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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Lebensstil
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
In "The Newmarket, Bury, Thetford and Cromer Road," Charles G. Harper meticulously chronicles a pivotal slice of England's topography and social history. With his characteristic blend of engaging prose and keen observation, Harper navigates the reader through the varied landscapes and communities along this vital thoroughfare. The literary style, rich in detail yet accessible, reflects the Victorian era's fascination with travel and exploration. Harper's work serves as both a travelogue and a socio-cultural commentary, providing unique insights into the life, customs, and idiosyncrasies of the regions en route. Charles G. Harper, a prominent figure in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was not only an author but also an illustrator and a renowned chronicler of the British countryside. His extensive travels, coupled with a deep appreciation for local histories and folklore, inspired him to document the changing landscapes and social fabrics of his time. Harper's background in art and literature deeply influenced his narrative style, allowing him to capture the beauty and essence of the locations he described with vivid imagery and affectionate detail. This book is highly recommended for readers interested in historical travel literature, regional studies, and the cultural evolution of England. Harper'Äôs engaging narrative not only enlightens but also invites readers to embark on a journey through the sights and stories that shaped a significant corridor in British history.
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The Newmarket, Bury, Thetford and Cromer Road
Table of Contents
PREFACE.
Petersham,
Surrey,
February, 1904.
THE ROAD TO NEWMARKET, THETFORD, NORWICH, AND CROMER.
London (General Post Office) to—
MILES
Shoreditch Church
1½
Cambridge Heath
2½
Hackney Church
3½
Lower Clapton
4
Lea Bridge (Cross River Lea.)
5½
Whip’s Cross
6¾
Snaresbrook (“The Eagle”)
8
Woodford (St. Mary’s Church)
9
Woodford Green
9¾
Woodford Wells (“Horse and Well” Inn)
10¼
Buckhurst Hill (“Bald-faced Stag”)
11
Loughton
13
Wake Arms
15
Epping
18
Thornwood Common
20¼
Potter Street
2½
Harlow (Cross River Stort: Stort Navigation, Harlow Wharf.)
24½
Sawbridgeworth
26¾
Spelbrook
28½
Thorley Street (Cross River Stort.)
29½
Hockerill, Bishop Stortford
30½
Stansted Mountfitchet
33½
Ugley
35½
Quendon
36½
Newport (Cross Wicken Water.)
39
Uttlesford Bridge, Audley End (On right, Saffron Walden, 1½ mile; on left, ½ mile, Wendens Ambo.)
40¼
Littlebury
42¼
Little Chesterford (Cross River Cam.)
43¾
Great Chesterford
44½
Stump Cross
45¼
Pampisford Station, Bourn Bridge (Cross Bourn Stream, or Linton River.)
48½
Six Mile Bottom Level Crossing, Six Mile Bottom Station.)
54½
Devil’s Ditch
58½
Newmarket (Clock Tower)
60½
“Red Lodge” Inn (Cross River Kennett.)
65½
Barton Mills (Cross River Lark, Mildenhall, on left, 1 mile.)
69¾
Elveden
77
Thetford (Cross Rivers Little Ouse and Thet.)
80¾
Larling Level Crossing
85¾
Larlingford (Cross River Thet.)
88¾
Attleborough
94¾
Morley St. Peter Post Office
97
Wymondham
100¾
Hethersett
104¼
Cringleford (Cross River Yare.)
106¾
Eaton
107¼
Norwich (loop road) (Cross River Wensum.)
109¾
Upper Hellesdon
110½
Mile Cross
111
Horsham St. Faith
114¼
Newton St. Faith
115½
Stratton Strawless
117½
Hevingham
118
Marsham
120
Aylsham (loop road) (Cross River Bure.)
121½
Ingworth
123½
Erpingham
125½
Hanworth Corner
126¾
Roughton
128½
Crossdale Street
131
Cromer
132
To Thetford, through Bury St. Edmunds.
Newmarket (Clock Tower)
61¾
Kentford (Cross River Kennett.)
66
Higham Station
68½
Saxham White Horse
71½
Risby
73
Bury St. Edmunds
75½
Fornham St. Martin
77½
Ingham
79¾
Seven Hills
81¾
Barnham
85½
Thetford
87¾
List of Illustrations
SEPARATE PLATES
PAGE
The Norwich Mail in a Thunderstorm on Thetford Heath.
(
From a Print after J. Pollard
)
Frontispiece
The Norwich Stage, about 1790.
(
From a Painting by an Artist unknown
)
5
The “Expedition,” Newmarket and Norwich Stage, about 1798.
(
From the Painting by Cordery
)
9
Rye House
21
The “Eagle,” Snaresbrook: the Norwich Mail passing, 1832.
(
From a Print after J. Pollard
)
41
The “White Hart,” Woodford.
(
From a Drawing by P. Palfrey
)
45
Birthplace of Cecil Rhodes
59
Henry Gilbey
63
The “Crown,” Hockerill, demolished 1903.
(
From a Drawing by P. Palfrey
)
67
The “White Bear,” Stansted.
(
From a Drawing by P. Palfrey
)
71
The “Old Bell,” Stansted.
(
From a Drawing by P. Palfrey
)
75
London Lane, Newport: where Charles the Second’s Route to Newmarket joined the Highway
85
The Devil’s Ditch and Newmarket Heath, looking towards Ely
125
Yard of the “White Hart,” Newmarket
147
Newmarket: the “Rutland Arms”
153
“Angel Hill,” Bury St. Edmunds
181
Mildenhall
195
Barton Mills
199
The “Nuns’ Bridges” on the Icknield Way, Thetford
217
The “Bell Inn,” Thetford, and St. Peter’s Church
221
Castle Hill, Thetford, in 1848.
(
From an old Print
)
229
Wymondham
279
The “Unicorn,” Norwich and Cromer Coach.
(
From a Print after J. Pollard, 1830
)
295
“St. Fay’s”
311
Blickling Hall
319
Cromer in 1830.
(
From a Print after T. Creswick, R.A.
)
343
Cromer
349
ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT
PAGE
Will Kemp and his Tabourer
xvii
Ambresbury Banks
55
“Sapsworth”
56
Windhill, Bishop’s Stortford
62
Hockerill
66
Ugley Church
79
“Monks’ Barns”
83
Ancient Carving at “Monks’ Barns”
84
“Nell Gwynne’s House,” formerly the “Horns” Inn
91
“Hospital Farm,” and “Newport Big Stone”
93
Wendens Ambo
96
Audley End
99
Saffron Walden
103
House formerly the “Sun” Inn
105
Arms of Saffron Walden
109
“Mag’s Mount”
122
Barclay of Ury on his Walking Match
134
The “Boy’s Grave”
169
Little Saxham Church
173
Marman’s Grave
189
Avenue near Newmarket
190
Elveden
203
Elveden Gap
207
Gateway, Thetford Priory
213
Castle Hill, Thetford
231
The “Old House,” Thetford
243
“Bridgeham High Tree”
245
The “Scutes,” Peddar’s Way
249
The Ruined Church of Roudham
251
Larlingford
253
Wilby Old Hall
255
Attleborough
258
Wymondham Church
270
Hethersett Vane
286
Cringleford
288
Eaton “Red Lion”
292
St. Peter Mancroft, and Yard of the “White Swan”
298
Gateway, Strangers’ Hall
302
The Strangers’ Hall
303
Caricature in Stone, St. Andrew’s Hall
306
Caricature in Stone, St. Andrew’s Hall
307
Tombland Alley
308
Stratton Strawless Lodges
314
“Woodrow” Inn, and the Hobart Monument
325
Ingworth
327
Felbrigg Hall
330
The NEWMARKET, BURY, THETFORD, and CROMER ROAD
I
The road to Newmarket, Thetford, Norwich, and Cromer is 132 miles in length, if you go direct from the old starting-points, Shoreditch or Whitechapel churches. If, on the other hand, you elect to follow the route of the old Thetford and Norwich Mail, which turned off just outside Newmarket from the direct road through Barton Mills, and went instead by Bury St. Edmunds, it is exactly seven miles longer to Thetford and all places beyond.
There are few roads so wild and desolate, and no other main road so lonely, in the southern half of this country. There are even those who describe it as “dreary,” but that is simply a description due to extrinsic circumstances. Beyond question, however, it must needs have been a terrible road in the old coaching days, and every one who had a choice of routes to Norwich did most emphatically and determinedly elect to journey by way of that more populated line of country leading through Chelmsford, Colchester, and Ipswich. Taken nowadays, however, without the harassing drawbacks of rain or snow, or without head-winds to make the cyclist’s progression a misery, it is a road of weirdly interesting scenery. It is not recommended for night-riding to the solitary rider of impressionable nature, for its general aloofness from the haunts of man, and that concentrated spell of sixteen miles of stark solitudes between Great Chesterford and Newmarket, where you have the bare chalk downs all to yourself, are apt to give all such as he that unpleasant sensation popularly called “the creeps.” By day, however, these things lose their uncanny effect while they keep their interest.
There are in all rather more than fifty miles of chalk downs and furzy heaths along this road, and they are all the hither side of Norwich. You bid good-bye to the chalk downs when once Newmarket is gained, and then reach the still wild, but kindlier, country of the sandy heaths.
Cromer was not within the scheme of the London coach-proprietors’ activities in the days of the road. It was scarce more than a fishing village, and the traveller who wished to reach it merely booked to Norwich, and from thence found a local coach to carry him forward. To Norwich by this route it is exactly two miles shorter than by way of Colchester and Ipswich. Let us see how public needs were studied in those old days by proprietors of stage-coach and mail.
II
The Newmarket and Thetford route was not a favourite one with the earliest coachmasters. Its lengthy stretches of unpopulated country rendered it a poor speculation, and the exceptional dangers to be apprehended from Highway-men kept it unpopular with travellers. The Chelmsford, Colchester, and Ipswich route on to Norwich was always the favourite with travellers bound so far, and on that road we have details of coaching so early as 1696. Here, however, although there were early conveyances, we only set foot upon sure historic ground in 1769, when a coach set out from the “Bull,” Bishopsgate, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 7 a.m., and conveyed passengers to Norwich at £1 2s. each.
In that same year a “Flying Machine,” in one day, is found going from the “Swan with Two Necks” on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in summer at 12 o’clock noon. For this express speed of Norwich in one day the fare was somewhat higher; £1 8s. was the price put upon travelling by the “Flying Machine”; but in winter, when it set forth on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, at the unearthly hour of 5 a.m., the price was 3s. lower.
In 1782 a Diligence went three times a week, at 10 p.m., from the “White Horse,” Fetter Lane; as also did a “Post Coach,” at 10 p.m., from the “Swan with Two Necks,” the “Machine” at midnight, and “a coach,” name and description not specified, from the “Bull,” Bishopsgate Street, at 10 p.m. There were thus at this time four coaches to Norwich. In 1784 the “Machine” disappears from the coach-lists of that useful old publication, the Shopkeepers’ Assistant, and in its stead appears for the first time the “Expedition” coach. This new-comer started thrice a week—Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays—from the “Bull,” Bishopsgate Street, at the hour of 9 p.m. Evidently there were stout hearts on this route in those times, to travel thus through the terrors of the darkling roads.
In 1788 the “Expedition” is found starting one hour earlier: in 1790, another two hours. In 1798 it set out from the “White Horse,” Fetter Lane, so early as 3.45 p.m., and had begun to go every day. Calling on the way at its original starting-point, the “Bull,” it left that house at 4 p.m., and continued on its way without further interruption.
What the “Expedition” was like at this period we may judge from the very valuable evidence of the accompanying illustration, drawn in facsimile from a contemporary painting by Cordery. It was one of the singular freaks that had then a limited vogue, and is a “double-bodied” coach, designed to suit the British taste for seclusion. How the passengers in the hinder body entered or left the coach is not readily seen, unless we may suppose that the artist was guilty of a technical mistake, and brought the hind wheels too far forward. The only alternative is to presume a communication between fore and hind bodies.
THE NORWICH STAGE, ABOUT 1790.From a painting by an artist unknown.
This illustration, so deeply interesting to students of coaching history, was evidently, as the long inscription underneath suggests, designed in the first instance as a pictorial advertisement, and doubtless hung in the booking-office of the coach at the “Bull” in Bishopsgate Street. That quaintly-mispelled programme shows its speed, inclusive of stops for changing and supper, to have been six miles an hour.
The difficulties in the way of the coaching historian are gravely increased by the omissions and inaccuracies that plentifully stud the reference books of the past. Thus, although the Shopkeepers’ Assistant omits all notice of the “Expedition” after 1801, we cannot admit it to have been discontinued, for it is referred to in a Norwich paper of 1816, in which we learn that it left Norwich at 3 p.m. and arrived at London at 9 a.m., a performance slower by half an hour than that of eighteen years earlier. From this notice we also learn the fares, which were 35s. for insides and 20s. out.
In 1821 it left London at 5.30 p.m., and in 1823 at 5 p.m. We have no record of its appearance at this time, but the double-bodied coach had probably by then been replaced by one of ordinary build. The old-established concern seems, however, to have lost some of its popularity, for on April 10th, the following year, 1824, the proprietors discontinued it, and started the “Magnet”—so named, probably, because they conceived such a title would have great powers of attraction. If the mere name could not have brought much extra custom, at least the improved speed was calculated to do so. The year 1824 was the opening of the era of fast coaches all over the country, and the “Magnet” was advertised to run from the “White Swan” and “Rampant Horse,” Norwich, at 4 p.m., and arrive at London 7 a.m. These figures give a journey of fifteen hours, a considerable improvement upon the performances of the old “Expedition,” but the return journey was one hour better. Leaving the “Bull,” Bishopsgate Street, at 7 p.m., the coach was at Norwich by 9 o’clock the next morning.
The “Magnet,” unfortunately, was no sooner started than it met with a mishap. On the midnight of May 15th the up coach, crossing the bridge over the Cam at Great Chesterford, about midnight, ran into a swamp, and the passengers who did not wish to drown had to climb on to the roof and remain there, while the water flowed through the windows. Eventually the coach was dragged out by cart-horses. The swamp is still there, beside the road.
This Coach from Norwich to LONDON by Newmarket every Day Convey 8 Insides 4 in Each Body & 6 Outsides in the most Pleasant And Agreeable Stile of any Coach yet offer’d to the Public it Travels 108MILES in 17 hours & half Including half an hour for Supper & the time Of Changeing Horses on the Different Stages the Above Vehicle Is At Present drove by a Coachman who has drove this & others for the Above PROPRIETORS upwards of 19 Years without Overturning Or Any Material Accident happening to any Passengers or Himself. THE “EXPEDITION,” NEWMARKET AND NORWICH STAGE, ABOUT 1798.From the painting by Cordery.This was made, apparently, as an advertisement of the coach.
Meanwhile, the down coach came along, and had only just crossed the bridge when the arch, forced out by the swollen state of the river, burst, with a tremendous crash. Another coach, approaching, received warning from the guard of the “Magnet” swinging his lantern. Had it not been for his timely act, a very grave disaster must have happened, and the passengers of the coach very properly set afoot a subscription for him.
Meanwhile the Royal Mail was going every week-day night, at 7 p.m. from the “Golden Cross,” Charing Cross, and from the “Flower Pot,” Bishopsgate Street, an hour later. It ran to the “King’s Head,” Norwich, and went by Bury St. Edmunds, continuing that route until January 6th, 1846, when—the last of the coaches on this road—it ceased to be.
In 1821 the “Times” day coach left the “Blue Boar,” Whitechapel, at 5.45 every morning, going by Bury; the “Telegraph” day coach, by Barton Mills and Elveden, started from the “Cross Keys,” Wood Street, at 6.45 a.m., and got to Norwich in 13 hours; a coach from the “Bull,” Bishopsgate Street, travelling by Bury, left at 7 a.m.; from the “White Horse,” Fetter Lane, a “Light Post” coach set out, by Barton Mills and Elveden, at 5.30 p.m., arriving at the “White Swan,” Norwich, in 15½ hours, at 9 a.m.; and a coach by the same route from the “Golden Cross,” Charing Cross, at 6.30 a.m., arriving at 8 p.m.
In addition to these were the so-called “single” coaches: i.e., those not running a down and an up coach, but going down one day and returning the next. These were the conveyance from the “Bull,” Bishopsgate Street, at 5.30 a.m., on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, by Barton Mills and Elveden, reaching the “White Swan,” Norwich, in 12½ hours (the best performance of all); and the “Norwich Safety,” by Bury, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from the “Bull and Mouth” at 7.30 p.m.; a very slow, as well as a self-styled “safe” coach, for it only reached Norwich at 11 a.m.; thus lagging 15½ hours on the road.
The “Phenomenon,” or “Phenomena,” as it was variously styled, left the “Boar and Castle,” 6, Oxford Street, where the Oxford Music Hall now stands, at 5.30 a.m., and the “Bull,” Whitechapel, at 6.30, and went a route of its own, by Chelmsford, Braintree, Sible and Castle Hedingham, Sudbury, Bury, and Scole, to Norwich. To Bury, especially, went three coaches, two of them daily, and one thrice a week.
The Norwich Mail, by Newmarket and Bury, had in the meanwhile been abandoned by Benjamin Worthy Horne, of the “Golden Cross,” and had been taken over by Robert Nelson, of the “Belle Sauvage.” It was the only mail he had. He horsed it as far as Hockerill, and it is eminently unlikely that he and his partners down the road did much more than make both ends meet. For Post Office purposes the Mail was bound to go by Bury, which involved seven miles more than by the direct route, and it had to contend with the competition of the “Telegraph” day coach, going direct, and at an hour more convenient for travellers. So this Mail never loaded well, and coachmasters were not eager to contract for running it. The Post Office, accustomed to pay the quite small amounts of 2d. and 3d. a mile, paid 8d., and then 9d., per mile for this, to induce any one to work it at all, and it was contemplated to entrust the mail-bags to stage-coaches along this route, when the railway came and cut off stage and mail alike.
This Norwich Mail was not without its adventures. It was nearly wrecked in the early morning of June 15th, 1817, when close to Newmarket, by a plough and harrow, placed in the middle of the road by some unknown scoundrels. The horses were pitifully injured. A year or so later it came into collision on the Heath with a waggon laden with straw. A lamp was broken by the force of the impact, and straw and waggon set ablaze and destroyed.
Beside the coaches, there were many vans and waggons plying along the road, and some comparatively short-distance coaches. Thus there was the “Old Stortford” coach, daily, between London and Bishop’s Stortford, and the Saffron Walden coach, twice daily, from the “Bull,” Whitechapel; together with the Saffron Walden “Telegraph,” from the “Belle Sauvage,” on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. “Gilbey & Co.” had a coach plying the twelve miles between Bishop’s Stortford and Saffron Walden, twice daily. Coaching between London and Bishop’s Stortford ended when the “Northern and Eastern Railway”—long since amalgamated with the Great Eastern—was opened to that point, in 1841. All coaches between London and Norwich ceased to run early in 1846.
III
Although the road to Newmarket lay, as we have seen, chiefly through Epping, Chesterford, and Bishop’s Stortford from the earliest days of coaching, this route was, in earlier times of travel, but one of several. A favourite way was along the Old North Road, through Enfield, Ware, Puckeridge, and Royston, whence wayfarers might branch off to the right, by way of Whittlesford and Pampisford, or might go through Melbourn, Harston, and Cambridge. Travellers were shy of venturing into the glades of Epping Forest, infested beyond the ordinary run with dangerous characters, and rather braved the rigours of the open downs than encounter the terrors of the shrouded woodlands. James I., with his passion for the chase and his hunting-palace at Royston, early established a fox-hunting lodge at Newmarket, and had, with his magnificent palace of Theobalds, at Cheshunt, a series of reasons for travelling this route. The road was bad, of course, in those times: they all were. The only difference in them was that when all were bad others were merely worse. But when any particular road became a kingly route, attempts were made to improve it, and thus we read that so early as 1609 one Thomas Norton, “way-maker” to his Majesty, was at work on the problem of repairing “the highewayes leadinge to and from the Citty of London to the towns of Royston and Newmarkett, for his Maties better passage in goeing and cominge to his recreations in those parts.” No silly nonsense, you will observe, about public benefit, nor anything in the way of excusing the thing on the ground of the King’s business demanding it. His Majesty’s amusements, we are frankly allowed to see, were at stake, and that was reason sufficient.
Mr. Thomas Norton was not, after all, paid very much for his services. In 1609 he received £29 10s., and a pittance continued afterwards to be doled out to him.
The way to Newmarket, however, still continued to be a matter of individual taste and fancy. When James was visited there in February, 1615, by Mr. Secretary Winwood on State business, he journeyed by Epping, Chesterford, and Bishop’s Stortford, returning the same way. He travelled with a wondrous rapidity, too, when we consider what travelling then was; and although he did complain of “a sore journey, as the wayes are,” did actually succeed in returning to London in one day, by dint of having on his way down made arrangements for coaches to be “laid for him” at three several places. Two years later the Swedish Ambassador travelled to Newmarket to pay his respects to the King. He went by Royston in two days, sleeping at Puckeridge the first night, and returned by Cambridge, Newport (where he stayed the night), and Waltham.
In 1632 the surveyor of highways is found solemnly adjuring the parishes and the roadside landowners to perform the duties laid upon them by the General Highway Act of 1555, and to repair the “noyous” ways by which Charles I. was proposing to travel to Royston and Newmarket. The malt traffic, which thirty years later had grown so heavy on this road that toll-gates became necessary to keep it in repair, appears already to have been a great feature, for the surveyor urged the restriction on this occasion of the number of malt-carts, and prohibited waggons drawn by more than five horses.
We gain from the pages of Samuel Pepys a glimpse of what these royal journeys were like in the time of Charles II. When you have read it you will conclude that even a modern penny tramway ride has more majesty, and certainly seems to be safer. He notes in his diary, under March 8th, 1669, that he went “to White Hall, from whence the King and the Duke of York went, by three in the morning and had the misfortune to be overset with the Duke of York, the Duke of Monmouth, and the Prince (Prince Rupert) at the King’s Gate in Holborne, and the King all dirty, but no hurt. How it came to pass, I know not, but only it was darke, and the torches did not, they say, light the coach as they should do.”
It would puzzle most Londoners in these days to tell where the King’s Gate was situated. The last landmark that stood for it was swept away in 1902, when the east side of Southampton Row was demolished, and with it the narrow thoroughfare of Kingsgate Street, in the rear, to make way for the new street from Holborn to the Strand. The student of Dickens will recollect that Mrs. Gamp lived in Kingsgate Street: “which her name is well-beknown is S. Gamp, Midwife, Kingsgate Street, High Holborn”; but in the time of James I. and the Stuart kings it was a narrow, and it would also seem, by Pepys’ account, a muddy, lane leading from the pleasant country road of Holborn to another and longer lane called then as now, when it is a lane no more, “Theobalds Road.” The lane was provided with a barred gate, and was used exclusively by the King and a few privileged others on the way to Theobalds Palace and Newmarket.
