Chapter VI

ONE decided advantage the Chelmsford, Colchester and Ipswich route to Norwich possessed in old times over that by way of Newmarket and Thetford. Neither could have been considered safe in the bad old days, but while the traveller across the wild heaths of Newmarket and Thetford was almost certain to be "held up" on his lonely course, the other way, through Essex, passed by few such wildernesses, and had more towns and villages along its course, to give a sense of security. Briefly, robbery on one route was a probability, and on the other was regarded as certain. Margaret Paston, writing from Norfolk to her husband in London, so long ago as the fifteenth century, certainly gives even the way through Essex a bad name, for she asks him to pay a debt for one of their friends, because it was not safe, "on account of the robbers," to send money up from the country; but at the very same time the Thetford route had a much more sinister reputation, and travellers versed in the gossip of the road avoided it if possible, or went in company and well armed, for in that era a certain William Cratfield, Rector of Wrotham, "a common and notorious thief and lurker on the roads, and murderer and slayer," lurked and robbed and slew on Newmarket Heath, in company with a certain "Thomas Tapyrtone, hosyer." He was at last laid by the heels, in 1416, and charged with robbing a Londoner of £12. This distinguished ornament of the Church died in Newgate, but of the villainous hosier we hear no more. Perhaps he had realised a fortune in the business and retired to enjoy the fruits of his industry. With the disappearance of this worthy couple, travellers breathed more freely, but for surety's sake continued to patronise the Essex route, and so by way of Ipswich to come to the City of Orchards, as Norwich was called of old.

As time went on, a certain degree of security was found in the coaches that began to make an appearance with the second half of the seventeenth century. They travelled at first no more quickly than a man could walk, but they provided company, which was, under the circumstances, highly desirable. Soon, however, they found it possible to do the journey in two days. Strype, we have already seen mentions the "Saracen's Head" in Aldgate as the centre of a considerable trade, and to it in 1681 a Norwich coach was running; an innovation which aroused the indignation of innkeepers on the way to almost as great a height as that of their descendants when, two hundred and forty years later, railways were depopulating the roads. When travellers began to go by coach instead of on horseback, and to reach London or Norwich in two days instead of three or four, those antique tapsters thought they saw their living going, and, strange to say, there were not wanting men who raised their voices against the innovation of being carried on a journey, instead of riding; although, for the most part, their outcry was the result only of innate conservatism.

"Travelling in these coaches," said an anonymous pamphleteer, "can neither prove advantageous to men's health or business. For what advantage is it to men's health to be called out of their beds into these coaches an hour before day in the morning, to be hurried in them from place to place, till one hour, two, or three within night; insomuch that after sitting all day in the summer time stifled with heat, and choked with the dust, or the winter time starving and freezing with cold or choked with filthy fogs, they are often brought into their inns by torchlight, when it is too late to sit up to get supper; and next morning they are forced into the coach so early that they can get no breakfast. What addition is this to men's health or business? to ride all day with strangers, oftentimes sick, ancient, diseased persons, or young children crying; to whose humours they are obliged to be subject, forced to bear with, and many times are poisoned with their nasty scents, and crippled by the crowd of the boxes and bundles."

Yet "these coaches" (one can almost hear the intonation of contempt in that phrase) were from the first a success. The greater that success the louder for a time was the outcry against them. Taylor, the Water Poet, was one of those who wrote vehemently against the new methods of travel. To him a coach was "a close hypocrite; for it hath a cover for knavery and curtains to vaile and shadow any wickedness. Besides, like a perpetual cheater, it wears two bootes, and no spurs, sometimes having two pairs of legs to one boote, and oftentimes (against nature) it makes faire ladies weare the boote; and if you note, they are carried back to back, like people surprised by pyrats, to be tyed in that miserable manner and thrown overboard into the sea. Moreover, it makes people imitate sea-crabs, in being drawn sideways as they are when they sit in the boot of the coach; and it is a dangerous kind of carriage for the commonwealth, if it be considered."

The boot of which he speaks so contemptuously, was a method of packing the "outsides," of which we still find a survival in the Irish jaunting-car. There are those who trace the origin of the term from the French "_boîte_," a box. Even now the coachman's seat is "the box," and the modern fore-boot is under it.

Writers of that time seem almost unanimously to have taken sides against coaching; with, however, no effect; for, somewhat later than Taylor, that doughty Conservative, John Cresset, is found exclaiming furiously against the multitude of them. He favoured the suppression of all, or, at least--counsels of moderation prevailing--of most. They were, he said, mischievous to the public, destructive to trade and prejudicial to the land. Not only did they injure the breed of horses, but also that of watermen; which last objection goes further than the complaints of Taylor himself, who, writing at the same time, does not speak of his breed being debased, but only of his trade being crippled. Cresset thought the stage-coaches tempted the country gentry to London too often, and he accordingly proposed that these conveyances should be limited to one for every county town in England, to go backwards and forwards once a week.

Vain hope! Coaches of sorts must already have appeared on the road to Norwich by the middle of the seventeenth century, for in a proclamation of July 20th in the plague year, 1665, when all places were dreading infected London, it is ordained, that "from this daie all ye passage coaches shall be prohibited to goe from ye city to London and come from thence hither, and also ye common carts and wagons." Already, in 1696, the "Confatharrat" coach was a well-known conveyance between London and Norwich, and the name of Suggate, the London and East Anglian carrier, a household word. Unhappily, nothing can be gathered as to when Suggate first began to jog along the road, or when the "Confatharrat" started to ply between Norwich and the "Four Swans," Bishopsgate Street. All particulars are lost. The odd name of that coach was probably a seventeenth-century way of spelling the word "confederate," and the selection of such a name proves both that it was carried on by an alliance or co-partnership, and that "confederate" had not then acquired its sinister modern connotation. Besides these aids to travel, a stage-waggon began to ply from the "Popinjay," Tombland, Norwich, at an early date; and another from the "Angel," in the Market Place, to the "Blossoms" Inn, Laurence Lane, London, was advertised in the _Norwich Mercury_, of March 29th, 1729, to "now go regularly every Thursday night," setting out on the following Wednesday from London, on the return journey. It will thus be seen that it was a five or six days' journey for those primitive affairs, and that they apparently did not run at regular intervals until that year.

A London and Beccles coach was running in 1707, but the first regular Norwich coach of which particulars remain was the "Norwich Machine," which in 1762 set out for London three times a week from the "Maid's Head," according to the advertisement still extant. There is nothing in that old coaching bill to show that 1762 was the first season of the "Norwich Machine." It may have been established some years before that date.

_Norwich, March 26, 1762._

SUSAN NASMITH and JAMES KEITH,

Proprietors of the

NORWICH MACHINE,

Give Notice

that their Machine will set out from the MAID'S HEAD Inn, in St Simon's Parish, in Norwich, on Monday, the 5th day of April next, at half-past eleven in the forenoon, and on the Wednesday and Friday in the same week, at the same time; and to be continued in like Manner, on those Days weekly, for the carrying four inside Passengers, at Twenty-five Shillings each, and outside at Twelve Shillings and Sixpence each. The inside Passengers to be allowed twenty pound Weight, and all above to be paid for at three half-pence per pound; and to be in London on the Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday Evenings weekly.

* * * * *

_N.B._--A Machine will set out on the same days, at the same time, from the GREEN DRAGON, in Bishopsgate Street, London, for Norwich.

In the following year, the "Widow Nasmith" and James Keith advertised that they had built large and commodious machines, to carry six inside, and reduced the fares to twenty shillings and ten shillings respectively; but they had apparently not succeeded in performing the journey in less time than a day and a half, for no mention is made of speed being accelerated. But a remarkable feature in that announcement is the extraordinary cheapness of the fares, little over twopence and a penny a mile for inside and outside passengers, at a time when prices on other roads ruled from twenty-five to fifty per cent. higher. This tells a tale of competition; but Time, the thief, has robbed us of all knowledge of those competitors.

A year later the London and Ipswich Post Coaches were advertised to set out every week-day, and to perform the 69¼ miles in ten hours, an average pace of almost 7 miles an hour; a marvellous turn of speed for that age. As to whether those Post Coaches ever _did_ cover that distance in ten hours, we may reasonably express a doubt; but there was the promise, and 011 the strength of it the proprietors charged threepence a mile. As will be seen by the advertisement, these coaches carried no outside passengers:--

_Ipswich, August 17th, 1764._

THE LONDON AND IPSWICH POST COACHES

Set out on Monday, the 27th of August, at seven o'clock in the morning from the BLACK BULL, in Bishopsgate, London, and at the same time from the GREAT WHITE HORSE, in Ipswich, and continue every day (Sunday excepted), to be at the above places the same evening at five o'clock; each passenger to pay threepence per mile, and to be allowed eighteen pounds luggage; all above to pay one penny per pound, and so in proportion. The coaches, hung upon steel springs, are very easy, large and commodious, carry six inside but no outside passengers whatever; but have great conveniences for parcels or game (to keep them from the weather), which will be delivered at London and Ipswich the same night.

As these coaches are sent out for the ease and expedition of gentlemen and ladies travelling, the proprietors humbly hope for their encouragement, and are determined to spare no pains to render it as agreeable as they can.

Performed (if God permits) by--

PET. SHELDON, at the Bull, Bishopsgate Street, London.
THOMAS ARCHER, at the White Hart, Brentwood.
CHARLES KERRY, at the Black Boy, Chelmsford.
GEO. REYNOLDS, at the Three Cups, Colchester; and
CHAS. HARRIS, at the Great White Horse, Ipswich.

* * * * *

_N.B._--The proprietors will not be answerable for any money, plate, jewels, or writings, unless entered and paid for as such.

The reader will perhaps have observed that this advertisement especially mentions a convenience for carrying game, and, as a matter of fact, game and oysters were prominent from an early period in the history of Norwich Road conveyances, and, by the middle of the eighteenth century, the Norfolk and Suffolk coaches had already earned quite a distinctive character in two seasons of the year, Michaelmas and Christmas. East Anglia has always abounded in game, and its broad heaths and extensive commons have been the breeding-grounds of innumerable geese and turkeys whose careers have ended on London dinner-tables. In those two seasons it was often difficult to secure a seat on or in any of the "up" coaches from Norwich or Ipswich, for while every available inch of space on the mails was occupied by festoons of dead birds consigned by country cousins to friends in town, the whole of a stage-coach was frequently chartered for the purpose of despatching heavy consignments of these noble poultry to the London market. Christmas provided extraordinary sights along the Norfolk Road, in the swaying coaches, with parcels and geese and turkeys mountains high on the roof; with barrels of Colchester natives in the boot, and hampers swinging heavily between the axle-trees on a shelf called "the cellar"; while from every rail or projection to which they could be either safely or hazardously tied depended other turkeys or braces of fowls, booked at the last moment before starting. It was something in those days to be a turkey or a goose, before whose importance the claims of human passengers faded; but it was a fleeting elevation which the philosophic did not envy, thinking that here indeed the poet was justified in his sounding line--

"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

That unfortunate genius, Robert Seymour, has left us a picture of the Norwich coach nearing London at Christmas time, with its feathered load. The drawing was made in 1835, at the very height of the Coaching Age, and shows from his own observation with what ingenuity every rail and projection was used to hang the birds from.

Another highly specialised branch of traffic, which only left the road on the opening of the railway, was the constant service of fish waggons running between Harwich, Colchester and London, at the then express speed of 8 miles an hour.