c^« /^ YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Gift of the Timothy Dwight College 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. QEOEaE THE TlIlIiD TRAVELLING TROir WINDSOR TO LONDON, 1S06. (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. Illustrated by the Author, and from Old Prints and Pictures > London; CHAPMAN & HALL, Limited 1899 (All Rights Reserved) I'BIKTKD BT ¦VCILLIAW CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. To E. T. COOK, Esq. Dear Mr. Cook, It icas 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 comvion to journalists and authors, a growth from four thousand to some sixty thousand words — should he inscribed to yourself. Sincerely yours, CHAELES G. HAEPER. f/e/a ce ¦gr^ 'V ^ HIS, 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 con siderable delay. The Dover Road, wldch 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, jjartly in order to point out how quickly and how surely the old-time aspects of the roads are disappear ing ; for, since the Bath Eoad has been in progress, no fewer than four of the old inns pictured in these pages have disappeared, while great stretches of the X PREFACE 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 noiv being swept off the face of the earth, that it is hoped these volumes will find a icelcome tvith those who care to cherish something of the records of a day that is done. CHAELES G. HARPER. Peteeshaji, Surrey, February, 1899. SEPARATE PLATES I. George the Third travelling from Windsor to London, isiio. {After R. B. Davis) Frontispiece, 2. Coaching iliSEEiES. {After Rotvlandson) . 3. Passengers refreshed after a Long Dat'i Journey. {After Ruickmdson) 4. The " White Bear," Piccadilly . 5. Allen's Stall at Hyde Park Corner, about 1756 6. Hyde Park Corner, 1797 7. Kensington High Street, Summer Sunset 8. colnbrook, a decayed coaching town 9. An English Eoad 10. Maidenhead Thicket .... 1 1. The Stage Waggon. (After Rotvlandsoii) 12. Theale 13. Woolhajipton 14. Rail and River : The Kennet and the Great Western Railway .... 15. At the 55th Milestone .... 13 23 35 4147 IOI125 131139 143 147151 15s xii LIST OF I LLUSTM ATIONS PAGE 1 6. Hungerford . . 169 17. Marlborough . . 189 18. Fyfield 19s 19. Marlborough Downs, near West Overton . 199 20. The White Horse, Oherhill . . 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 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT PAGE 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 Comer, 1792 . 39 The " Halfway House," 184s . 43 " Oldest Inhabitant " . .50 Thackeray's House, Young Street . . . 54 The " White Horse." Traditional Eetreat 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 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Almshouses, Langley 104 The Stolen Fountain loS Windsor Castle, from the Road near Slough 106 The " Bell and Bottle " Sign . ^ZZ 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 Bos Quarries .... 224 The Sun God . 233 Roman inscribed tablet • 23s 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 — Kensington — St. Mary Abbots ... Addison Road ... Hammersmith . . . 3-I. 4 Turnham Green . . . . Brentford — Star Gates Town Hall (cross River Brent and Grand Junction Canal) Isleworth (Railway Station) Hounslow (Trinity Church) ... Cranford Bridge (cross River Crane) Harlington Corner .... . 13 Longford (cross River Colne) . . 15-1- Colnbrook (cross River Colne) ... • 17 Langley Broom (" King William IV." Inn) Slough ("Crown" Hotel) . . . • 2oi Salt Hill . 2ii Maidenhead (cross River Thames) . . 26 Little wick .... . . 29A Knowl Hill . 3 1 Hare Hatch ... .32! Twyford (cross River Loddon) . . 34 Reading (cross River Kennet) 39 Calcot Green ... . ^ji 4 2 THE ROAD TO BATH London (Hyde Park Corner) to— MILES Theale .... 44 Woolhampton ... 49i Thatcham (cross River Lambourne) ¦ S2f Speenhamland " Newbury J S5f Church Speen ¦ S6f Hungerford (cross River Kennet) 64i Froxfield (cross River Kennet) • 67 Marlborough . 74i Fyfield . . . . 77 Overton • 78 West Kennet (cross River Kennet) 79i Beckhampton Inn 81 Cherhill 84 Quemerford (cross tributary of River Harden) 861 Calne (cross River Calne) 87i Black Dog Hill .... 88| Derry Hill (Swan Inn) .... 9o| Chippenham (cross River Avon) 93i Cross Keys 96i Pickwick (" Hare and Hounds " Inn) 97i Box . . . . lOOi Batheaston io3i Walcot . io4i Bath (G.P.O.) 105I 'C\ Q-" 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 charac teristic of road history ; and the story of the Dover Road is a very microcosm of the nation's history. Xothing strongly characteristic of England, English men, 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 B 2 THE BATH ROAD 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 stock ings 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 "pro test " 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 afiiicted 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 afi'ord 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. THE BEGGARS OF BATH 3 Every invalid, in fact, who could afi'ord it, went to Bath, and the mentally atilictod, who could not go, were sent thither ; so that the saying which is now become proverbial (and whose origin and suljtl'e 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 usuall}'" being thus tonsured. This derisive phrase was used toward any one who propounded a more than ordinaril}' crack-brained project. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to say that it has no sort of con nection 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 im possible, 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. THE BATH ROAD seeing there is the Lazar's-bath in this city, I douljt 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 afi'ord 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 THE "FLYING MACHINE" 5 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 sufiiciently accounted for. 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 AYeight— for all above to pay three-halfpence per Pound." 6 THE BATH ROAD 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 trafiic ; and it was not until thirty- six years later that it did begin, when (^ueen 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 — aud 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 appro priate toast for the author and the Mayor and Cor poration 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 estal:)lishment 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 COACHING MISERIES 9 " 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. His rivals were many, and, considering the popu larity 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 Ailverther. 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." 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., IO THE BATH ROAD 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 ap pended, 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, aad set out on Monday, August 2, 1784. Hitherto the letters had been con veyed 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 corre spondence 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 4c/. for places between 80 and 120 miles distant. A clever and enterprising man resident at Bath had noted these things. This was John Palmer, the pro prietor 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. THE FIRST MAIL COACH ii 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 Ofiice. 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 de spatched 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 £50,000. 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 frora it, to help pay the costs of waging Continental wars. 12 THE BATH ROAD Let us see what the postage between London, Bath, and Bristol was at difi'erent 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 id., while a bulky package weighing one ounce cost ^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 3f/. more for an ounce weight. From 1711 to 1765, the scale was — Letter. One ounce. Xll. 1.S-. Xll. and from 1765 to 1784 the charges were again raised, to bd. and l^'. 8f/. respectively. Matters then went from bad to worse. In the beginning of 1797, the figures were Id. and 2s. 4(i. ; while the climax was finally reached at the beginning of this century, for on July 9, 1812, it cost 93( ' '_ I-aJ '-_, vv V. -1, , '\. /^ " fe: THE "BERKSHIRE LADY" 141 his wife, travelling in their own coach, lost their way, entirely through the badness of the roads. In spite of these raodern advantages, the road is quite suburban and uninteresting until Calcot Green is passed, in two miles and a half. But it is here, amid the pleasant, though tame, scenery that Calcot Park, the home of the famous " Berkshire Lady," mav be sought. The " Berkshire Lady " was the daughter of Sir AVilliam Kendrick, of Calcot, who flourished in the reign of Queen Anne. Upon the death of her father, she became sole heiress to the estate and an income of some five thousand pounds per annum. Rich, beautiful, and endowed with a vivacious manner, it is not surprising that she was courted by all the vinous, red-faced young squires in the neighbourhood ; but she refused these offers until, according to an old ballad — ¦" Being at a noble wedding In the famous town of Reading, A young gentleman she saw Who belonged to the law." AVe may shrewdly suspect that she not only " saw " him, but that they indulged in a desperate fiirtation in the conservatory, or what may have answered to a conservatory in those times. The "Berkshire Lady" was evidently a New Woman, born very much in advance of her proper era. For what did she do \ Why, she fell in love with that " young gentleman " straight away, and so furiously that nothing would suffice her but to •42 THE BATH ROAD send him an anonymous challenge to fight a duel or to marry her. Benjamin ChUd— for that was the name of the young and briefless (and also impecunious) barrister — was astonished at receiving a challenge from no one in particular ; but, accompanied by a friend, pro ceeded to the rendezvous appointed by the unknown in Calcot Park. Arrived there, they perceived a masked lady, with a rapier, who informed the pair that she was the challenger : — " ' It was I that did invite you : A"ou shall wed me, or I'll fight you. So now take your choice,' said she ; ' Either fight, or marry me.' Says he, ' Madam, pray what mean ye ? In my life I ne'er have seen ye ; Pray unmask, your visage show. Then I'll tell you, aye or no.' " The lady, however, would not unmask : ~ " ' I will not my face uncover. Till the marriage rites are over ; Therefore take you which you will, "Wed me, sir, or try your skill.' " The friend advised Benjamin Child, Esq., to take his chance of her being poor and pretty, or rich and — plain (those being the usually accepted conjunctions), and to marry her, which he accordingly promised to do. He had a reward for his moral courage, for the lady unmasked and disclosed herself as the beautiful unknown with whom he had fiirted at the wedding. That they "lived happily ever afterwards" we need find no difficulty in believing. Many stories were current locally of this Mr. Child. THEALE 1 45 One, iu particular (certainly not a romantic one), related his great fondness for oysters, of which he was in the habit of consuming large quantities ; in fact, he is said to have kept a museum of the tubs emptied by him, for one room in Calcot House was fitted round with shelves, upon which these empty mementos were arranged in regular order. It was his humour to show his friends this unique arrangement as a convincing proof of his capabilities in that particular branch of good living. Upon the death of his wife, Calcot became un bearable to him, and he sold it. But, curiously enough, nothing could induce him to quit the house, and the new proprietor was reduced to rendering it uninhabitable to him by unroofing it. Mr. Child then retired to a small cottage in an adjoining wood, where he spent the rest of his days in retireraent. The Kendrick vault in the church of St. Mary, Reading, was exposed to view in 1820, when, araong the numerous coffins found, was one bearing the in scription, "Frances Child, wife of Benjamin Child, of Calcot, first daughter of Sir AV. Kendrick, died 1722, aged 35." The coffin was of lead, and was moulded to the form of the body, even to the lineaments of the face. Mr. Child was the last person buried in this vault. His coffin, of unusually large dimensions, is dated 1767. Two and a half railes from Calcot Green, and we are at Theale, a village prettily embowered among trees, but possessing a large and extraordinarily bad " Carpenter's Gothic" church, built about 1840, which looks quite charming at the distance of a quarter of L '4^ THE BATH ROAD a mile, but has been known to afflict architects who have made its close acquaintance with hopeless melancholia. In fine, Theale church is a horrid example of Early Victorian imitation of the Early English style. And now the road wanders sweetly between the green and pleasant levels beside the sedgy Kennet. Road, rail, river, and canal run side by side, or but slightly parted, for miles, past AVoolhampton and the decayed town of Thatcham, to Newbury, and so on to Hungerford. A short mile before reaching Woolhampton, there stands, on the left-hand side of the road, quite lonely, a wayside inn, the " Rising Sun," a relic of coaching times. They still show one, in the parlour, the old booking-office in which parcels were received for the old road-waggons that plied Avith luggage between London and Bath, and talk of the days when the house used to own stabling for forty horses. A larger inn is the "Angel," at Woolhampton, with a most elaborate iron sign, from which depends a little carved figure of a vine-crowned Bacchus, astride his barrel, carved forty years ago by a wood-carver engaged on the restoration of AVoolhampton Church. Tramps and other traveUers unacquainted with the classics generally take this vinous heathen god to be a repre sentation of the Angel after whom the inn was named. Woolhampton, once bles.sed with two "' Angels," has now but one, for what was once known as the " Upper Angel" has been re-named the "Falmouth Arms." Although AVoolhampton village possesses a railway THA TCHAM 149 station on the Hants and Berks branch of the Great AVestern Railwa}', travellers will look in vain for the name of it in their railway guides. If they wdll refer to " Midgham," however, they will have found it under another title. Originally called by the name of the village, it was found that passengers and luggage frequently lost their way here in mistake for AA^olver- THATOHAM. hampton, also on the Great Western, and so the name had to be changed. Three and a half miles from AVoolhampton comes Thatcham, famed in the coaching age for its " King's Head " inn, but now a decayed market town which has sunk to the status of a very dull village. A battered stone, all that remains of a market cross, stands in the middle of the wide, deserted street, enclosecf by a circular seat, bearing an inscription recounting the history of the market, and the kingly ISO THE BATH ROAD protection which Henry the Third afforded the place against the " Newbury men." But, kingly help not withstanding, the " Newbury men " have long since snatched its trade away from Thatcham, which has become a viUage, while Newbury has grown to be a town of 20,000 inhabitants. The only interesting object in the long street is Thatcham Chapel, an isolated Perpendicular building, purchased for 10s. by Lady Frances Winchcombe in 1707. She presented it to a Blue Coat school which she founded in the village. XXV Newbuky, the " hated rival," is three miles down the road. Within a mile of it in coaching times, but now not to be distinguished from the town itself, is Speenhamland, the site of that faraous coaching inn, the " Pelican," whose charges were of so monu mental a character that Quin has immortalized them in the lines : — " The famous inn at Speenhamland, That stands beneath the hill. May well be called the Pelican, From its enormous bill." Alas ! how are the mighty fallen ! The Pelican is no longer an inn, but has been divided up, and part of it is a veterinary establishment. The most famous inhabitant of Newbury was that fifteenth-century clothier, that " Jack of Newbury," THOMAS STACKIIOUSE 153 wdiose wealth and public benefactions were alike considered wonderful in his day. The most notorious inhabitant was that scandalous A^icar of Beenham A^allance, near l>}', who flourished fiamboyantly here between 1733 and 1752. Candour compels the ad mission that the Rev. Thomas Stackhouse, besides being the learned author of the " History of the Bible," was also a great drunkard. That history, indeed, he chiefiy wrote at an inn still standing on the Bath Road near Thatcham, called " Jack's Booth." He would stay there for days at a time, and write (and drink), in an arbour in the garden, going frequently from this retreat to his church on Sundays, where, in the pulpit, he would break into incoherent prayers and maudlin tears, asking forgiveness for his besetting sin, and promising reformation of his evil courses. But after service he was generally to be seen going- back to his inn. Here one day a friend found him and reminded him that it was the day of the Bishop's Visitation, a circurastance w^hich he had quite for gotten. He went off, clothed disgracefully, and by no means sober. " Who," asked the Bishop, indig nantly, on seeing this strange creature — " who is that shabby, dirty old man ? " The vicar answered the query himself. " I am," he shouted, " Thoraas Stack- house, Vicar of Beenham, who wrote the ' History of the Bible,' and that is more than your lordship can do ! " The historian of these things says this reply quite upset the gravity of the solemn meeting ; and the statement may well be believed. Camden says, " Newburie must acknowledge Speen as its raother, and Newbury, in fact, was originally 154 THE BATH ROAD an offshoot from Speen, which was anciently a fortifii^d Roman settlement in the tangled underwoods of the wdld country between the Roraan cities of Aqua? Solis and Calleva (Bath and Sdchester). The Romans called it " Spinse," i.e. " the Thorns," a sufficiently descriptive title in that era. The Domesday Book calls it " Spone." The fact of Speen having been the original settlement may be partly traced in the circumstance of its lying directly on the old road, w^hile Newbury, its infinitely bigger daughter, sprawls out ou the Whitchurch and Andover roads, which run from the Bath Road almost at right angles. There are quaint houses at Newbury, and old inns ; some of them, Uke the "Globe" or the "King's Anns," converted into shops or private houses, while others perhaps do a brisker trade in drink than in good cheer of the more hospitable sort. There are the " AVhite Hart," and the "Jack of Newbury," with a modern front, and others. The Kennet divides the town in half, and runs under a bridge which carries the street across its narrow width, bordered with quaint-looking houses. Here is the old Cloth Hall, a singular building, neglected now that the weaving trade has decayed ; and on the west side of the bridge stands the parish church with a small brass in it to the memory of the great " Jack," and a very economical monument to a certain "J. W.C," 1692, just roughly carved into the stonework of a buttress at the east end. It is strange to think that only twenty-seven years ago (in 1872, as a matter of fact), at Newbury, a rag and bone dealer who for several years had been well at the 55th milestone. "JACK OF NEWBURY' 157 INSCBIPTION. NEWEUEY CHURCH. known in the town as a man of intemperate habits, and upon whora imprisonment in Reading Gaol had faded to produce any beneficial effect, was fixed in the stocks for drunkenness and dis orderly conduct at Divine service in the parish church. Twenty-six years had elapsed since the stocks had last been used, and their reappearance created no little sensation and amuse ment, several hundreds of persons being attracted to the spot where they were fixed. The sinful rag man was seated upon a stool, and his legs were secured in the stocks at a few minutes past one. He seemed any thing but pleased with the laughter and derision of the crowd. Four hours having passed, he was released. It is irapossible to escape Jack of Newbury in this the scene of his greatness. "John Smalwoode the elder, alias John AVynchcombe," as he describes him self in his last wdll and testaraent, in 1519, was the most prominent of the clothworkers in the reigns of the Seventh and Eighth Henrys. He is perhaps best described in the words of a pamphlet published towards the close of the sixteenth century : — " He was a man of merrie disposition and honest conversa tion, was wondrous well beloved of rich and poore, especially because in every place where he came he would spend his money with the best, and was not any time found a churl of his purse. Wherefore, being so good a companion, he was called of olde and younge ' Jacke of Newberie,' a man so generally 158 THE BATH ROAD well knowne in all this countrye for his good fellow ship, that he could goe into no place but he found acquaintance ; by means whereof Jacke could no sooner get a crowne, but straight hee found meanes to spend it ; yet had he ever this care, that hee would always keepe himselfe in comely and decent apparel, neither at any time would hee be overcome in drinke, but so discreetly behave himselfe wdth honest mirthe and pleasant conceits, that he was every gentleman's companion." This is so excellent a voucher for him that it is not surprising so universal a favourite stepped into the shoes of his master's widow. She was rich, and he with a plentiful lack of coin ; yet though she had a choice of suitors, including a " tanner, a taylor, and a parson," she set her heart on Jack with something of the determination which characterized the " Berkshire Lady " already referred to in these pages ; and though he was something loth, married him out of hand. AVe are not told that she regretted it, but probably she did, for the stories have it that she was a gossip and given to staying out late, while Jack stopped at home and went betimes to bed. Once, when she returned at midnight, and knocked at the door, he looked from his window and told her that, as she had stayed out all day for her own delight, she might " lie forth " until the morning for his. " Moved with pity," as the narrative says, but more likely because her continual knocking kept him awake, he at last went down in his shirt and opened the door, when "Alack, husband," says she, " what hap have I ? My wedding ring was even now in my hand, and I have let it fall JACK AS ENTERTAINER 159 about the door ; good, sweet John, come forth with the candle and help me seek it." He " went forth " accordingly, into the street, and she locked him out ! AA^e are not told what happened w^hen he got in again. He seems to have taken her loss, a little later, calmly enough, for he speedily married again, and although " wondrous wealthie," he chose a poor girl who lived at Aylesbury. A grand wedding it was Avhen Joan (for that was her name) and Jack were married. Her head, we are assured, was adorned with a '¦ billement of gold, and her hair, as yellow as gold, hanging downe behind her." In fact, " Her golden hair w^as hanging down her back," as the music-hall songster has it ; which goes far to prove that the modern penchant for yellow locks has a respectable antiquity, and warrants brunettes in using all the arts of the toilet to redress the errors of Nature. Jack of Newbury entertained Henry the Eighth here, and, wonderful to relate, the fioors of the house were covered wdth broad cloth, instead of the then usual rushes. Also, he equipped a hundred of his workmen, fifty as horsemen, and fifty armed with bows and pikes, ' ' as well armed and better clothed than any," and went with them to the Scotch war. The "Ballad of the Newberrie Archers" tells us how they distinguished themselves at Flodden Field ; but it must be added that it is doubtful whether they ever reached so far ; which proves the ballad-maker — the " special correspondent " of that time — -to have been more eloquent than truthful. That Jack was the principal raan of his trade must be evident from these i6o THE BATH ROAD facts and from the statement that he employed a hundred looms ; and a great deal more evident from his having been selected to head the petition of the clothiers for the encouragement of trade with France. He had a pretty taste in sarcasm, too, if his retort old cloth hall, NEWBURY. upon AA^olsey, to whom it had been referred, and who had delayed to answer it, is considered. " If my Lord Chancellor's father," said he, "had been no hastier in FIRST BATTLE OF NEWBURY i6i killing calves than he in despatching of poor men's suits, I think he would never have worn a mitre." It is only necessary to remember that AVolsoy was the son of a butcher for the sting of this quip to be appreciated. XXVI Ix 1531, and again in 1556, Newbury was the scone of martyrdoms; and in 1643 and 1644 the site of two battles between Charles and his Parliament, both almost equally indecisive, and both remarkable for desperate courage on either side. The first battle was fought to the south of the town on September 18, and was the culmination of a Royalist attack upon the Parliamentary army under the Earl of Essex, on the march from Gloucester to London. Essex had designed to lie at Newbury, the town being strongly for the Parliament ; but as he was marching across Enborne Chase on the 16tli, his line was cut by the appearance of Prince Rupert, who charged down upon him wdth his dragoons. In this skirmish the Marquis de Vieuville was slain, and many others of the Royalists. The battle thus forced on by the rashness of Prince Rupert was one of the fiercest in the war. The King was encamped near Donnington. Essex advanced and seized some elevated ground, where his men were charged by the Royalist cavalry, at whose head was the Earl of Carnarvon. Carnarvon had that morning measured a gateway with his sword, to see if it were wide enough for the prisoners who, M i62 THE BATH ROAD wdth Essex at their head, they were to lead through it in the evening. Although they cut up Essex's cavalry, Carnarvon himself fell in that gallant charge, and was carried through the same gateway, a corpse, that night. It was the Parliamentary foot, the London train bands, that saved the day, which would otherwise have been a disastrous rout for their leader. They withstood the cannonading and the impetuous charges of Rupert's horse, and, with Essex himself among thera, in a conspicuous white hat, drove back the Royalist infantry. It was not until night had fallen that the contest ceased. Six thousand were slain that day, and neither side had won. Essex was so weakened that he retreated upon Reading the next raorning. He had nearly reached Theale w^hen Rupert de scended upon his rear like a hurricane, and cut down many of his troops in a spot still called, from this circumstance, "Dead Man's Lane." The Royalists perhaps had slightly the better of the First Battle of Newbury ; but at what a cost 1 Carnarvon, the young Earl of Sunderland ; and Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland, slain ! Falkland was Secre tary of State, and a patriot whose feelings were above partizanship. He seems to have had a presentiment of death, for he received the Sacrament on the morning of the battle, saying, "I am weary of the times, and foresee much misery to my country ; but I believe I shall be out of it ere night." There is a monument on AVash Common to him — " The blameless and the brave," THE SECOND BATTLE 163 who fell thus with his brothers-in-arms ; and mounds still mark the places where the dead were buried. The memory of this great battle has recently been revived, for in 1897 its anniversary was celebrated, and wreaths and crosses of evergreens were laid u})on the monument and the tumuli. XXVII The Second Battle of Newbury was fought on Sunday, October 27, 1644. The thickest part of it raged round Speen, on the Bath Road, and in the gardens of Shaw House. This house, one of the finest mansions in Berkshire, was built by Thomas Dolman, clothier, in 1581. He was evidently something of a scholar, and worldly wdse as well, for he knew that his riches and his grand mansion would rouse envious talk. Accordingly he caused Latin and Greek inscriptions to be carved over the entrance, which, Englished, run — " Let no envious man enter here." And— " The toothless man envies the teeth of those who eat, and the mole despises the eyes of the roe." It is quite obvious that Thomas Dolman had been a great deal criticized locally, and that the iron of that criticism had entered his soul. His son became Sir Thomas Dolman, and it was his descendant, Sir John Dolman, who garrisoned the house and entertained King Charles here on the night before the second battle. A hole is still shown i54 THE BATH ROAD in the panelling of the drawing-room, said to have been made by a shot fired at the King that night when standing at the window ; and a brass plate records the circumstance in a Latin inscription. The parapets of Shaw' House were lined with Royalist musketeers on this occasion, and entrench ments thrown up iu the gardens ; but after a stub- THK LAST OF THE SMOCK-FROCKS AXD BEAVKKS. bornly contested fight the RoyaUsts were too weakened to retain the position. Their ordnance and the wounded were left at Donnington Castle, a mile Away, and they fell back upon Oxford. Neither side had been sorry when night fell and put an end to a hard- fought, but inconclusive, day ; and for their part the Parliamentary leaders were glad to see the King's SPEEN i6s forces withdrawing liy the light of the moon, and did not dare risk an attack upon them. It is not a little singular that during all this clash of arras the Royalist governor of Dounington Castle held that stronghold, although repeatedly attacked, from August, 1644, to April, 1646, and then only surrendered when desired by the King to do so. The road ascends to Speen, or, as it is often called, " Church Speen." Tho present writer was climbing ..C H^f-"^ CURIOUS OLD TOLL-HOUSE BETWEEN NEWBURY AND HUNGERFORD. it when he overtook a countryman in a smock-frock, to whom the steep gradient was evidently anything but welcome. "You're a regular Mountjoy, a' b'lieve," said the countryman, puffing and blowing. " A regular what ? " " A Mountjoy — a. walker. But there ; you hain't Newbury ? " i66 THE BATH ROAD I told him I certainly was not a native of that town. " WeU," said he, " you won't never have heerd of 'un, p'raps." It seems, then, that about fifty years ago Newbury boasted a pedestrian of that narae, who obtained such a great local reputation that he has become pro verbial with the country people, so that a "regular Mountjoy" is any one w^ho possesses good walking powers. Church Speen passed, an undulating road leads past a curiously castellated old toll-house to Hunger ford. XXV III It is at Hungerford, sixty-four mUes from Hyde Park Corner, that one leaves Berkshire and enters AA'^ilts, coming into wilder and less pastoral country. Hun gerford town, however, is just within the Berkshire borders. The constant Kennet fiows across the road here, and is crossed by a substantial bridge, from w^hose parapets anglers may be seen patiently waiting to lure the wily trout from their swims. Fuller quaintly says : " Good and great trouts are found in the river of Kennet nigh Hungerford ; they are in their perfection in the month of May, and yearly decline wdth the buck. Being come to his full growth, he decays in goodness, not greatness, and thrives in OLD POST-OFFICE CUSTOMS 167 his head till his death. Note, by the way, that an hog-back and little head is a sign that any fish is in season." The chief street of Hungerford lies along the road to Salisbury, and the cyclist who is intent upon " doing " the Bath Road without turning to thoroughly explore the places along its course, consequently sees little of the town beyond the few old raansions and cottages, and tho old coaching inn, " The Bear," which front the highway. Not much, however, is in this case lost, for Hungerford contains little of interest, and were it not for its singular Hocktide customs, and for the fact that it was the first town to obtain the free delivery of letters between its post-office and the houses to which letters were addressed, would scarce demand an extended notice. The original plan of the General Post-Office, all over the country, was to allow postmasters of country towns to demand a fee for delivery. Those who expected letters were supposed to call for them. If they desired them to be delivered, the additional fee was a penny or twopence, according to the conscience or the cupidity of the postmaster, whose perquisites these fees were. This applied to houses quite near post-offices, and even next door to them. This extra ordinary state of affairs was borne with for some time, until at last several towns brought actions against the Post-Office to decide if prepaid postage ought not to ensure delivery in the boundaries of post-towns. Hungerford was selected by the Courts as a typical case, and secured a judgment in its favour, Michaelmas, 1774. i68 THE BATH ROAD Hocktide is a stirring time in this little town of less than three thousand inhabitants. It is determined by Eastertide, and generally falls in AprU. The odd observances derive their origin from the conditions imposed by John of Gaunt, father of Henry the Fourth, who, in the fourteenth century, conferred the rights and privileges of common-land and fishing in the Kennet upon the town. To hand down the proof of his gift to posterity, he presented with the charter a brass horn which bears the inscription : — " John a Gaun did giue and grant the Eiall of Fishing to Hungerford Toune from Eldren Stub to Irish stil excepting som Seueral mil Pound Jehosphat Lucas Avas Cunstabl." N^ot this horn, but its seventeenth-century successor, is jealously preserved in the Town Hall. It has a capacity of one quart. As an unreformed borough, Hungerford stiU enjoys the old-time custom of appointing, in the place of Alayor and Corporation, a Constable, Portreeve, Bailiff, Tithing-men, Keeper of the Keys of the Coffers, Hayward, Water BaUiffs, Ale-tasters, and Bellman. The ceremonies begin on the Friday before Hock Tuesday with a " macaroni supper and punch bowl," and are held at the "John of Gaunt" inn. Tuesday, however, is the great day, when at an early hour the bellman goes round the borough commanding all those who hold land or dwellings Avithin the confines of the town to appear at the Hockney, under pain of a poll-tax of one penny, called the "head-penny." Lest HOCK TIDE 171 this warning should be insufficient, he mounts to the balcony of the Town Hall, where he blows a blast upon the horn. Th(^so who do not obey the summons and refuse the payiueiit of the head-penny are liable to lose their rights to the privileges of the borough. By nine o'clock the jury are assembled in the Town HaU for the transaction of their annual business, and immediately after thoy aro sworn in, the two tithing- men start on their round of the town. It is in this part of the proceedings that most interest is taken, for the business of the tithing-men is to take a poll- tax of twopence from every male inhabitant and a kiss from the wdves and daughters of the burgesses. This is in recognition of the ancient pow'ers of the Lord of the Alanor, who had pe culiar rights over the property and persons of his " chattels," as the people were once re garded. The tithing-men are known as tutti-men ; tutti being the local word for pretty. They carry short poles as insignia of office, gaily bedecked with blue ribbons and choice fiowers known as tutti-poles ; while behind them walks a man groaning under the weight of the tutti oranges, it Ijeing the custom to bestow an orange upon every person who is kissed, as well as u])on the HUNGERFORD TUTTI-MEN. 172 THE BATH ROAD school and workhouse children. The rights of office having been duly vested in them by means of strange custoras and exhortation, the two favoured ones start off down the High Street on their kissing mission, foUow^ed by the orange-bearer and greeted with the cheers of the assembled people. One by one the houses are entered, and the custom observed both in spirit and letter ; nor is it confined to the young and comely, for the old dames of Hungerford w^ould deem theraselves, if not insulted, at least sadly neglected, were the tutti-men to pass their houses un entered. LTsually these officers find little difficulty in carrying out their pleasant duties, but sometimes the excitement is increased by some coy maiden, whose rustic simplicity prompts her to run away or hide. But as a general rule the ladies of Hungerford show very little objection to the observance of the ancient customs, so that the labours of the tutti-men are considerably lightened. Thus, amid laughter, merriment, and mock- serious ness, the fun is continued until about half the borough is visited, by which time the tutti-men have takeu care that all the duty kisses that should gratify the ancient inhabitants have been administered, as well as certain others that are more a pleasure than a duty. Certainly they deserve well of the town, for the tutti- men go through a good day's work by the time dinner is served. Then, in accordance with the time-honoured precedent, the Chief Constable is elected into the chair ; the great bowl of punch is placed on the table after dinner, and the various offices toasted and replied for. One is drunk in solemn silence — that of John of LITTLECOTE 173 Gaunt, the town's benefactor. All the townspeople seem satisfied with their day's carnival, save, perhaps, a crooning old burgher, who may occasionally be heard to extol the good old days when the punch -was strong and the newly- elected officers went home in Avheelbarrows. XXIX Feom tho everyday respectable dulness of Hunger ford itself wo will pass to the exciting scandals which make up much of the story of Littlecote, that gloomy and romantic Tudor mansion, which has become famous (or infamous, if you will have it so) through the crimes and debaucheries of AVill Darell. There are two ways of reaching Littlecote from the Bath Road. The most obvious way is by turning to the right w^hen in the midst of Hungerford town ; the other, which is the more rural, is by a lane a mile further down the road. Either wdll bring the traveller to that secluded spot in the course of three and a half miles. It stands, that hoary pile, in a wide and well- wooded park, sheltered beneath the swelling AA'iltshire downs and close beside the gentle Kennet, whose stream has been fruitful of trout ever since " trouts " (as our ancestors quaintly called them, in the plural) w'ere angled for. Littlecote, as we now see it, was built by the Darells in the closing years of the fifteenth century, in whose early years it had passed from the Colston family by the marriage of the heiress of the 174 THE BATH ROAD Colstons to AVUliam Darell, son of Sir William Darell, of Sesay, in Yorkshire. A descendant of this emigrant from the North Riding, the " AVUd Will Darell " of this blood-boltered history was born into an estate comprising an ancestral home and many thousands of acres in the counties of Wilts, Berks, and Hants, and might have been accounted fortunate had it not been for the rather more than trifling circumstances of an unhappy up-bringing which included a shameful treatment of himself and his mother by an unnatural father ; the paternal extravagances which had alienated much of the property ; the heavy charge made on the estate for the benefit of the mistress of his brother, Avho preceded him in the estate ; and, finaUy, the crop of lawsuits into which he was plunged imme diately upon succeeding to this singularly-encumbered patrimony. At this interval of time it has become quite impossible for serious historians to discriminate between the facts and the — fancies, shall we call them?— of the AVUd DareU story. This difficulty does not arise from lack of patient research on the part of Darell commentators, who have ransacked the Record Office to prove that he was not a villain of the most lurid kind, or the industry of others who have searched among musty muniment chests to determine that he uxhs. It would, considering the fact of the records in the Littlecote muniment room not having yet boon explored for the benefit of these historic doubts, be rash indeed for any one to pro nounce definitely for either of the very diverse views held of Darell as ViUain, or Darell as Good Young Man. WILD DARELL 175 The story, Avhich first became widely known through a footnote appended to Sir Walter Scott's " Rokeby," is of a midAvife summoned from the vUlage of Shefford, seven miles aw^ay, on a false pretence of attending Lady Knyvett, of Charlton, near by, and of her being blindfolded and led on horseback in the darkness of the night to quite another house, in one of whose stately rooras lay a mysterious masked lady for whom her services were required. The horrid legend then goes on to say that a tall, slender gentleman, a lowering and ferocious-looking man, " havinge uppon hym a goune of blacke velvett," entered the room with some others, and, wdthout a word, took the chUd from her arms and threw it upon a blazing fire in an ante-room, crushing it into the fiaming logs with his boot-heel, so that it was presently consumed. A prime horror, this, and rich in ferocity, mystery, and all the incertitude that comes of age and con flicting testimony. Masked lady, blindfolded nurse, burnt baby, taciturn and horrible stranger, Avliat lurid figures are these I and how royally abused for the possession of an over-imaginative mind would be that novelist who should dare conceive incidents so romantic I Scott gleaned his traditions from the weird legends current in the country-side. They had, when he first printed them, been the fireside gossip of that district for over two hundred years, and of course in that length of time had lost nothing in the repetition. For that reason we are asked nowadays to discredit them altogether. We cannot, however, do that, because there came to light some years ago the actual 176 THE BATH ROAD deposition to the facts made by the midAvife, Mrs. Barnes of Sheftbrd, taken down on her deathbed by a Air. Bridges of Great Shefford, a magistrate, who Avas also a cousin of Darell, and would not, it may well be supposed, be inclined to spread any baseless gossip tu the hurt of a family Avith Avhich he was connected. This deposition tells tho story as already narrated. It does not identify Darell or Littlecote, nor does it even LITTLECOTE. hint the identity of any person or place. But the sinister discovery, some twenty years ago, at Long- leat, of an original letter from Sir H. Knyvett, of Charlton, to Sir John Thynne, of Longleat, dated January 2, 157| (about the time of the midwife's con fession), brings us to the original rumours pointing to DareU's being the man and Littlecote the place. There was then residing at Longleat a Mr. Bonham, whose sister was well known to be living with Darell as his mistress, and this letter requests that " Mr. Bonham will inquire of his sister touching her usage DEATH OF DARELL 177 at AAdll. DaroU's, the birth of her chUdren, how many there wore, and what became of them : for that the report of the murder of one of them was increasing foully, and would touch AVill. Darell to the quick." To that letter there is no reply, and it remains un certain whether Darell was ever arraigned for murder and acquitted (as the story goes), or whether the rumours simply were never crystallized into a definite charge against him. The probability seems to be that he never was called upon to stand his trial. It is quite certain, however, that the legend of his being- haunted along the roads by the apparition of a burn ing infant which startled his horse so that Wild Darell was thrown and killed is a more or less pleasing invention. Darell died c[uite peacefully in his bed, at Littlecote, eleven years after the midwife's death, and was buried in the Darell Chapel at Ramsbury, where he was laid to rest, October 1st, 1589. Notwith standing these AveU-ascertained facts, Darell is now, if we are to credit the stories of the country-side, an apparition himself, and superstitious rustics still fear to face the roads 0' nights because of a Burning Babe and a Spectral Horseman, who comes dashing down them at a terror-stricken gallop, mounted on a horse of coal-black hue, wdth a breath like steam and eyes like burning coals ! As for the elaborate embroideries added to the Wild Darell story from time to time, there are many. According to these ingenious fictions, the midwife counted the stairs of the strange house, and cut a piece out of the bed curtains, which she carried away. By these means ; by finding the number of the stairs K 178 THE BATH ROAD at Littlecote to tally with her counting, and by fitting dier piece of tapestry to a hole in the curtains of a bed at Littlecote, wo are told to believe the truth of the story. The singular thing, however, is that ]\Irs. Barnes made absolutely nu mention of these things in her deposition. There remains, it is true, the fact already aUuded to, that the magistrate who took ^lMWjl_ THE HAUNTED CHAMBER. down the woman's statement Avas a connection of DareU's, and might possibly have suppressed facts which could point to his relative being concerned in the affair. Another story is that upon Darell being arraigned (which in itself is uncertain), he made interest Avith Sir .lohn Popham, the Chief Justice, to procure an acquittal. Now it is quite certain that Popham did not become Chief Justice until 1592, AA^hen Darell had been in his THE REAL DARELL 179 grave nearly throe years, and could not therefore have done so. He was, it is true, Attorney-General at the time of DareU's supposed crime, and, had there been a trial, and had he been bribed, could possibly have procured a nolle prosequi. But Darell certainly made over the reversion of Littlecote to Popham in 1586, and Popham took possession upon DareU's decease. The story of this transaction being the bribe in question we owe to Aubrey, the county historian (or rather, the county gossip), who actuaUy gives an account of the trial and says, " Sir John Popham gave sentence according to law, but being a great person and a favourite, he pronounced a noli prosequi." Alore to the point is the fact that Darell, in 1583, offered Lord Chancellor Bromley the then large sum of £5000 to be "his good friend." Those who are interested in the Darell story are equally divided as to his general character. One would have us believe that he was a Alodel Squire, who fished for trout, took an enthralling interest in his flower-garden, and if he did not always come home to tea (because tea not having at that period been intro duced, it was impossible to do so), was content with a modest pint of claret at dinner, and spent the rest of the evening in reading Avhat improving literature was to be had in the Elizabethan age ; which, I fear, judging from the general character of the time, was of a somewhat meagre nature. The real Darell was not quite like that picture. AVe already know that he had one mistress at Little cote, and then then^ Avas Lady Anne Hungerford, an I So THE BATH ROAD elderly charmer, whom by some means AVUd AA'^ill had seduced from her husband, and whose letters, still preserved, to her " deare Dorrell " are not so improving as the recipient's other reading. One learns from these choice communications that Lady Anne had been accused of murder, adultery, and trying to poison her husband ; and, under the circumstances, it seems quite likely that all these charges w^ere well- founded, even though she says that " Inker and gaine makes many dissembling- and hoUoAV hearts " (AA'hich sounds like one of the admirable copy-book maxims of our youth), and that she anticipates being (deared from suspicion of these " vill and abomynabell prac- tiscis." Add to these hot-blooded intrigues the extravagances which, together Avith his litigious dis- position, served to ruin his estate and to bring him into disfavour AAdth his neighbours, and we obtain tho genesis of all the ill-favoured legends of this pictu resque figure of tho Elizabethan era. XXX Littlecote had not done with stirring scenes when Darell was dead and the Popham s took possession. The Great Hall, hung round wdth pikes, leather jerkins, helmets, and cuirasses of Cromwellian times, serves to tell, in its warlike array, of how the place became a rendezvous of the Roundheads of this vicinity. These relics are the arms and accoutre ments of the Popham Horse, raised by Colonel .Alexander Popham, Avhose oavu suit <)f armour is C) THE GREAT REBELLION i8i still suspended here, over one of the doorways. A fitting place this, then, for that gathering of the King's Commissioners who came to Littlecote in December, 1688. The occasion was an historic one. James the Second Avas tottering- upon his throne, and the Prince of Orange, invited to these shores to protect the civil and religious liberties of the nation, had marched up with his Dutchmen from his landing in the AVest Country. No man knew what would be the course of events, because not one of those con cerned in that memorable crisis kncAv his own mind, from the King and his adherents on the one side, to the Prince and his partisans on the other. The two parties met at Hungerford on December 8. On the following day, Sunday, the Commissioners dined at Littlecote, and then and there the fate of the kingdom was settled, quite amicably. The old Hall was crowded wdth Peers and Generals — Halifax, the judicious " trimmer," whose cautious diplomacy guided the crisis through to its solution without bloodshed ; Burnet, Nottingham, Shrewsbury, and Oxford, all waiting upon events. Halifax, the partisan of the King, seized the opportunity of extracting from Burnet all he knew and thought. " Do you wish to get the King into your power ? " he asked the Bishop. " Not at all," rejDlied Burnet : " we would not do the least harm to his person." " And if he were to go away ? " slyly insinuated Halifax. " There is nothing so much to be wished," whispered the Bishop, apprehending his meaning ; and so James slunk away, and William of Orange reigned in his stead. i82 THE BATH ROAD For the rest, Littlecote is a veritable storehouse of art and antiquities. The collection of ancient armour in the Great HaU is one of the finest in England. Here, too, is Chief Justice Popham's chair, and the thumbstocks which he used as a means of extracting confessions from petty offenders Avith Avhom persuasion of the merely moral hind had failed. Then there is the painting of Mr. Popham's horse, " WUd Dayrell," which won the Derby in 1855, and many interesting objects besides. First in point of interest, however, is the Haunted Chamber, which is even now said to resound with groans and imprecations ; and is still A'ory much in the same condition as in DareU's day, although, to be sure, the fateful ante-room is now divided from it. DareU's Tree, an ancient elm, patched and chained together, is still to be seen on the south side of the house, carefully tended ; the legend running that Littlecote will fiourish so long as its hoary trunk holds together. XXXI But to return to the road, which presently comes to the charming village of Froxfield, with its wide vUlage green and great rod-brick barracks of alms houses, founded in 1686 by Sarah, Duchess of Somerset, for fifty clergymen's widows, and perched up on a bank above the right-hand side of the highway. Thence, nearly all the Avay into Marlborough, seven mUes ahead, the road lies through Savernake Forest SAVERNAKE FOREST 183 and its outskirts, passing the loveliest forest scenery in England. Nothing can compare for magnificence Avith the jnassed beeches aud oaks of Savernake, whose glorious allovs of foliage extend for miles in everv direction. These fine full-grown trees are planted for the most part in a AvoU-considered design, and radiate from a central point in eight directions. Those "Eight AA^alks," as they are called, vary in length from four miles downwards, and lie to the south of the road. The highAvay runs through the northern verge of the Forest, quite open and hedgeless all the way, with two gates across it, about tAvo miles apart. T'he scenery is like nothing so much as a painting by De AA int or Constable. The Marquis of Ailesbur}', to Avhom this noble demesne (the only Forest in the possession of a subject) belongs, has his residence near the southern boundary of the Forest, at Tottenham House, which is a singularly plain building externally, and so reminiscent in name of the Tottenham Court Road that it would have been exquisitely appropriate had the late Alarquis sold the estate to Sir John Blundell Alaple instead of to Lord Iveagh. I suppose the eccentricities of the late Marquis of Ailesbury will become the subject of curious legends in the coming by-and-by. He Avas born out of his time, and was a kind of " throw-back " to earlier types that flourished Avhen the Prince Regent and the Toms and Jerrys disported themselves in the famous Corinthian manner. The glades of Savernake still remain in the family, but Avere alienated to Lord Iveagh, the man of Dublin i84 THE BATH ROAD stout, of Avhom the quaint Biblical conceit was in vented by some temperance wag: "He who is not for us is agin us.* He brews XX." Lord Iveagh bought the estates and paid for them, but the House of Lords refused to sanction the sale, and so Savernake still belongs to the Brudenell-Bruces. The late Marquis had a perfect genius for dis sipating Avealth. A "horsey" man among the "horsey," his favourite companions Avere sporting men of the more unrefined type, and he AA-as hail- fellow with the cab-men and 'bus-men of London. Radicals found in his career a text for their discourses and a reason for abolishing the House of Lords as an hereditar}' chamber ; aud the ballet-girls of the London theatres regarded him as all a Peer should be. One who knew " Lord Stomach-ache," as he was playfully nicknamed before he had succeeded to the Marquisate and was yet Lord Savernake, said — " The Avealth and cohnir of his lordship's language surprised me. I never knew or heard a costermonger in the Dials with such a repertory. I saw him once with a couple of choice friends on a costermonger's barrow, such as is used for hawking fish or vegetables. One ' pal' had a ' yard of tin' (or coaching horn), on AA'hich he tootled melodiously. His lordship wore a very high collar, a blue birds-eye belcher fastened with a nursery-pin for a necktie, a huge drab box-cloth coat wdth large mother-o'-pearl buttons, a low-crowned, broad-brimmed coachman's hat, and a very tight pair "' Lord Iveagh's name is Guinness. Unfortunately for the thoroughness of the jest, there are but thirteen chapters in the Epistle to the Hebrews. OLD TIMES ON THE ROAD 185 of trousers. It was raining, a pitiless, pelting drizzle, and as they pulled up for drinks, he took off his heavy coat, and, placing it carefully over the patient 'moke,' said to it, as he patted it, 'There y'are, Neddy ; that'll keep the bloomin' wet off you, old bloke, won't it ? '" For my oavu part, I think the latter part of that incident is the raost creditable thing on record in the " short and merry " life of poor " Stomach-ache." Savernake Forest left behind, the road descends steeply down Forest Hill in the direction of Marl borough. This hill was one of the worst obstacles met Avith between London and Bath in the old times, and its steepness was then rendered more difficult by reason of the execrable surface of the road. This is the experience of one travelling to London about 1816 : " Twenty times at least the eight horses came to a standstill, and had to be allowed their own time before they would move. For more than half the way up there lay an extensive encampment of gipsies along each side of the road, forming a most pictu resque scene wdth their wild figures, their bright- coloured costumes, and dark bronzed skin ; their white tents, and the numerous columns of blue, thin smoke that curled upwards and lost itself in the dense foliage. These stout vagabonds rendered us an essential service ; they cheered and lashed the horses, they pushed bodily in the rear, and they climbed the spokes of the revolving wheels, to send them round, with a recklessness and dexterity only acquired by long practice. To compensate them for their labour, the coachman halted at the top of the hill to give 1 86 THE BATH ROAD them a chance of trading ; and then the women came forward and did a little fortune-telling Avith the ladies, not without joking and bantering on the part of the onlookers ; Avhile the younger gipsies brought abun dance of sweet wood-strawberries, dished up in dock- leaves, than which nothing at the time could have been more Avclcome. "During the first half of the journey to London our pace would not average more than four miles an hour, and sometimes the tramps and wanderers of the road would keep up Avitli us for the hour together, especially the pedlars and packmen, who would di.splay their Brummagem wares, and now and then effect a sale as avc rumbled along." A Avide -s-ioAv extends from here, over the valley of the Kennet, with Marlborough lying in its hoUoAV, and the AA^iltshire downs, stretching away in bare roUing- masses, in the direction of Swindon. Marl borough develops itself sloAvly as one descends, and becomes lost for a time as the panoramic view sinks out of sight. XXXII Theee aie fine old inns at Marlborough ; coaching inns, fallen from the high estate that was theirs in the days when Pepys and Sheridan, my Lord Chatham with his gout and his innumerable train of servants, and Horace AValpole with his gimcrackery and his caustic comments upon the kind of society in which he found himself upon the Bath Road, stayed MARLBOROUGH 187 here. No one coraes here nowadays Avith vast retinues of lackeys, and the man does not exist, be he Peer or Commoner, Avho could dare bo so offensive as that haughty and insufterable personage, the aforesaid Earl of Chatham, avIio, nursing his gout at the "Castle" Hotel in 1762, practically converted the place to his own exclusive use, regardless of the com fort or convenience of any one else. He w^ould not stay at the " Castle," he said, storming at the terrified landlord, unless all the servants of the establishment Avere forthwith clothed in the Chatham livery. And so clothed they Avere, and the " Castle " becarae for some weeks what it had been before the strange workings of fate had converted it into the finest of all the inns along the road to Bath — the private residence of a nobleman. There are breakneck streets iu Marlborough, for the town, although built in the valley, has the entrance to its principal street carried round the spur of a foothill so that one side of the thoroughfare is con siderably lower than the other, and the humorous among Marlborough's neighbours declare that bicycles are the only vehicles that can be driven round by the Town Hall without upsetting. But, in spite of what Cobbett says in his " Rural Rides," that "Marlborough is an ill-looking place enough," this street is the finest, broadest, neatest, and most picturesque of any along these hundred odd miles of highway. Think of all the adjectives that make for admiration, and you have scarce employed one that overrates the dignified and stately air of the High Street of Marlborough. The width of the road is accounted for by its having i88 THE BATH ROAD been used as a market-place ; the architectural cha racter of the houses lining it is due to the fires that devastated the town in 1653, 1679, and 1690, burning doAvn the older houses, and causing the tOAvu to be almost wholly rebuilt. Those were the clays of the Renaissance, and before the dwelling-house became frankly unornamental and merely a brick or stone box for people to live in, with window and door holes from which they could look or issue forth. Thanks, then, to these fires, Marlborough is to-day a toAvn of architectural delights, Avhile the older portion of the College is fully as interesting, having been built on the site of the old Castle from designs by Inigo Jones or his son-in-law, Webb. It is thus a noble view along the High Street : the shops, which are interspersed among the private houses, being here and there fronted with covered ways, forming dry Avalks in Avet weather ; an arcaded ]\larket House and Town Hall at the eastern end, and a church closing- the vicAv in each direction. Marlborough College is at the Avestern end of this street, occupying the fine mansion built by Francis, Lord Seymour, in time to entertain Charles the Second, who with his Queen, his brother, and a crowded suite halted here on his way to the West, in one of his Royal progresses. It became the residence of that Earl of Hertford whose Countess had a gushing affection for those tame poets of the eigh teenth century whose blank verse was so soothing to the senses and so absolutely restful to the mind — requiring little mental exercise to write, and none at aU to read. My Lady held quite a poetic court, of ARCADIAN HUMBUG igi AA'hich Pope, Dr. AVatts, and Thomson were the shining Ughts, and squirted amiable piffle about Chloes and Strephons while her fine London guests strutted about the emerald lawns pretending to be Wiltshire peasantry ; the ladies wielding shepherds' crooks, and leading lambs made presentable with much expenditure of soap and water, in leashes of sky-blue silk ; while the gallant gentlemen, more used, avc may be sure, to dining and drinking, learned to play upon oaten reeds, and w^ere quite idyllic and Arcadian. AVhat an astounding time ! and how disgusted these fine folks would have been, had they been forced to fare on the fat bacon and small beer of the real shepherds, instead of the kickshaws and the port which helped them to sustain their affectations ! The spectacle of that vicious era, pretending to rural simplicity is, perhaps, the most notable example of vice paying homage to virtue that may be given. The folly of the age is almost incon ceivable, but it is all preserved for us and duly certified in its literature and in the pictures of the school of AVatteau ; while this particular instance of it may be voluminously read of in the records of the time, or be conjured up by a sight of the winding walks and grottoes in the Castle gardens, where, perhaps. Dr. AVatts may have seen the original busy bee that gave him the first notion of — " How doth the little busy bee Employ each shining hour. By gath'ring honey all the day From ev'ry opening floAver." Aleanwhile, Thomson Avas sipping nectar (which is Greek for brandy-punch) with my Lord Hertford, 192 THE BATH ROAD and babbling of other things than green fields. In fact, the Uterary Lady Hertford found the poet of the " Seasons " to be a drunkard, and he was not invited to any more of her parties. The house passed at length to the Dukes of Northumberland, Avho neglected it, and at last leased it to a Mr. Cotterell, an innkeeper, who Avith pro phetic vision saw custom coming down the road in an increasing- tide. Appropriately known as the " Castle," it remained an hotel until January 5, 1843, when its doors were finally closed, to be re-opened as the home of the newdy established " Marlborough College." For nearljr a century the " Castle " entertained the best society in the land. Forty-two coaches passed through the town every day AA'hen it was at the height of its prosperity, and a goodly proportion of their occupants stayed here. Take, in fact, the lists of distinguished arrivals at Bath during that time, and you have practically a visitors' list of the " Castle." Alarlborough College was established in this house of entertainment, and new buildings have been added from time to time ; but the old "Castle Hotel" may yet be traced from its characteristic architecture. Amid its pleasant lawns and gardens rises that pre historic hill on which Marlborough Castle was built. Indeed, here, in this "Castle Mound," is the very fount and origin of the town, whose very name is supposed to derive from this earthwork, being the grave of the magician Merlin, who with his enchant ments is said to lie here stUl, until Britain shall be in need of him again. "Merleberg," or "Merlin's to Avn," THE KENNET 193 is said to have been Marlborough's first name, and the crest over the town arms still represents the Mound, with a motto in Latin to " the bones of the wise Merlin." * XXXHI AVhex the traveller leaves Marlborough he bids good-bye, for many miles yet to come, to the pleasant forest groves, the rich, low-lying pastures, and the fishful streams that have bordered the road hitherto. The vaUey of the Kennet is, it is true, near by, and for the next six miles it may be glimpsed, on the left, like some Promised Land of Plenty; but the road itself is bare. The " green pastures and still waters " of the Psalmist, indeed, you think when mounting gradually out of Alarlborough you see the pleasant water- meadows afar off as you toil up the shoulder of the downs, passing a picturesque roadside inn, the * It was about 1630 that the town of , Marlborough obtained a new grant of arms in place of its old shield of a " Castle argent, on a field sable''' The new shield, still in use, is heraldically de scribed as — " Per Saltire, gules and azure. In chief, a Bull passant, argent, armed or. In fess, two Capons, argent. In base, three greyhounds courant in pale, argent. On a chief, or, a pale charged with a Tower triple-towered, or, between two Roses, gules. Crest — On a wreath, a Mount, vert, culminated by a Tower triple-towered, argent. Supporters : two Greyhounds, argent." These arms are intended to perpetuate the memory of the ancient custom in Marlborough of the aldermen and burgesses presenting the mayor for the time being with a leash of white greyhounds, a white bull, and two white capons. 0 194 THE BATH ROAD " Alarquis of AUesbury's Arms," and the village of Fyfield on the way, with a glimpse of Manton vUlage doAvn below, amid its elms and farmyards by the Avindings of the stream. Fyfield (hoAv many dozens of Fyfields are thore in ROADSIDE INN, JI ANTON. England?) is tiny, clean, and quaint, Avith a pinnacled church toAver on to whose roof you look clown from the road, and may glimpse in a backward glance the whole of the district traversed since Savernake Forest was left behind. There, in long dark clumps upon the distant hilly horizon are the grand avenues of MARLBOROUGH DOWNS 197 that forest; the Bath Road descending from them like a white ribbon into Marlborough town, whose houses are hid, only the church towers shining white in the sun, against a green background. Ahead rises unenclosed downland, with chalky, fiint-strewn road, the unenclosed wastes of green-grey grass, broken here and there Avith mounds, grass-grown too. On the left hand, at the distance of half a mile, perhaps, rises the church of West Overton, an offence here in its newness, for this road is Roman, these moimds are ancient British graves, and everywhere, look in what direction you will on these bleak and treeless wastes, are the mysterious vestiges of a people who had no arts, no science, no literature, who lived, in fact, a savage nomadic life, but who, for all those disabilities, have left records of their passing that may well remain Avhen the civilization of to-day has perished. On these downs are countless tumuli ; in the hollows are unnumbered thousands of stones, brought no one knows whence, or for what purpose, and the remains of cromlechs may be seen that add to the complex puzzle of the wherefore of it all. AVest Kennet village stands in the succeeding hoUoAv, like some shamed modern trespasser, amid these pre historic remains which appear, Sphinx-like, on the sky line or stand lonely in the folds of the barren hills. The district seems to have been a metropolis of the prehistoric dead (if, indeed, all these ruined stone avenues and circles are sepulchral), or some vast open-air cathedral of a forgotten faith ; if they have a religious rather than a mortuary significance. For, but little over a mile distant, are the remains of the 198 THE BATH ROAD so-caUed " Druid Temple " at Avebury, a raonument second only to Stonehenge in mystery, and a good deal more impressive in appearance ; while, frowning down upon the highway, and standing immediately beside it, is that "greatest earthwork in Europe," Silbury HiU. Avebury village stands on the road to Swindon, on the borders of JMarlborough Downs, and has been built within a great circle Avhich appears to have been approached by an avenue of standing stones. A few of these may still be observed, standing beside tho hedgeless road. Some idea of the vast size and impressive aspect of this circular monument of those: dim ages before history began may be obtained when it is said that it consists of an excavation 40 feet deep and 4442 feet in circumference, encircled on the outer side with an earthAvork 40 feet high, the Avhole enclosing nearly 29 acres. On the inner brink of this deep fosse there are now left thirty- five huge stones out of the original number of about one thousand. Nine of these are upright, ten thrown down, and sixteen buried. Traces of pits show where the farmers of raany years ago dug up the others and took them aAA'ay for building- stones or gateposts. Over six hundred and fifty others are known to have been destroyed, the cottages of Ave bury and the roads having been built of their frag ments. How the unknown builders of this weird place could have brought these huge rocks, sorae of thera measuring fourteen feet in length, and all weigh ing many tons a-piece, from unguessed distances, remains a mystery. 'iM$ "''''if& MARLBOROUGH DOWNS, NEAB WEST OVERTON. AVEBURY The first mention of Avebury Temple is by Aubrey the antiquary. It Avas in 1648 that he first saw the place, which seems, curiously enough, to have been until then quite unknown. He came upon it quite by chance, AA'hen hunting, and must have been astonished at the discovery of so extraordinary a place. His account of it led that kingly amateur of science, Charles the Second, to visit Avebury on his w^ay to Bath in 1668. Pepys, too, going to Bath, unexpectedly happened both upon Avebury and SU- bury HiU, and viewed them and the sepulchral barrows that, crowned with pine trees, look down from the hUl sides, with an admiration not unmixed with a superstitious dread. The road to Swindon goes straight through this 202 THE BATH ROAD great earthwork, and is crossed midway by another ; together, with part of the village built within the circle, cutting it up lamentably. Silbury Hill, which stands within sight, is a fitting pendant to these mysteries. Antiquaries have con tended together in referring both to ancient Britons, Phoenicians, Danes, Saxons, and even Romans, and are divided in opinion as to their object : Avhether they were intended for Druids' or Snake-worshippers' yujj-./ SILBURY HILL. temples, or whether they marked the last resting- places of those slain in some great battle fought before the dawn of history. That Silbury HiU stood here when the Romans came seems, however, to be certain from the fact that the old Roman road from Cunetio to Aqua; Solis (the existing Bath Road between Marlborough and Bath), engineered along SILBURY HILL 203 the AA'hole of its course in a perfectly straight line, SAverves slightly from the south base of the hill, evidently to avoid injuring it. A learned antiquary (but the most learned must be reduced to the level of tho most ignorant before these mute earthworks) considers that Silbury was raised to commera orate a battle, probably Arthur's second and last battle of Badon HiU. The sarae authority thinks Avebury to be a burying-place of the dead slain in a great battle, and planned to show the dispositions of the forces engaged on either side. But Silbury remains inscrutable. It is wholly an artificial hill, somewhat pyramidical in shape, and 170 feet in height. Its base covers five acres of ground, and was once surrounded by a stone circle, of which scanty traces are now left. The contents of it are estimated at 468,170 cubic yards of earth. Repeated attempts have been made to pluck out the heart of this mystery, but without success. So far back as 1777 it was mined from above by a party of Cornish miners, who worked under the direction of the then Duke of Northumberland and others, but nothing was discovered. Then in 1849 it was tunnelled from the base to the centre, where a space of twelve feet in diameter was examined, with the same disappointing result. Antiquaries consequently regard Silbury wdth hungry and expectant eyes. Just beyond this baffling relic stands the Beck hampton inn, where the " coaches dined " and changed teams, and where the Bath Road divides into the two routes ; the right-hand road going through Calne, Chippenham, and Box ; the other 204 THE BATH ROAD reaching Bath by way of Devizes and Alelksham. Sorae coaches went one way and some the other. The crack coaches, including the " Beaufort Hunt," went by the forraer, Avhich is two and a half miles shorter, and is the classic route, and always the one selected nowadays by record-breaking cyclists. XXXIV The road between Newbury and Bath was in coaching days known as the " lower ground." So far as physical geography goes, however, the land is a great deal higher, and much more hilly than the "upper ground " between London and Newbury, and it is not to be wondered at that accidents would some times happen here. This, then, was the scene of an accident to a coach driven by a gay young blade, one " Jack Everett ; " an accident in which he and an elderly lady passenger had a broken leg each. Both sufferers were put into a cart filled with straAV, and taken to the nearest surgeon. On the road into Marlborough the coachman beguiled the tedium of the way and the pain of his injured limb by saying to the old lady, " I have often kissed a young woman, and I don't see why I shouldn't kiss an old one " — and he suited the action to the words. Beckhampton inn, whose real eign is the " AVaggon and Horses," is the place mentioned by Dickens in the "Bagman's Story" in the Pickwick Papers. It THE CHERHILL WHITE HORSE 205 remains as old-fashioned to-day as ever,* but does not very closely resemble the Avord-picture Dickens draAvs of it. He probably made acquaintance with the downs and the inn only in passing on his Avay between Bath and London in 1835. It stands at a spot where the road promises to become more cheerful and loss gaunt and inhospitable ; but the promise is not kept, the way going inexorably again along dowms as bare as before, for another two miles. AU the way between here and Cherhill village the " Lansdowne Column " is seen crowning the rolling hills to the left front. Built Avithin the ramparts of an ancient hill- fort of the Danes, who encamped naturally enough in the most inaccessible position they could find, this " column," Avhich is an obelisk, is an exceedingly prominent object in every direction. As one proceeds and turns the flank of the hill, the strange sight of a trotting White Horse is seen carved in the chalk of its swelling shoulder. This is not one of the ancient AA'^hito Horses that decorate the hillsides of some parts * " There are many pleasanter places, even in this dreary world, than Marlborough Downs when it blows hard ; and if you throAV in beside a gloomy winter's evening, a miry and sloppy road, and a pelting fall of heavy rain, and try the effect, by way of experi ment, in your own proper person, you will experience the full force of this observation." The traveller's horse stopped before "a road-side inn on the right-hand side of the way, about half a quarter of a mile from the end of the Downs. ... It was a strange old place, built of a kind of shingle, inlaid, as it were, with cross-beams, with gabled- topped windows projecting completely over the pathway, and a low door with a dark porch and a couple of steep steps leading down into the house, instead of the modern fashion of half a dozen shallow ones leading up to it." 2o6 THE BATH ROAD of the West County and date from Anglo-Saxon times, but dates only from 1780, when it was cut by Dr. AUsop, an eccentric physician of Calne. The site it occupies is said to be the highest point betAveen London and Bath, and the White Horse is supposed to be visible for thirty miles — which there is no occasion to believe. The figure measures 157 feet from head to tail, and the eye alone is 12 feet in diameter. The way the figure was designed is just a little curious. No one could possibly have correctly traced the outlines of so huge an affair, except by external aid, Avhich probably accounts for the bad drawing of the ancient examples. Dr. AUsop adopted the plan of stationing himself on the doAAus in full view of the rough draft, so to speak, which he had already staked out with flags, and of shouting directions to his work men by the aid of a speaking-trumpet. The hillside is so steep at this point that Avlien the AVhite Horse was restored in 1876, a workman was nearly killed by a truck load of chalk descending upon him down the slope. Passing this interesting spot and the village of Cherhill, which lies hidden to the right of the road, the highAA'ay reaches Calne through its suburb of Quemerford, along a flat road. CALNE 209 XXXV Calne (Avhose name be pleased to pronounce " Carne") is not a pleasing- place. Once the seat of a cloth-making industry, it has seen its trade utterly decay, and is only now regaining something of its commerce in the very different staple of bacon-curing. One does not contemn Calne on account of its mis fortunes, but it must always have been a slipshod place. " Calne," according to Hartley Coleridge, who described his father's three years' residence there, " is not a very pretty place. The soil is clayey and chalky ; the streams far from crystal ; the hills bare and shapeless ; the trees not venerable ; the town itself irregular, which is its only beauty. But there Avere good, comfortable, unintellectual people in it." With all of which one may agree ; save that the "irregularity" of the town is now rather sluttish than beautiful. As for the people, we are but travelling the road, and Calne is only an incident on our way- — the people of it something less to ourselves, resembling, in fact, x, an unknown quantity. The outskirts of Calne are not prepossessing, nor does the long, stony street of mean characterless stone houses that leads to the centre of the little town alter the stranger's view. Calne, in fact, lying so near Bowood, long the seat of the Marquises of Lansdowne, and being their property, wears an abject, servile look. All that makes life worth living is at lordly Bowood ; only that which is mean and comraonplace is left to Calne. It seems (although one's prejudices p 2 10 THE BATH ROAD are Conservative) as though some vampire were seated near, sucking away the life-blood of the place. There are two hiUs just out of Calne ; Black Dog Hill, and Derry Hill, and they lead the traveller through picturesque scenery, past one of the lodges of Bowood, and so down into the flat alluvial lands where the Avon flows, and now and again floods out all the dAvellers in those levels. The road down there is dreadfully dull to the pedestrian. To the cyclist, on the other hand, who has for these miles j)ast been struggling up hills he cannot climb, and walking down others he dare not coast, the change is one from a penitential pilgrimage to Paradise. The entrance to the " ancient and royal " borough of Chippenham is hatefully like that into Calne, whose paltry houses are reproduced there. The centre of the town is, however, of a better character, although the streets are cramped and narrow. A singularly foreign air is given to the place by its balustraded stone bridge across the Avon, and if one cares to pursue the Continental tone further it may be found in the huge factory near by, where " Swiss " Con densed Milk, of the " Milkmaid " brand, is manu factured on an immense scale. For the rest, its cheese and corn markets and bacon-curing keep it very much alive, and a modern (and brutally ugly) Town HaU, built in 1856, shows sufflciently well how trade has grown since the time when the pic turesque old Town Hall, stUl standing, was built in the sixteenth century. The most interesting thing in Chippenham is (to THB OLD MARKET HOUSE, CHIPPENHAM, MAUD HEATH'S CAUSEWAY 213 borroAv a " bull " for the occasion) outside the town. " Maud Heath's Causeway," a stone-pitched path along- tho road that runs through the heavy clay lands beside the AViltshire Avon, extends for four and a half miles, frora Chippenham to the summit of Bremhillwick Hill. It Avas made under the will of JMaud Heath, who died about 1474, for the benefit of the market folk resorting to Chippenham, who found the low-lying roads almost impassable in winter. Little is known of this old-time benefactress, but legend supplies the lack of knowledge, and the popular belief is that she was a market-woman who, finding the road from Langley Burrell into the town in so dreadful a state, determined to leave the savings of a lifetime for the provision of a stone causeway, so that future generations might go dry-shod to market. This causcAvay goes from the north-east side of the town, and continues through Langley Burrell to Tytherton Kellaways, up the shoulder of Bremhill- Avick Hill. The portion between Chippenham and Langley Burrell was, for some unexplained reason, not constructed until 1852-3. According to the inscriptions on the stone posts beside it, the Causeway is held to commence at the Hill) and to end at Chippenham — " From this "Wick Hill begins the praise Of Mal'd Heath's gift to these highways." At the other end, next Chippenham, where the road joins those from Malmesbury and Draycott, is another stone, with the inscription — " Hither extendeth Maud Heath's gift. For where I stand is Chippenham Clift." 214 THE BATH ROAD Midway, on the bridge over the Avon, is another stone — a pillar twelve feet high, erected by the Trustees in 1698, with the foUoA\dng facts recorded on it : — " To the memory of the worthy Maud Heath, of Langley Burrell, Spinster : Avho in the year of grace, 1174, for the good of travellers, did in charity bestow in land and houses, about eight pounds a year, for ever, to be laid out on the highway and causeway, leading from Wick Hill to Chippenham Clift." CHiprENHAM CijIFT. Injure me not. Wick Hill. A statue of Maud Heath, a purely imaginary like ness of course, since no portrait of her is known to exist, was set up on a pillar on the summit of Brem hillwick Hill in 1838 by the Marquis of LansdoAvne and a local clergyman. The pillar is forty feet high, and the seated statue on the top of it represents Maud Heath in the costume of the period of Edward the Fourth, wdth a stafi' in her hand, and a basket by her side. An inscription bids — " Tnou who dost pause on this ajrial height, Where Maud Heath's Pathway winds in shade or light. Christian Avayfarer in a world of strife. Be still — and ponder on the path of life." The sentiments are admirable, if a little depressing : the verse atrocious. But worse remains. There are three dials on the pillar, Avith an inscription on the side facing the "Volat Tempus. " Oh, early passenger, look up, be wise : And think how, night and day. Time onward Flies." IMPROVING SENTIMENTS 215 Opposite Noon is tho advice, "Whilst we have time, do good." " Qvuii Tempus Habbmus, operemub bonum. '• Life steals away — this hour, 0 man, is lent thee Patient to AA'ork the work of Him that sent thee." For Evening the admonition is not a little alarming — if taken literally. " Eedibo. Tu Nunquam. " Haste, traveller ! the sun is sinking low ; He shall return again- — but never Thou." The passing wayfarer might well ask why he should never return along this road ! The late vicar of Bremhill did these raetrical para phrases of the Latin which led so tragically, but whose qualities, as verse, resemble the average of the ordinary Pantomime librettist. Maud Heath's charity is still in existence, and is now^ worth about £120 per annum, a sum amply sufficient for keeping her Causeway in repair. XXXVI PowDEN Hill, a mile out of Chippenham, on the road to Bath, is a welcome drop cloAvn into level land again, and would be enjoyable were it not for the bad surface. It is while wheeling such hills and such road-metal that one appreciates at the full the pluck and endurance of those early cyclists who raced across them in the early seventies, raaking the pace on the high bicycles of those times as gaUantly as 2i6 THE BATH ROAD though the terrible jolting they experienced was really enjoyable. That Avell-known body of cyclists, the Bath Eoad Club, has numbered some good sports men and rare flyers in its time, and though their pace reads ridiculously slow beside that of these pneumatic-tyred days, the performances of those half- forgotten racers were quite as fine, and, conditions being equal, perhaps finer, than the record rides of recent seasons. There AA^as a time — in August, 1870, to be precise — when two cyclists— Gardner and Fisher, did the double journey of 107 miles each way in five days, and men looked upon them as marvellous riders ; so perhaps they were, considering the mechanical limitations of the machines they rode, whose like is not to be seen nowadays save in collections of curios. Equally Avonderful were those stalwarts who cut away the hours, piece by piece, until their performances were topped by " AA^at " Britten on the "ordinary" in 1880, Avhen he did the double journey in 23 hours. There Avorc those Avho then thought the last word had been said in the matter of Bath Eoad Eecords. They must have been astonished when E. C. Nesbitt's "ordinary" record w'as made on August 1, 1891, AA'hen he covered the out and home course in 15 hrs. 40 mins. 34 sees. Improved methods of manufacture may have had something to do with the smashing character of this new performance ; but, even so, consider the extraordinary efforts that must have gone toward getting those figures, which cut Britten's by 7 hrs. 20 rains., and at the same time secured one of the rare victories of the " ordinary " over the " safety " pneumatic-tyred bicycle. For this grand CYCLING HISTORY 217 ride defeated Mr. Lowe's, made on a " safety," in 1891 by more than 30 minutes. But that was one of the last expiring efforts of the now obsolete and miscalled " ordinary." It was speedily beaten by J. AV. Jarvis, September 20, 1892, who put the figures at 15 hrs. 16 mins. 42 sees. — 23 mins. 52 sees, better than the previous best. Then came that hardy Brighton Eoad record-maker, C. G. AVridgway, whose ride of August 2, 1893, put the clocking at 14 hrs. 22 mins. 57 sees. — a Avonder- fuUy heavy lowering of figures. The foUoAving year AVridgway established records on both the Brighton and Bath Eoad Avithin a month ; beating his record here of the previous August by his ride on October 4, Avhen he reduced his oavu time by the astonishing margin of 1 hr. 27 mins. 43 sees. Time Avas now cut so close that when W. J. Neasen, of the Anfield Club, essayed the difficult task of lowering it, he only succeeded, on May 11, 1895, in getting inside Wridgway's time by 24 mins. 10 sees., the figures then standing at 12 hrs. 31 mins. 4 sees. H. C. Horswill, of the Essex Wheelers, then beat Neason's performance, in July, 1897, by 24 mins. 34 sees , to be succeeded finally by F. W. Barnes, Avho on October 30, in the same year, performed the double journey in 11 hrs. 48 mins. 42 sees., and still holds the record. Among these records of the Bath Eoad must be mentioned the various essays made by C. A. Smith, of the Bath Eoad Club, on tricycles. He rode to Bath and back on a three-wheeler, July 16, 1891, in 16 hrs. 13 mins. 18 sees., thus establishing a 2l8 THE BATH ROAD record, Avhich was beaten four years later — August 23, 1895 — by F. Martin, by the narrow margin of 11 mins. 43 sees. These figures in turn were loAvered, August 5, 1897, by T. J. Gibbs, Bath Road Club, who accomplished a record of 14 hrs. IS min. XXXVII Axo UOAV Avo come, past the tree-shaded hamlet of Cross Keys, to Pickwick, ninety-seven miles from CROSS KEYS. London, situated at a turning in the road Avhich leads to Corsham Eegis, half a mile distant, on the left hand. The traveller, exploring this road for the first time, looks forAvard Avith curiosity to seeing a place with so famous a name ; but Pickwick, the decayed PICKWICK 219 coaching hamlet, can scarcely be said to " live up to " its literary associations. Strictly speaking, it is not oA'en decayed ; but, noAv that the coaches are no more, fiourishes on the " PiclcAvick Brewery," which makes a brave show down the road. It is an eminently prosperous-looking, stone -built hamlet, a compara- tiA'ely modern offshoot of the hoary Saxon village of Corsham, which, once on the main road, was thrust into the background when the mail coach came in, and the great highw^ay to Bath was cut on this route, half a mile away. It is a curious literary puzzle — Hoav did the title of the " Pickwick Papers " originate ? It is a well- ascertained fact that, in 1835, Dickens, then a reporter for the daily press, was sent to Bath to report a speech of Lord John EusseU's, that now alraost- forgotten statesraan being a candidate for representing that city. The future novelist was then but twenty- three years of age, a time of life Avhen impressions of travel are vivid and lasting. Journeying by coach, he had every opportunity for observing places and people ; and so it happened that when, a few months later, the now historic publishing firm of Chapman and Hall offered him the literary commission which resulted in the " Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club," the story he produced derived many of its features from his own experiences. His recollections had no time to fade, for in March, 1836, the first part of "Pickwick" was published, and others were well on the way. It must ever be a matter of doubt whether Dickens noticed the existence of Pickwick, the place. That he had noted the existence of Moses 220 THE BATH ROAD Pickwick, the coach proprietor of Bath, is obvious enough from the " Pickwick Papers," where Mr. Pickwick and Sam AA'^eller are taking their seats for that City of the Waters. " ' I'm wery much afeerd, sir, that the properiator o' this here coach is a playin' sorae imperence vith us,' says Sam. " ' How is that, Sam ? ' said Mr. Pickwick ; ' aren't the naraes doAvn on the Avay-bill ? ' " ' The names is not only down on the vay-bill, sir,' replied Sam, ' but they've painted Aam on 'em up, on the door o' the coach.' " ' Dear me,' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, quite stag gered by the coincidence, ' what a very extraordinary thing ! ' " ' Yes, but that ain't all,' said Sam, again directing his master's attention to the coach door ; ' not content vith AA'ritin' up Pickwick, they puts " Moses " afore it, vich I call addin' insult to injury.' " There Avere then, it will be seen, real Pickwicks living in Bath, and the "Moses" Pickwick referred to was an actual person, the great-grandson of one Eleazer Pickwick, who, many years before, had risen by degrees from the humble position of post-boy at the " Old Bear," at Bath, to be landlord of the once famous "AA^hite Hart" inn, which stood where the " Grand Pump Eoom " hotel now towers aloft. Now comes the long-sought-for connection between place and persons of identical name. Eleazer Pick wick was a foundling. Discovered as an infant on the road at Pickwick, he was naraed by the guardians, in accordance with an old custom, after the place. CORSHAM REGIS Corsham, to which Pickwick belongs, is one of those places Avhich it Avould be almost an indignity to call a " viUage," while to name it a " town " would be to give too great an importance to it. It is Corsham " Eegis," by virtue of having been a residence of the Saxon Kings ; but the Great Western has docked the kingly suffix, and if you were to ask at Paddington for a ticket to Corsham Eegis, it is to be feared that the booking-clerk Avould not recognize the place under its fuU name. The townlet is a pleasing one, and, always excepting the noAv and ugly stone villas recenth' built, it abounds THE HUNGERFORD ALMSHOnSE, CORSHAM REGIS. with delightful specimens of domestic architecture of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and mid-eighteenth cen turies ; fine houses built of Corsham stone in a dignified Eenaissance manner, or in the earlier Tudor convention of gables and raulUoned windows. Corsham Court, the finest of all, standing in its 222 THE BATH ROAD nobly- wooded park, is Elizabethan, and exhibits the merging of the two periods of Gothic and Eenaissance architecture. It was Lady Hungerford, Avidow of a former owner of Corsham Court, who, in 1672, built the quaint Hungerford Almshouse, close by. For the rest, Corsham has little history. It was the scene of a mysterious murder in 1594, when a gentleman, one Henry Long, was shot dead, while sitting at dinner amid his friends, by Sir Charles and Sir Henry Danvers, Iavo brothers, Avho hailed from Dauntsey. The motive AA'as never knoAAm, and the assassins w^ere never punished. Six years later, Charles was beheaded for taking part in Essex's rebellion ; which seems to be a kind of oblique and fumbling retribution on the part of Providence for his crime. Henry, however, prospered amazingly, and Avas eventually created Earl Danby, flourishing all his life, as the Avicked are, on good authority, supposed to do, " like tho green bay tree," and dying in the odour of sanctity, " full of honours, woundes, and daies." He is commemorated in an eloquent epitaph, written by the saintly George Herbert of Bemerton, more than ten years before his (Danvers') death ; a circum stance Avhich Avould seem to prove Herbert a hypocrite and Danvers peculiarly solicitous for his own post mortem reputation. Corsham was the birthplace of Sir Eichard Black- more, physician to WiUiam the Third, and poetaster, who, says Leigh Hunt, " composed heaps of dull poetry, versified the Psalms, and, by Avay of extend ing the lesson of patience, wrote a paraphrase of the Book of Jol)." AA^hat sarcasm ! THE BOX TUNNEL 223 But Blackmore was read in his day, just as Leigh Hunt Avas in his, and Fate is sardonic enough (for Avho at this time reads Hunt's tedious stuff?) to consign critic and criticized to one common limbo of neglect. XXXVIII From Corsham the old road used to lead preci pitously up to the summit of Box Hill and thence downwards by breakneck gullies, furrowed by rains, and rich in loose stones, into Box. The modern high way goes modestly round the shoulder of the hill. The \dUage of Box has gained an adventitious fame from the celebrated tunnel on the Great Western Eailway, Avhich pierces Box HiU, and was, upon its completion, the longest tunnel in England. Com pared wdth later works, it sinks into quite minor importance ; but it is still an impressive engineering feat, whether you view it from the railway carriage wdndows or from the highway. Its length is 3199 yards, or nearly two miles, and the hill rises above it to a height of three hundred feet. Its cost of OA^er £500,000 is no less impressive. A curious story is told at Box of a platelayer, ero.ployed in the tunnel some twenty years ago, Avho with his gang worked there at night, and slept at Box village in the day. After a while he became engaged to a girl in the village, and the wedding-day was fixed. The vicar of Box, however, was a stickler for red tape, and it appears that he found some technical objection 224 THE BATH ROAD in the fact of the man not sleeping the night in the village. At any rate, he Avould not perform the ceremony untU the Bishop (of Gloucester) compelled him to do so. At Box Ave are well within the stone district Avhose quarries have rendered building-stone from the times ENTRANCE TO BOX QUARRIES. of the Eoman occupation until the present day. The oolite AA^hich comes from here and from the Corsham Cjuarries is a fine grained stone, easily Avorked, and of a rich cream colour when freshly wrought. As " Bath stone " it is famous, and has made Bath exclusiA^ely a city of stone-built houses. In addition, it is sent to all parts of the country, and even exported. The quarries of Corsham and Box are, therefore, the centres i^>^^^^ BOX QUARRIES 227 of a large and important industry. Box HiU is a raass- of this stone, and the tunnel is consequently pierced through it. Three of the quarries are situated in the hill, some of them of great extent. The most extensive is driven into the fiank of the hill like a tunnel, and has over three miles of galleries laid with tram-lines : dark, damp places, w^hose roofs are sup ported here' and there by timber struts. The coldness of these quarry tunnels is remarkably piercing, even in the height of summer. Box seems to have been a favourite country resort of the Eomans, away from the crowded streets of Aquae Solis ; for on the land that slopes down toward the little Box Brook there have been found many Eoman remains, while, only so recently as 1897, the site of a Eoman villa was excavated near the south side of the church, with the result of unearthing a complete ground-plan and such interesting relics as mosaic pavements and votive altars. It is a crowded Adllage to-day, and rather by way of being a town. Lying in a deep hollow, its stone- built houses climb steeply up both sides, with a picturesque glimpse back from where the old village lock-up stands beside the highAvay to the straggling cottages that line the old road down the side of Box HiU. Leaving Box avc also, in the course of one mile, leave Wiltshire and come into Somerset, Avith Bath but four mUes distant. The Box Brook runs on the right-hand side of the road, the Great Western Eailway on the left. Soon, however, the road bends to the right at Bathford, and we come to Batheaston, 2 28 THE BATH ROAD once a Adllage, but uoav merely a suburb of Bath, joined to the city by continuous streets. But there are pretty scenes just off these streets. Bathampton MUl, for instance, just below, on the Avon, AAdth vicAvs of the grand circle of hills that enclose Bath. The picturesquely broken and Avooded elevation of Combe Down rises aAvay on the other side of the valley, Avith Prior Park nestled amid its hanging Avoods, and tho village of AVidcombe beneath. ^At an elcA^ation of five hundred and fifty feet above the sea, it coraraands vicAvs not to be bettered in all the country round. Down beloAv, in the Avarni steamy atmosphere of the Avon valley, one sees the railway entering Bath on its stone Adaducts, and the trains winding in and out along the sharp curves amid the clustered houses. Bathampton lies below there, Avhcre the air is languorous and the hillsides hold the heat of the sun. From that sheltered spot the view back- Avards toAvards Bathampton Mill and the terraced houses of Batheaston is deUghtful ; the houses that turn their ugly side to the road shoAving from here, amid their setting of green, like fairy palaces. Lower doAvn the valley the houses cluster more thickl}', where the valley AAddens out into the likeness of a great amphitheatre, and suburbs fade gradually into Bath. Then, coming to Walcot, the road finaUy loses all its character as a highway, and traniAvajs, omnibuses, and traffic of every description proclaim the entrance to a populous city. I A ' Mm' 1 v^\, Al H fe^"-- BATH XX XIX The story of Bath goes back some tAVO thousand years, and has its origin in the myths of ages, in Avhicli Bladud figures variously as discoverer and creator of the healing springs. Serious historians are Avoiit to exclude Bladud, and his descent from Brute the Trojan, and Lud Hudibras, the British King, from their pages, for the reason that Geoffrey of Monmouth, the monkish chronicler, Avho first narrates these stories iu his history of Britain, Avas apt sometimes to con found clironicling with romancing. When, therefore, he tells hoAV Prince Bladud Avas an adept in magic, and placed a cunning stone in the springs of this A'alley so that it made the Avater hot and healed the sick who resorted to them, he is looked upon Avith a suspicion that is deepened Avhen he goes on to say that Bladud successfully attempted to fiy A\dth wings of his own invention from Bath to London, and only came to grief when London was reached, through the strings breaking, so that he fell and Avas dashed to pieces on the roof of the Temple of Apollo ! Nor is the better known legend of Prince Bladud, the leper, exiled from his father's Court, universally accepted. According to that story, the Prince wan dered to where Keynsham uoav stands, where he became a sAvineherd, and infected the pigs with his disease. Coming, however, into this A^alley, the ])urk ers rolled themselves into the hot mud, Avhich then occupied the site of Bath Abbey and the Baths, and Avere cured. Bladud perceiving this, applied the 232 THE BATH ROAD remedy to himself, with the like result, and returned to his home once more ; building a city upon the spot in after years. This happened B.C. 863, and there is a statue of King Bladud, as he afterwards became, erected in the "Pump Eoom" in 1669 ; so that any one not subscribing to the truth of this legend had better do so at once, in vicAV of this over- AA'helming evidence thus afforded. AVe axe on more certain ground when we come to the Eomans. That great people left too many evidences of their occupation of this island for many doubts to be entertained as to where they settled, or Avhen. Thus, Avhen we assign the close of the first half-century of the Christian era to their discovery of the medicinal properties of these Avators, we do so, not from legend, but from the evidence of the buUdings they have left behind. It is singular that Ave do not, as a rule, lay much stress upon the Eoman occupation of Britain. Yet it lasted long, and Avas for nearly four centuries Avhat modern political slang terms " effectual." An adAauced civilization reigned here then, and Britain became both a populous and a fiourishing colony. The dealings of England with India in the present time form a tolerably close parallel with Eome's conquest of this island, and if Ave go further and liken the British who reraained in the remote places of Cornwall, Devon, and AVales to the fierce Afghans and Chitralis AA^ho have troubled us on the borders of Hindostan, Ave shall by no means strain the similitude. Bath^or rather Aquae Solis, the " AVaters of the Sun"* — as Avell as being the " That the Eomans knew the city we call Bath as Ai/i/ifi Solis ROMAN RELICS 233 one health-resort in Britain for the wealthy Eoman colonists Avho needed such a retreat, was to the Eoman officer of that era what Simla and the Hills are to our own military men in India — a place for rest and the restoration of health after the rigours of a hard campaign ; AA'ith this difference, indeed, that to the Hills they go for coolness, while at Aquce Si>lis the expatriated legion ary found both healing springs and a genial warmth after the bleak, inhospitable hills of the Far AVest or the Farther North. Discoveries at Bath and in its immediate neigh bourhood have proved that there Avas a sanatorium for invalided officers on Combe Down, and we can Avell imagine such being conveyed hither, to recover or to die, along the road. The Baths of the Eomans were discovered in 1755, fifteen feet below the surface of the ground ; relics of a past magnificence ; of a civilization that expired in bloodshed and confiagration. It was in the year 410 that the military forces of Eome left Britain. The THE SCN GOD. — the "Waters of the Sun" — we learn from the ancient history of Britain. A highly interesting light upon this is furnished by the sculptured stone discovered some years since, and now in the local museum, which shows a decorative representation of the head of the Sun G-od, from whose face radiate sun-rays, alternately with serpents. 234 THE BATH ROAD weak Eomano-British soon retrograded, and, worse than all, the country split up into petty, and mutually hostile, kingdoms. The Baths Avere neglected, the Arts decayed, and in Britain generally there Avas not spirit sufficient to withstand the marauding Saxons Avho finally overwhelmed the country and pillaged and burnt Aquce Solis, just as they had pillaged every other city. It was after the sanguinary Battle of Deorham, a.d. 577, that the three cities of Glevum (Gloucester), Corinium (Cirencester), and Aquce Solis fell, spoils to the Saxon hosts under Ceawlin. l^ou may search for the site of that great contest at the Adllage now called Dyreham, some fifteen miles north east of Bath, in Gloucestershire, and from its position it Avill be at once evident that those three cities must immediately have fallen after that fatal day. That Avas tho cementing of the Saxon power in the AA^est, and a fitting end to a hundred and fifty years of incessant Avarfare. The British never learned that union means strength ; they never had the sense to combine before a common foe, and so the fierce invaders met and defeated them in detail, aided of course by their own fitness for the fight, and by the British incapacity. The Britons Avere lapped in luxury, and went drunk into battle, so that there was no possible hope for them in fighting the hardy w^arriors from the North. The Avars Avaged then Avere wars of extermination, and neither persons nor places were spared. This proud city was levelled with the ground, and the civiUzation of four hundred years perished by fire in a day. Evidences of that dreadful time were plainly to be seen Avhen the Eoman Baths ROMAN RELICS 235 Avere excavated. They are to be seen even now, at the Museum, together AAdth relics which prove the high degree of civUization that had been attained. Among other raarks of progress is an inscidbed tablet with an inscription Avhich one authority declares to be the record of a " cure from either taking the waters or bathing, certified by three great men ; " Avhile another is equally positive that a- i '' MYSTERIOUS LEADEN TABLET DISCOVERED AT BATH. it is an " imprecation upon nine men, supposed to be guests, who had stolen a tablecloth at the con clusion of a dinner-party." The age of this tablet is fixed " between the second and fifth centuries of the Christian era," which in itself seems to be a Avide enough margin. As if, however, this Avere not already sufficient, there are others, learned in these things, 236 THE BATH ROAD who declare that this relic records how a certain Quintus received 500,000 lbs. of copper coin for washing a lady naraed " Vilbia " ! We are left to take our choice between speculations unfavourable to the personal cleanliness of that lady, or astonishment at the mode and extravagance of the payment. There is, indeed, " another way," as the cookery books have it ; but as that involves doubts about the scholarship of professed antiquaries, this third resort may only be hinted at in this place. Who shall decide where antiquaries disagree ? The Saxons wore shy of the places they had burnt. Heathens that they were, they generally believed the Idoodstained ruins to be haunted by evil spirits, and so built their settlements at some distance aAvay. The site of Bath seems to have been, to some degree, an exco})tiou. After lying waste for oA^er a hundred years, it was occupied again, for the fame of its waters had not AvhoUy died out ; and " Akeraan- ceaster," as the Saxons called it, entered upon a new lease of life. At that period, too, the Eoman Eoad through SUchoster, Speen, and Marlborough acquired its name of Akeman Street ; the names meaning, as some Avould say, the " Sick Man's Town," and the " Sick Man's Eoad," from " aches " and the fame of the place, even then, as a spot at Avhich to cure them. This has been characterized as absurd, and the derivation more plausibly held to be from a corruption of the Eoman word Aqua', affixed to the Avord " maen," or " man," meaning " stone " or "place," and joined to the word " csester," a form of the Eoman " castrum," a fortification ; the ROYAL VISITS 237 compound Avord thus obtained meaning " the Fortified place at the Waters." To follow the fortunes of Akemanceaster, or Bath, as it eventually became, through the Saxon period to the present time Avould be an exercise too pro longed for these pages. That Kings and Princes and ecclesiastics A'isited it then we know, aud that the Normans built a groat Abbey church where the present building of Bath Abbey stands is an easily ascertainable fact ; but all the comings and goings of the great ones of the earth during the succeeding centuries Avould form but a bald catalogue. It is only Avhen Ave come to the middle of the seventeenth century that Ave need pick up the thread of the nar rative again, at the visits of the Queen of Charles the First in 1644 ; of Charles the Second, the Duke and Duchess of A' oik, aud Prince Eupert in 1663 ; the (^•uoen of James the Second, 1687 ; and the Princess Anne, 1692 ; and as (^)ueen Anne, 1702. Truly, a brilliant list for such a small place as Bath then Avas. But these Eoyal visits did not greatly benefit the place, as avo may judge when Ave read that from 1592 to 1692, Bath had increased by only seventeen houses. AVhy was this ? I conceive it to have been owing to the extraordinary apathy of the people of Bath, who had not provided the sUghtest accommodation for those who then drank the waters. Of what use was it for Sir Alexander Frayser, physician to Charles the Second, sending all his patients hither instead of to Continental health-resorts like Aix, if they had to drink the waters at a pump standing- on the open pavement ? and imagine the delights of bathing when 238 THE BATH ROAD the Baths were open to the public view, the said public delighting to throw dead cats, offal, and all manner of nastinesses among the bathers ! A local doctor, named Oliver, took up these griev ances in 1702, and the Corporation then set about building a Pump Eoom. This was opened in 1704, and the celebrated Beau Nash having been at about the same period appointed Master of the Ceremonies, the Bath visitors' list showed a decided improvement. Let us see Avhat the amusements at " the Bath " had been hitherto. The place was devoid of elegant or attractive amusements, and the only promenade for the fashionables who followed Queen Anne to this then outlandish towm was a grove of sycamores in which there was a bowling-green, and a band con sisting of two performers, playing a fiddle and a hautboy ! The courtiers who had deserted St. James's to follow her gouty Majesty to the waters must have cursed their folly Avhen they saAv those sycamores and heard that band ! Nash altered all this. He Avas no King Log, and accordingly soon procured a band of music for the ncAv Pump Eoom ; an Assembly Eoom for the fashion ables to take "tay" or chocolate, to dance, play cards, or to gossip in ; and devised a code of manners, if not of morals, for the regulation of his little world, which he ruled wdth a rod of iron. He regulated everything, from the greatest festivities down to the smallest details of dress and deportment, and not the late M. Worth himself was more autocratic as to what should be worn. It is a familiar story how, the "Dutchess" of Queensbury appearing at a dress ball in an apron BEAU NASH 239 (an article of dress which, fashionable elsewhere, he had tabooed), he told her to remove it or leave. The apron was one of point lace, and said to have been worth five hundred guineas ; but the Duchess removed it humbly enough, for had not this raighty arbiter of fashions declared aprons "fit only for Abigails" (by Avhich name he meant maidservants to be under stood), and who was she that she should dispute such an authority ? Then, when the Princess Amelia, daughter of George the Third, begged him to allow another dance after eleven o'clock, what did this potentate reply ? Did he humbly grant the request ? Not at all ; he refused, adding that the laws of Bath Avere, like those of Lycurgus, unalterable. XL They say that Nash " made " Bath. That, how ever, is but partly true. Bath was beginning to make its way when he appeared, and he simply exploited the place. The Moment had come and brought the Man with it, and a tight grip he re tained over all fashionable functions for over fifty years. He warred Avith the high-class rowdies who would have made the place a resort of Mohocks, and elevated " Bath manners " into a school of conduct perfectly Avell known and imitated, at a distance, in other parts of the Kingdora. They Avere manners of the raost elaborate kind, and if attempted nowadays, it is difficult to conceive how the wheels of the world's 240 THE BATH ROAD business Avould go round at all. When a meeting took place between a lady and a gentleman, the gentleman inquiring, Avith a most elaborate bow, after her health, in such terms as " I am A-astly honoured to have the pleasure of seeing you ; I trust the salubrious airs of the Bath are keeping you in good health ; " and the lady replying, " I am much obleeged * by your thoughtful inquiries : I protest I am mighty well," it took quite an appreciable time to descend from those rarefied heights of courtesy and come doAA'u to the gossip and scandals which Avere, Ave are told, among the principal pastimes of this health-resort in the days of powder and patches. But X^ash not only saAv to it that his fashionable clients behaved themselves. He had to contend Avitli the camp-followers of fashion avIio swarmed into Bath. Aloudicants infested the streets and made the gorge of those delicate eighteenth-century creatures rise Avith the sight of their rags and diseases. Nash knew that if he did not administer his kingdom severely, and if he allowed many of these stern realities of the Avorld to obtrude upon the sight of the fastidious, the new-found fortunes of Bath would disappear, and his career with them. So, perhaps from an acute sense of the necessity for self-preservation, rather than from any desire to play the autocrat, he imposed his will so thoroughly that he became an unquestioned ruler. He induced the Corporation, Avhich had entrusted him Avith these powers, to procure an Act in 1739 for the suppression of the beggars. It begins by reciting that * Once the recognized pronunciation of the word. The great Duke of Wellington was probably the last who spoke it thus. SEVERE MEASURES 241 " several loose, idle, and disorderly persons daily resort to the City of Bath, and reraain wandering and begging about the streets and other places of the said City, and the suburbs thereof, under pretence of their being resident at The Bath for the benefit of the Mineral and Aledical Waters, to the great disturbances of his Alaj.'s subjects resorting to the said City. Be it enacted that the Constables, petty Constables, Tything-raen, and other Peace Officers of the said City . . . are hereby empowered and required to seize and apprehend all such persons AAdio shall be so found wandering, begging, or misbehaving themselves, and them to carry before the Mayor, or some Justice, or Justices, of the Peace for the said City ; Avho shall upon the oath of one sufficient witness, or upon his own vicAv, commit the said person or persons so wandering or begging, to the House of Correction for any time not exceeding the space of 12 Kalendar months, and to be kept at hard labour, and receive correction as loose, idle, and disorderlie persons." So there was a reverse to the medal, and a very stringent government prevailed behind the careless, butterfiy existence of the age, when literary squibs and lampoons and the gay personalities of Anstey's New Bath Guide formed the excitements of the Bath. A curious relic of this artificial life is to be seen in the Victoria Park in the " Batheaston Vase." This is the name given to a handsome antique placed in a kind of classic temple. The vase Avas discovered at Tusculum, Cicero's villa, near Frascati, and brought to England during the last century by Sir John and Lady Miller, who then OAvned a beautiful villa at 242 THE BATH ROAD Batheaston, one of the favourite resorts of the society of that day. Decorated with garlands of bays, the vase was used at Lady Miller's receptions as a depository for verses written by her guests. It was presided over by one of the ladies of the party, posing as the Muse of Poetry, who drew the po etic offerings from its re cesses, and, reciting thera, crowned the authors of the best effort vvith bays. The opportunity proved too tempting for some of the Avilder spirits, Avho Avrotc verses of a ribald and satirical character, better calculated to bring a blush to the cheek of the Poetic Muse than to add to either the morals or the harraony of those gatherings. THE BATHEASTON VASE. XLI Ajiong this careless throng there were a few men of Avill and purpose. Ealph Allen; the Iavo Woods, father and son, architects ; and, somewhat later than them, John Palmer, Avore bold spirits Avho changed the aspect of Bath and helped to revolutionize the communications of the country. RALPH ALLEN 243 One of the greatest historical figures of Bath — perhaps even the greatest figure of all — before Avhom Bladud, Prince of Britain, at one end of the historic period, aud Beau Nash at the other, sink into some thing like insignificance, is that of Ealph Allen. And yet — so arbitrary is fame — that for cA^ery ten who could recite you, off-hand, something of the history and achieA'ements of Allen, a hundred could recount the story of Bladud or of Nash. This is not to say that Bath has forgotten her great man. On the con trary, the citizens show you his " ToAvn House " in Lilliput Alley with no little pride, while his great mansion of Prior Park, to the south of the city, and looking down upon it, remains to this day the most princely edifice for miles around. But however mind ful Bath may be of him, and although his classic house on the hillside inevitably recalls him to the memory of Bath people, the fact remains that Allen's is a name comparatively unknown to Bath's visitors. That he deserves a record in these pages must be conceded, for he it Avas who first established a regular postal service between one provincial town and another, and carried letters along the cross-roads, which, until his time, had been utterly neglected by the Post- office. It is a singular thing that to Bath should have belonged both Ealph Allen and John Palmer ; the men who respectively developed the postal service and founded mail-coaches. It is true that Allen was not a native of Bath. His father AA^as an innkeeper at St. Blazey, in Cornwall, and in that far western county he first learned the routine of a post-office, in the early 244 THE BATH ROAD years of last century. He Avas eleven years of age when he was placed with his grandmother, the post mistress of St. Columb, and his industry in keeping the accounts secured him the good Avord of the district surveyor, who procured the lad an appointment as assistant to the post-master at Bath. Fortune favoured him, and Avhen the post-master died, Allen Avas appointed in his stead. He had not long become post-master before he matured a scheme for developing the " bye " and cross-road posts, which should bring profit to himself and couA'^enience the community. He proposed to " farm " these posts and pay the Govern ment an annual sum for the privUege, leaving the direct posts between London and the provinces in the hands of the Post-office. A " bye " post was one between provincial towns ; a cross-road post was one that lay off the half-dozen post routes then existing. It Avas in 1719 that Allen, then but tAventy-six years of age, made his proposal to the Government. The postage on those descriptions of letters had hitherto amounted to £400 per annum. He was prepared to give £6000 yearly, and to Avork the posts for a period of seven years, in consideration of receiving the whole of the revenue during that term. His offer Avas accepted, and the contract took effect from June 21, 1720. How Allen procured the funds for his enterprise is not known, but he must have had substantial financial support, since his first quarter's expenditure in establishing his system amounted to no less a sum than £1500, while the salaries of the staff he got together totalled a further £8000 per annum. POSTAL SERVICES 245 Alien Avas a man of a modest and retiring habit, but Avith the greatest confidence in himself. He needed all his confidence, and all the untiring in dustry and vigilance that Avere his, for Avhen three years of the seven had expired he found himself a loser by a small amount, aud when the contract lapsed, his gain was quite inappreciable. Yet he renewed it for another seven years, convinced that the better facilities he had provided for the carriage of letters must needs lead to great developments. He was right : the correspondence of the country grew, and in 1741 we find him bidding £17,500 per annum for another term of seven years. He con tinued thus until his death in 1764, in receipt, for many years, of an income of not less than £12,000 a year on his post-office enterprise alone. Those were the times of the real post-boys. All letters were carried by mounted messengers, since the stage-coaches then running (where they existed at all !) were not fast enough, frequent enough, or sufficiently safe for the purpose. A side-light is thrown upon the average " speed " of these stage-coaches, not then considered speedy enough, by the onerous condition in Allen's contract that the mails were to be carried by his post-boys " at not less than five miles an hour." Allen was in the forefront of Bath enterprise, and was associated with John Wood, the elder of the two architects of that name, in rebuilding the city. Before their time it had been a place of mean streets and winding alleys, the out-at-elbows remains of Gothic times. As a result of their labours, and the labours 246 THE BATH ROAD of their immediate successors, Bath reucAvod her youth in a revived Classicism. Among the monuments of that time. Prior Park is conspicuous. It was built by John Wood in 1743 for Allen, whose great object in erecting this veritable palace was to demonstrate the qualities of the building-stone on his Combe Down property. Here he entertained some of the foremost literary men of his time : Pope, Fielding, Warburton ; and is enshrined by Fielding as " Squire AUworthy" in "Tom Jones," and by Pope in the lines — " Let low-born Allen, with ingenuous shame. Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame." The situation, and the front elevation of Prior Park, form together, perhaps, the noblest grouping of classic architecture and romantic scenery to be found in England. It was a time tinged with romanticism of an artificial kind which generally showed itself in affected and objectionable ways. But this artificiality was a matter of deportment merely. Literature was practised then, and Architecture flourished in the land. There is another work of Allen's croAvning the hill at BathAviek, which serves to show at once the romantic and. the artificial signs of the times. Allen looked out from the windows of his Town House upon the bare hilltop, and thought how the view would have been improved had there been a ruined castle showing against the sky-line. Accordingly he built such an one, and there it is to-day ; and if you don't knoAv it to be a ruin built to order, it is "SHAM CASTLE" 249 vei-A' impressive indeed— at a distance. If, however, you know it to be a Sham Castle (which, by tho Avay, is the name of it), romance immediately files, abashed. There it stands, on its wind-swept heights, naked and unashamed ; a frontage with nothing behind it ; an empty mask, with crossbow slits from Avhich arrows never Avere discharged, and battlements scarce more substantial than the pasteboard turrets that "SHAM CASTLE." furnish the stage in romantic drama. If hypocrisy be indeed the homage that Vice pays to Virtue ; then, by parallel reasoning, here is homage of the most fiattering kind paid to Gothicism by an age that above all things prided itself on the way it fulfiUed its classic ideals. It was a common failing of the time ; and possibly, if attention had been 2 so THE BATH ROAD called to it, a ready answer might have been found in the retort that " consistency is the bugbear of little minds." XLII But to return to the Beau, who seems to represent Bath more fully than any other person connected Avith its history. In his old age Nash fell upon evil times. Euined by his own folly and extravagance, he had no opportunities of retrieving the position, for he had lived to see the friends of his more fortunate era pass away, and to witness the arrival of a younger generation which regarded his laAvs Avith indifference, if not Avith open contempt. His last years were eked out with the aid of a pittance of £10 a month given him by the Corporation of the city for which he had done so much, and a new Master of the Ceremonies presently reigned in his stead. In his declining days, Bath had altogether changed from the place it had been when in the zenith of his power. It had, for one thing, grown out of all know ledge, architecturally. The Grand Circus, parades, terraces, squares, all manner of finely designed houses, had sprung up. SmoUett, in " Humphrey Clinker," makes Squire Bramble peevishly recount those changes, and say, " The same artist who planned the Circus has likewise projected a crescent : when that is finished, Ave shall probably have a star ; and those Avho are living thirty years hence may BATH SOCIETY 251 perhaps see aU the signs of the zodiac exhibited in architecture at Bath." Then the select society of fifty }'ears before had giA'on place to a very mixed concourse, if we are to believe the same authority : " Every upstart of fortune, harnessed in the trappings of the mode, presents himself at Bath, as in the very focus of observation. Clerks and factors from the East Indies, loaded Avith tho spoil of plundered provinces ; planters, negro-drivers, and hucksters, from our American plantations, enriched they know not how ; agents, commissaries, and contractors, who have fattened, in two successive Avars, on the blood of the nation ; usurers, brokers, and jobbers of every kind ; men of low birth, and no breeding, have found themselves suddenly translated into a state of affluence, unknoAvn to former ages ; and no wonder that their brains should be intoxicated Avith pride, vanity, and presump tion. Knowing no other criterion of greatness but the ostentation of wealth, they discharge their affluence, without taste or conduct, through every channel of the most absurd extravagance ; and all of them hurry to Bath, because here, without any further qualification, they can mingle with the princes and nobles of the land. Even the wives and daughters of low tradesmen, who, like shovel- nosed sharks, prey on the blubber of those uncouth whales of fortune, are infected with the same rage of displaying their importance ; and the slightest indisposition serA^es them for a pretext to insist on being conveyed to Bath, where they may hobble country-dances and cotillons among lordlings, squires. 252 THE BATH ROAD counsellors, and clergy. These delicate creatures from Bedfordbury, Butcher-row, Crutched -friars, and Botolph-lane, cannot breathe in the gross air of the lower town, or conform to the vulgar rules of a common lodging-house ; the husband, therefore, must provide an entire house or elegant apartments in the new buUdings. Such is the composition of what is called fashionable company at Bath." XLHI AA^HAT, however, ofthe literary celebrities, visitors or residents, or of the statesmen, the naval and military commanders, who were frequenting Bath at the time Avlien that jaundiced criticisra was penned. Dr. John son was then taking the waters, which are said by a later authority to taste of "warm smoothin'-irons ; " Gainsborough alternately painted and bathed ; while the Earl of Chatham and his still greater son ; Nelson, AVolf e, Sheridan, and Goldsmith, Words worth, Southey, Jane Austin, and Landor, helped to sustain the repute of this, Avhich Landor called the next most beautiful place in the world to Florence, well on into the next century. A diarist of over a century ago tells us how he went to Bath, and Avhat he saw and did there. This was the Eeverend Thomas Campbell, a lively Irishman (notwithstanding his Scottish name), who journeyed to England in 1775, and visited Johnson and other literary bigwigs in London, coming to Bath on April ?8, to take the waters. The coach set out from the THE BATH OF LONG AGO 253 New Church in the Strand (by which, no doubt. Saint Mary-le-Strand is indicated) at six o'clock in the morning, and came to Speenhamland (" Spinomland," says the clergyman in his diary), where they lay. The country, he remarks, was very rich from London to this place, yet it Avas so level that there was scarce OLD PULTENEY BRIDGE. a good prospect the whole way, unless ClioA^eden, near Maidenhead Bridge, could be so called. AVhen the coach resumed its journey the next day — the passengers, doubtless, lightened in pocket by that "long bill" of the "Pelican" at Speenhamland — the bleakness of Marlborough Downs communicated itself to the air, and from Newbury to Cottenham,* a distance of nearly thirty miles, the countryside was very bare of trees and herbage, in addition to being the * He meant Chippenham. 254 THE BATH ROAD worst land this Irishman had seen in England, and certainly swarming with beggars. For miles together the coach was pursued by them, from two to nine at a time, almost all of them children. They Avere ^ more importunate than those of Ireland, or even those in Wales. Poor Taffy ! AVhen our traveller reached Bath he rejoiced greatly, and, the next day being Sunday, Avent to the Abbey Church with other fashionables, and heard a sorry dis course, Avretchedly delivered. Afterwards, in the Pump Eoom, Avhere the yaAA'uing visitors were assembled, he met Lady Molyneux, Avho asked him to dinner, Avhere he spent the pleasantest day since he came to England, for there Avere five or six lively Irish girls who sang and danced, and did everything but agree among them selves. " AVomen," reraarks our diarist, " are certainly more envious than men, or at least they discover it upon more trifling occasions, and they cannot bear Avith patience that one of their party should obtain a preference of attention ; this was thoroughly exempli fied this day. One of these, Avho Avas a pretty little coquet, went home after dinner to dress for the Rooms, and her colour Avas certainly altered on returning for tea ; they all fell into a titter, and one of them (who Avas herself painted, as I conceiA^ed) cried out, ' Heavens, look at her cheeks ! ' " This, truly, Avas unkind, and more certainly indiscreet. Tho young lady with the startling cheeks subsequently sang a song, Avhich somewhat surprised the clergy man, from its breadth of idea, but the other ladies, and matrons too, " were kicking with laughter." Presently they aU Avent home, the ladies most A TORY PROPHECY 255 affectionate toAvard one another, and, says Mr. Campbell, " it is amazing Avhat pleasure women find in kissing each other, for they do smack amazingly." The worthy clergyman seems to have been intro duced to the less dignified circles of fashion. The general tone of the more exclusive sets was by no means so lively, for it Avas about this tirae that the Indian nabobs, the Civil servants, the retired offlcers of the Army and Navy and the East India Company began to discover Bath and to settle there, filling the place with Toryisra and grumblings about " the services going to the dogs, sir." Here is a Tory prophecy, not yet verified : " There is one comfort I cannot have at Bath," said the Duke of Northumber land in 1779. " I like to read the newspapers at breakfast, and at Bath the post does not come in till one o'clock ; that is a drawback to my pleasure." "So," said Lord Mansfield, "your grace likes the comfort of reading the newspapers — the comfort of reading the newspapers ! Mark my words. A little sooner or later those newspapers will most assuredly Avrite the Dukes of Northumberland out of their titles and possessions, and the country out of its king. Alark my Avords, for this will happen." As a prophecy, it may readily be conceded that this is an extremely bad shot, and that Lord Mansfield by no means, either figuratively or lite rally, inherited the mantle of Elijah. A hundred and twenty years have passed since then, and there are still dukes who haA'-e not been reduced to sweep crossings or keep chandlers' shops. True, if they have not come down so far in the world, it is in some 2S6 THE BATH ROAD cases OAving to American dollars ; but that is not tho doing of the newspapers, one way or the other. As I have just remarked, that Avas a Tory prophecy, and though my Toryism is, I trust, of the most mediseval and crusted kind, and AvhoUy beyond cavil, it may frankly be admitted here that the Party never has shone in prophecy. Nor, for that matter, has any party. The only seers are the leader- writers, and they never see beyond their noses. So Principalities and Powers and Titles are at least as powerful as ever they Avere, and — cynical fact — certain ncAvspaper proprietors have been raised to the House of Peers ; a thing, Ave may be sure, that Lord Mansfield never contemplated. Many other things, however, haA^e happened in the meanwhile. Agitation does not pay so well as it did. The newspapers which Avere to do such dreadful things have greath" increased in number, if not in poAver, and the contents of them have changed radically ; other times, other manners, as a glance at CA^en the advertisements of that date will prove. XLIV The advertiseraent columns of a paper just over a century old often afford amusement to those who come upon them. The manners and customs of those times and these are so different that the very quaint ness of our forefathers' attitude of mind brings a smile upon our faces, although those eighteenth-century forbears of ours were really very serious people indeed. OLD ADVERTISEMENTS 257 and took life, for the most part, like a dose of medi cine, Avhile Ave are apt to go to the other extreme and take it like champagne. No doubt our great-great grandfathers Avould think the most sedate of us not a little wild could they Avitness how we live to-day, Avhile, in our turn, we look back upon their times, and think times and people alike brutal. We wonder Avhat sort of people they Avere who could, in this England of ours, offer a " Black boy for sale — -docile aud obedient. AnsAvers to the name of Peter." - Yet such advertisements were common on the front page of our newspapers once upon a time. SlaA'ery was then a matter of course, and to have a black page for her A^ery own Avas my lady's hall-mark of " quality." Sometimes such advertisements Avere embellished with little figures supposed to represent nigger-boys. The race of African negroes has either improved in good looks since then, or else the engravers of that day were not very careful in portraiture. But, indeed, black pages were almost as common as pet dogs, and were advertised in very much the same way, and these blocks were not portraits at all, but just printers' stock Ulustrations. The printer of a hundred years ago kept a curious little assortment of advertisement blocks. If a ship was about to sail for the colonies, it was advertised for weeks beforehand, and in a corner of the announcement was placed something that pur ported to be an illustration of the vessel It generally looked like a Spanish gaUeon strayed from the Armada of two hundred years previously, and passengers Avould have been quite justified in not booking berths on so antiquated an affair. s 258 THE BATH ROAD But perhaps the most amusing advertisements are the " Eun away from his Home " and the " Stolen " varieties, also adorned with illustrations. It speaks very little for the morality of that age when we say that the ordinary newspaper printer also kept these blocks in stock. And, indeed, they seem to have frequently been required. Here is one example out of many in the newspapers of that age : — " Stolen Out of the Stable of Eobeet Colgate, The 2-tth inftant August, 1780 A BLACK HORSE, rifing -^ five years old, thirteen Hands and a Half High, Star in his forehead, fmall Ears, Mane ftands up rough, being lately rubbed ofi', long Tail, — hangs his Tongue out often on the Road, good Carriage ; alfo a good Saddle, marked Barnard, with Spring Stumps. "Whoever gives Information, fo that the Said Horse may be had again, fhall receive Tavo Guixbas Reward." It Avould scarcely be possible to identify the stolen horse from the accompanying cut. He has no long tail, as described in the advertisement, and his tongue doesn't hang out. Moreover, he is burdened with a quite imaginary thief, Avho has a property devil whipping him on. The " aAvful example " hanging from the gibbet appears to be made of bolsters, and to have had, not a drop too much, but scarcely enough. THE ABBEY 259 The party Avith hands bigger than his head, who is here seen striking a dramatic attitude, is not a Howl ing Swell, although he wears his hair parted in the middle. Appearances here (as usually was the case in the old advertisements) are deceptiA^e, and so far from being a Swell, Howling or otherwise, he is really a Heartless A^Ulain, for he is one of two labourers who have — "Rux Aaa'Ay. And left their families chargeable to the Parifh of Claverton, THOMAS GARNER, Labourer, about five feet feven or eight Inches high ; wears his own Hair, of a light Brown Complexion ; hath lately, or is now belonging to the Militia. " And Edward Browning, Labourer, about five Feet four or five Inches high, wears his own Hair, of a dark complexion ; was one of Lord North's Soldiers in the laft War. •' Whoever Avill apprehend either, or both of them, and conduct them to the Parifh Officers of Claverton aforefaid, fhall receive Half a Guinea for each or either of them, and Threepence per Mile for every Mile they fhall travel with them." History does not relate whether or no these gay deceivers Avere ever captured. If those who sought them relied upon the illustration, it would seem quite likely that they never were ! XLV The Abbey is the very centre of Bath. Eound it cluster the ]\Iunicipal Offices, the Baths, and the Pump Eoom, and along the broad pavements invalids 2 6o THE BATH ROAD are clraAvn in Bath chairs — one of the five articles with which the name of the City is indissolubly linked. AA^hen Bath chairs, Bath chaps, Bath stone, and Bath buns are no longer so distinguished, then will come the final crash. One need not insist so greatly upon Bath Olivers, because they are not in every one's raouth, either literally or figura tively ; although, to be sure, they are rauch more exelusiA^ely a local product than " Bath " buns ; Avhile " Bath " bricks are not made at Bath, but at Bridgewater. The surroundings of Bath Abbey are strikingly Continental in appearance, for that great church stands in a flagged place, instead of being set in a green and shady close, as usually is the case in England. Its surroundings have always been thronged, from the time when the Flying Machines crawled, tf) when the last of the mail coaches drew up in front of the "White Lion," in the Market Place hard by, or at the "AVhite Hart," which stood until 1866, where the " Grand Pump Eoom " Hotel now rises. The story of the Abbey is too long for these pages ; but it is remarkable at once for being one of the very latest Gothic buildings in the country ; for its possessing Avindows so large and so many that it has been called the "Lantern of England;" for its central toAver, which is not square, being eleven feet narroAvor on its north and south sides than those to the east and west ; and for the prodigious number of small marble and stone memorial tablets on its interior Avails — tablets so many that they gave rise to the famous epigram by Quin : — bath ABDBY : TUE WEST FROKT. "JACOB'S LADDER" 263 " These walls, so full of monument and bust. Shew how Bath waters serve to lay the dust." Quite distinguished dust it is, too. Noblemen and dames of high degree ; Admirals of the Blue, the AA^hite, the Eed ; legal, and military, and clerical dignitaries, and all manner of Civil servants, mostly of the mid-eighteenth century, and chiefly hailing from India and the Colonies, as described with much pomp and circumstance on their cenotaphs which so thickly coA^er the walls, and spoil the architectural effect. " The Bath," was the solace of their kind, returning from the Tropics with nutmeg livers, gout, and autocratic ways. At " the Bath " they resided on half-pay, drank the waters, supported the local doctors, quarrelled Avith their neighbours, and con sistently damned all " new-fangled notions," until death laid them by the heels. There must have been — if we are capable of believing their epitaphs — some paragons of all the virtues in those times, and Bath seems to haA^e claimed them aU. Here, for instance, is Alicia, Countess of ErroU, " in whom was combined every virtue that could adorn human nature." She died young ; the world is too wicked for such. Bath Abbey is remarkable in one respect far above all the minsters and cathedrals of England. As you stand facing the great West Front, Avhich looks so grim and grey upon the stony courtyard that stretches before it, you see, flanking the immense west window, two heavy piers, terminating in turrets. On these piers are carved the singular representations of " Jacob's Ladder " that have given the Abbey a fame 264 THE BATH ROAD eA^en beyond the merit of its architecture. From near the ground-level, almost to the turrets, this curious carving stretches, battered long years ago by the fury of an age which prided itself on its enmity to " superstitious images," and reduced by the further neglect of more than two hundred years to an almost shapeless mass. The origin of this curious decoration is found in the vision of Bishop Oliver King, who restored the then ruined Abbey in 1499. In this vision, by which he was induced to undertake the great w^ork, he saw angels ascending and descending a ladder, and heard a voice say, " Let an Olive estab lish a Crown, and let a King restore the Church." He interpreted this as a DiAdne injunction to himself to repair the Abbey, and accordingly commenced the Avork ; dying, however, before it was completed. The "ladders" have sculptured angels on thera, while on the Avail above the arch of the great AviudoAV is represented a great concourse of adoring- angels, Avith a figure of God in glory in their midst. Many of the figures have their heads knocked off; but the whole of this sculpture is shortly to be restored. XLVI Bath entered upon a dead period about 1820. For a longAA'hile the ncAver and more easily reached glories of Brighton had taken the mere fashionables away, and even the waters wore less favoured. Continental wars had ceased, and unpatriotic Britons fiocked to THE ROMAN BATH, RESTORED. MODERN BATH 267 foreign spas instead ; Bath looking idly on and letting its customers go. It was some ten years later that Dickens visited Bath. From what he saw there he drew his portraits of place and persons in the " Pickwick Papers ; " and the impression after reading them is undoubtedly one of faded gentility. So it remained until after the visit of the British Association in 1864, when the advice of the scientific men to the Corporation — to bring back business by providing more up-to-date accommodation — was laid to heart, and improveraents begun. Since then the City has steadily climbed back again to the favour of invaUds and the medical profession, and new Baths and all manner of modern appliances, a new railway station, and an air of an enlightened modernity, bid fair to keep Bath successful against all foreign com petition for a long time to come. Since this Renaissance of thirty-five years ago was begun, many things have happened at Bath. Roman remains, more extensive than ever the bygone gene rations suspected, have been discovered, and excava tions have lain bare baths long covered up by shabby and altogether undistinguished buildings. Judicious restoration has preserved the great Eoman Bath, long a scene of wreck and shattered stones, and has brought it into use again. This restored Bath affords perhaps the most picturesque view in the City, for from its margin one may gaze upwards and see to great advantage the beautiful tower of the Abbey soaring aloft ; its late Gothic architecture contrasting piquantly Avith the classic elegance of that restored 2 68 THE BATH ROAD bathing-place, while the reflections of the colurans deep doAvn in the quiet pool give a singularly com plete sense of restfulness. All this raodern prosperity is, no doubt, very gratifying, but prosperity means much building, and Bath has now its suburbs ; uncharted stretches of new villas, isolated, or in streets, that clirab the hill sides of Combe Down, Beechen Cliff, and Lansdowne, and help to destroy Macaulay's Avell-known, if some thing too overdraAvn, architectural picture of Bath, as " that beautiful City Avhich charms even eyes familiar Avith the masterpieces of Bramante and Palladio, and Avhich " (horrible literary solecism !) " the genius of Anstey and of SmoUett, of Frances Burney and of Jane Austen, has made classic ground." Bath, indeed, was a jewel set in midst of lior picturesque amjihitheatre of rocky and Avooded hills ; but now that those hills and those woods are being covered Avith houses Avhose architecture is less cal culated to " charm the eyes familiar Avitli the master- })ieces of Bramante and Palladio " than were the buildings of a century and a half ago, the setting of the jewel is by Avay of becoming tarnished. Now, also, it has been reserved to these tiraes of cheap raihvay carriage of goods for brick houses to be seen at Bath ; the one place in the world where brick never had an opportunity until these latter days of the "combine" of the allied "Bath Stone Firms," which has raised the price of Bath stone, so that in certain cases it has been found cheaper to bring bricks from the Midlands to buUd houses in Bath MODERN BATH 269 than to use the stone quarried on the spot. So, in the AAulderness of ncAv suburbs, the traveller AA^ho is whisked away by rail to Bristol may see, to his astonishment, amid the stone houses, rows of the most undeniable red-brick villas. And thus has como the spirit of Avhat the late Professor Freeman Avas pleased to call "modernity" over Bath, once the peculiar preserA^e of stone and Classicism. INDEX Ailesbury, Marquis of, 183-185 Allen, Ealph, 242-250 " Allen's stall," 34-38 Anne, Queen, 6, 237, 238 Apsley House, 34-38 Arlington, Earl of, 90 Avebury, 108-203 Banks, Sir Joseph, 93 Bath, 2-15, 228-270 Batheaston, 227, 242 Yase, 241 Bathford, 227 Bathampton, 228 Bath stone, 223-227, 268 Bathwick, 246 Beckhampton, 203-205 Berkeley, Earls of, 82-84, 87, 89 "Berkshire Lady," the, 141- 145, 158 Bladud, Prince, 231, 243 Box, 203, 223-227 HiU, 224, 227 Tunnel, 223 Brentford, 7 (J Calcot, 141-145 Calne, 203, 20G, 209 Cherhill, 205-2(.)7 Chippenham, 17, 203, 210-215, 253 Chiswick High Eoad, 58, C5 Church Speen, 153, 165, 166 " Beaufort Hunt," 26, 204 " Flying Machines," 5, 69, 200 Coaches {contd.) : — " Light Post " coach, 30 Mail coaches, 10, 11, 17- 19, 27 "Eegulator," 16 " York House," 26 Coaching era, 4-33, 204 fares, 5, 28 miseries, 9, 15-19 Coaching notabilities : — Chaplin, Edward, 21, 90 and Home, 90 Cooper, Thomas, ,21 Everett, Jack, 204 Colnbrook, 97-103 Colne, Eiver, 96-98, 103 Corsham Eegis, 218, 221-i'23, 224 Cranford, 82, 85, 86-89 Bridge, 29, 84, 97 Cross Keys, 218 Cycling records, 215-218 Darell, William, 173-182 Froxfield, 182 Fyfield, 192 Great "Western Eailway, 27, 74, 108-110, 124, 134, 149, 221, 227 Gunnersbury, 63, 68 Hammersmith, 58, 63 Hare Hatch, 134 Harlington, 89-91 Corner, 89 272 INDEX Harmondsworth, 94-96 Henry VIIL, 13-138 Highwaymen, 40-45, 56, 67- 69, 71, 74-84, 87, 91-94, 111-116, 118, 129 Hock-tide, 167-173 HounsloAV, 19, 71-74, 92 Heath, 69, 71, 74-84, 86, 92, 111 Hungerford, 146, 166-173 Hvde Park Corner, 33-40, 74, "94, 166 Inns (mentioned at length) : — "Bear,". Maidenhead, 25, 129 " Bell and Bottle," Knowl Hill, 133 •'Black Bull," Holborn, 31 •• Castle," Marlborough, 17, 21, 187, 192 , Salt Hill, 92, 107 " Greyhound," ilaideii- heail, 127 ¦' Halfway House," Ken sington, 40, 4;>, 45 •' Hercuk's' Pillars," Hyde Park Corner, 34 •• King's Head," Longford, 97 " Magpies," 90 "Old Bdl," Holborn, 31- •' Old Magpies," 91 - Old Pack Horse," Turn ham Green, 66-68 " Old Windmill," Turnham Green, 65 " Ostrich," Colnbrook, 99- 1113 •¦ Pack Horse and Talbot," Tm-nham Green, 59, 66 " Peggy Bedford," Long ford, 97 " Pelican," Speenhamland, 15, 150, 253 Inns (mentioned at length) {contd.) : — " Eed Cow," Brook Green, 56-58 " Eobin Hood," Turnham Green, 63-65 " Waggon and Horses," Beckhampton, 203-205 " White Bear," Piccadilly, 20 " White Bear," Fickles Hole, 20 " White Hart," Bath, 260 " White Horse," Fetter Lane, 10, 30 "White Lion," Bath, 22, I'O, 200 " York House," Bath, 20 Jack of Xewbury, 150-154, 157-101 Kennet, Eiver, 140, 152, 100, 180, 193 Kensington, 34, 40, 44, 40-55 Kew Bridge, 08 Kiln Green, 133 Knightsbridge, 34, 40, 44 Knowl Hih, 133 Langley Broom, KU Mai-ish, 104 Littlecote, 173-182 Longford, 94, 90 Maidenhead, 33, 122, 124-130 Thicket, 111, 129-133 Mail coaches established, 10 Manton, 194 Marlborough, 22, 20, 182, 186- 193, 204 College, 188, 1<,I2 ¦ Downs, 17, 197-201, 205, 253 Maud Heath's Causeway, 213- 215 INDEX. 273 Nash, Beau, 238-240, 24:!, 250 Newbury, 18, 13S, 140, 150- 166, 253 , battles of, 101-105 Old-time travellers : — Campbell, Eev. Thomas, 252-255 Moritz, Pastor, 110-12;; Palmer, George, 135 , John, 10, 242, 24;! Pickwick, 218-221 Postage of letters, 10-15, 167 Prior Park, 243, 246 Quemerford, 206 Beading, 18, 29, 180, 134-138 Salt Hill, 92, 106-111, 122 Savernake Forest, 182-185, 194 Sham Castle, 249 Silbury Hill, 198-203 Sipson Green, 91 Spt'cn, 15:!, 105, 100 Speenhamland, 150, 25:! Stadvhouse, Eev. Thomas, 153 Taplow, 108, 124 Tetsworth water, 105 Thatcham, 21, 140, 149, 15:! Theale, 145, 102 Turnham Green, 58-08 Turnpike gates, 11, 34, 45, 73, 100 Twyford, 130, 134 Wainewright, Thomas Griffiths, 59 Walcot, 228 West Kennet, 197 Overton, 197 " Wild Darell," 173-182 Woolhampton, 146-149 Wyatt's Eebellion, 38 " Young's Corner," 58 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND £0K8, LIBIITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. T Q Q 00855 0551 g