continued it for a long Series of Years, from Father to Son and other Branches of the same Race, and that even before the Turnpikes on the Lewes Road were erected they drove their Stage, in the Summer Season, in one day, and have continued to do ever since, and now in the Winter Season twice in the week. And it is likewise to be considered that many aged and infirm Persons, who did not chuse to rise early in the Morning, were very desirous to be two Days on the Road for their own Ease and Conveniency, therefore there was no obstacle to be removed. And as to lowering my prices, let every one judge whether, when an old Servant of the Country perceives an Endeavour to suppress and supplant him in his Business, he is not well justified in taking all measures in his Power for his own Security, and even to oppose an unfair Adversary as far as he can. ’Tis, therefore, hoped that the descendants of your very ancient Servants will still meet with your farther Encouragement, and leave the Schemes of our little Opponent to their proper Deserts.—I am, Your old and present most obedient Servant,

J. BATCHELOR.

December 13, 1762.

The rivals both kept to the road until the death of Batchelor, in 1766, when his business was sold to Tubb, who took into partnership a Mr. Davis. Together they started, in 1767, the first service of a daily coach in the “Lewes and Brighthelmstone Flys,” each carrying four passengers, one to London and one to Brighton every day.

Tubb and Davis had in 1770 one “machine” and one waggon on this road, fare by “machine” 14s. The machine ran daily to and from London, starting at five o’clock in the morning. The waggon was three days on the road. Another machine was also running, but with the coming of winter these machines performed only three double journeys each a week.

In 1777 another stage-waggon was started by “Lashmar & Co.” It loitered between the “King’s Head,” Southwark, and the “King’s Head,” Brighton, starting from London every Tuesday at the unearthly hour of 3 a.m., and reaching its destination on Thursday afternoons.

On May 31st, 1784, Tubb and Davis put a “light post-coach” on the road, running to Brighton one day returning to London the next, in addition to their already running “machine” and “post-coach.” This new conveyance presumably made good time, four “insides” only being carried.

GROWTH OF COACHING

Four years later, when Brighton’s sun of splendour was rising, there were on the road between London and the sea three “machines,” three light post-coaches, two coaches, and two stage-waggons. Tubb now disappears, and his firm becomes Davis & Co. Other proprietors were Ibberson & Co., Bradford & Co., and Mr. Wesson.

On May 1st, 1791, the first Brighton Mail coach was established. It was a two-horse affair, running by Lewes and East Grinstead, and taking twelve hours to perform the journey. It was not well supported by the public, and as the Post Office would not pay the contractors a higher mileage, it was at some uncertain period withdrawn.

About 1796 coach offices were opened in Brighton for the sole despatch of coaching business, the time having passed away for the old custom of starting from inns. Now, too, were different tales to tell of these roads, after the Pavilion had been set in course of building. Royalty and the Court could not endure to travel upon such evil tracks as had hitherto been the lot of travellers to Brighthelmstone. Presently, instead of a dearth of roads and a plethora of ruts, there became a choice of good highways and a plenty of travellers upon them.

Numerous coaches ran to meet the demands of the travelling public, and these continually increased in number and improved in speed. About this time first appear the firms of Henwood, Crossweller, Cuddington, Pockney & Harding, whose office was at No. 44, East Street: and Boulton, Tilt, Hicks, Baulcomb & Co., at No. 1, North Street. The most remarkable thing, to my mind, about those companies is their long-winded names. In addition to the old service, there ran a “night post-coach” on alternate nights, starting at 10 p.m. in the season. One then went to or from London generally in “about” eleven hours, if all went well. If you could afford only a ride in the stage-waggon, why then you were carried the distance by the accelerated (!) waggons of this line in two days and one night.