Fragments of Two Centuries: Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King. Alfred Kingston
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Will set out on Monday, 2nd May, and will continue to set out during the summer, every Monday and Friday morning at four o'clock; every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday at six o'clock, from the Old Crown Inn, Royston; arrives at the Four Swans Inn, Bishopsgate Street, London, at ten and twelve o'clock. Returns every day (Sunday excepted) from the said Inn, precisely at two o'clock, and arrives at Royston at eight o'clock at night.
The proprietors of this undertaking, being persons who have rose by their own merit, and being desirous of accommodating the public from Royston and its environs, they request the favour of all gentlemen travellers for their support, who wish to encourage the hand of industry, when their favours will be gratefully acknowledged by their servants with thanks.
John Sporle, Royston.
Thomas Folkes, London, and Co.
Fare as under:—
From Royston to London, inside, £0 12s. 0d.
" Buntingford ditto, £0 10s. 0d.
" Puckeridge ditto, £0 9s. 0d.
Ware and other places the same as other coaches.
Outsiders, and children in lap, half-price.
N.B.—No parcels accounted for above five pounds, unless paid for and entered as such.
A much earlier announcement was that in 1763, of the St. Ives and Royston Coach, which was announced to run with able horses from the Bell and Crown, Holborn, at five o'clock in the morning, every Monday and Friday to the Crown, St. Ives, returning on Tuesday and Saturday. Fare from London to Royston 8s., St. Ives 13s. This was performed by John Lomax, of London, and James Gatward, of Royston, and in the following year the same proprietors extended the route to Chatteris, March and Wisbech. This James Gatward was probably a brother of the unfortunate Gatward (son of Mrs. Gatward, for many years landlady of the Red Lion Inn, at Royston), whose strange career and tragic end will be referred to presently.
In 1772 I find a prospectus of the Royston, Buntingford, Puckeridge and Ware "Machine" which set out from the Hull Hotel, Royston, "every Monday and Friday at half after five o'clock, and returns from the Vine Inn every Tuesday and Thursday at half after eight o'clock, and dines at Ware on the return. To begin on 20th of this instant, April, 1772. Performed by their most humble servant, A. Windus (Ware)."
In 1776 occurs this announcement "The Royston, Buntingford, Puckeridge and Ware Machine run from Royston (Bull Inn) to London, by Joshua Ellis and Co." In the same year was announced the Cambridge and London Diligence in 8 hours—through Ware and Royston to Cambridge, performed by J. Roberts, of London, Thomas Watson, Royston, and Jacob Brittain, of Cambridge.
In October, 1786, at two o'clock in the morning, the first coach carrying the mails came through Royston, and in the same month of the same year the Royston Coach was "removed from the Old Crown to the Red Lyon."
In 1788 we learn that "The Royston Post Coach, constructed on a most approved principle for speed and pleasure in travelling goes from Royston to London in six hours, admits of only four persons inside, and sets out every morning from Mr. Watson's the Red Lion."
In 1793, W. Moul and Co. began with their Royston Coach.
Some of the old announcements of Coach routes indicate a spirit of improvement which had set in even thus early, such as "The Cambridge and Yarmouth Machine upon steel springs, with four able horses." It was a common name to apply to public coaches during the last century to call them "Machines," and when an improved Machine is announced with steel springs one can imagine the former state of things! It was a frequent practice, notwithstanding the apparent difficulty of maintaining one's perch for a long weary journey and sleeping by the road, for these old coaches to be overloaded at the top, and coachmen fined for it. In his "Travels in England in 1782," Moritz, the old German pastor, in his delightful pages, says on this point: "Persons to whom it is not convenient to pay a full price, instead of the inside, sit on the top of the coach, without any seats or even a rail. By what means passengers thus fasten themselves securely on the roof of these vehicles, I know not."
Reference has been made to the condition of the roads, and the terrible straits to which the old coaches and wagons of the last century were sometimes put on this account. The system of "farming" the highways was responsible for a great deal of this. An amusing instance occurred in October, 1789. A part of one of the high roads out of London was left in a totally neglected condition by the last lessee, excepting that some men tried to let out the water from the ruts, and when they could not do this, "these labourers employed themselves in scooping out the batter," and the plea for its neglect was that it was taken, but not yet entered upon by the person who had taken it to repair, it being some weeks before his time of entrance commenced! What was its state in November may be imagined. "When the ruts were so deep that the fore wheels of the wagons would not turn round, they placed in them fagots twelve or fourteen feet long, which were renewed as they were worn away by the traffic" (Gunning's "Reminiscences of Cambridge," 1798).
Some of the ruts were described as being four feet deep. In Young's Tours through England (1768) the Essex roads are spoken of as having ruts of inconceivable depth, and the roads so overgrown with trees as to be impervious to the sun. Some of the turnpikes were spoken of as being rocky lanes, with stones "as big as a horse, and abominable holes!" He adds that "it is a prostitution of language to call them turnpikes—ponds of liquid dirt and a scattering of loose flints, with the addition of cutting vile grips across the road under the pretence of letting water off, but without the effect, altogether render these turnpike roads as infamous a turnpike as ever were made!"
If the early coaches on the main roads were in such a sorry plight, what was to be expected of traffic on the parish roads? In some villages in this district lying two or three miles off the Great North Road, it was not unusual for carts laden with corn for Royston market to start over night to the high road so as to be ready for a fair start in the morning, in which case one man would ride on the "for'oss" (fore horse) carrying a lantern to light the way; and a sorry struggle it was! Years later when a carriage was kept here and there, it was not uncommon for a dinner party to get stuck in similar difficulties, and to have to call up the horses from a neighbouring farm to pull them through!
The difficulties for the older coaches and wagons were peculiarly trying in this district on account of the hills and hollows, but one of the most dreadful pieces of road at that time and for long afterwards, was that between Chipping and Buntingford, the foundations of which were often little else but fagots thrown into a quagmire!
But besides bad vehicles and worse roads, there was a weird and a horrid fascination about coaching in the eighteenth century, arising from the vision of armed and well-mounted highwaymen, or of a malefactor, after execution, hanging in chains on the gibbet by the highway near the scene of his exploits!
Let us take one well authenticated case—the best authenticated perhaps now known in England—in which a member of a respectable family in Royston turned highwayman—an amateur highwayman one would fain hope and believe—and paid the full penalty of the law, and was made to illustrate the horrible custom of those times by hanging in chains on the public highway! For this we must take the liberty of going a few years back before George III. came to the throne. For some years before and after that time, the noted old Posting House of the Red Lion, in the High Street, Royston, was kept by a Mrs. Gatward. This good lady, who managed the inn with credit to herself and satisfaction to her patrons, unfortunately had a son, who, while attending apparently to the posting branch of the business, could not resist the fascination of the life of the highwaymen, who no doubt visited his mother's inn under the guise of well-spoken gentlemen. Probably it was in dealing with them for horses that young Gatward caught the infection of their roving life, but what were the precise circumstances of his fall we can hardly know; suffice it to say that his crime was one of robbing His Majesty's mails, that he was evidently tried at the Cambridgeshire Assizes, sentenced to death and afterwards to hang in chains on a gibbet, and according to the custom of the times, somewhere near the scene of his crime. The rest of his story is so well told by Cole, the Cambridgeshire