The Bath Road Part 2

Almost the last scene in this "strange eventful history" of road-travelling in the past was enacted in 1829, when Mr. Gurney's "steam-carriage" conveyed a number of people from London to Bath. The vehicle did not meet with the approval of the rustics, and at Melksham an angry mob, armed with stones, a.s.sailed the travellers, loudly denouncing the unholy thing. From Cranford Bridge to Reading, the speed was at the rate of sixteen miles an hour, and so delighted were those concerned with the result of the experiment that an announcement was made that "immediate measures" would be taken "to bring carriages of the sort into action on the roads." It has, however, been left to these last few years to re-introduce the motor-car, with results yet to be seen.

Such was travel on the road in olden times. To-day one travels to Bath in a fraction of the time at less than half the cost; the 107 miles railway journey from Paddington occupies exactly two hours, and a third-cla.s.s ticket costs 8_s._ 11_d._

As these lines are being written, the last of the old coaching inns from which some of the Bath stages started, is being demolished. The "White Horse," in Fetter Lane, Holborn, fell upon evil days when railways revolutionized its custom. Where Lord Eldon stayed in 1766, and whence many another aristocratic traveller set forth, tramps and fourpenny "dossers" found refuge. The "White Horse" inn became the "White Horse Chambers"--not the kind of chambers understood in St. James's, but rather the cheap cubicles of St. Giles's.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "WHITE HORSE" INN, FETTER LANE. DEMOLISHED 1898.]

[Sidenote: _DEPARTED GLORIES_]

Cary's "Itinerary" for 1821 (Cary was a guide, philosopher, and friend without whom our grandfathers never travelled) gives no fewer than thirty-seven stage-coaches which started from this old house. There was the "Accommodation" to Oxford, at seven o'clock in the morning; the Bath and Bristol Light Post coach, at two in the afternoon, arriving at Bristol at eight o'clock the following morning; and the Worcester, Cheltenham, and Woodstock coaches, which all travelled along the Bath road to Maidenhead. Then there were the York "Highflier," a crack Light Post coach, every morning, at nine o'clock; the "Princess Charlotte," to Brighton; the Lynn, Dover, Cambridge, Ipswich, and other coaches too numerous to mention in detail. It will, therefore, not be surprising to learn that the stables of this busy hostelry were large enough to hold seventy horses.

At the foot of the staircase, near the entrance, was the office, and everywhere were long pa.s.sages and interminable suites of rooms. But how different the circ.u.mstances in later years! The vast apartment that was the public dining-room became, in fact, a kind of socialistic kitchen.

There, when his day's work was done, the kerbstone merchant came to grill the cheap chop he had purchased. There the professional cadger toasted a herring, while his companions cooked sc.r.a.ps of meat or toasted cheese.

This part of Holborn was once famous for its old inns. Indeed, on the opposite side of that main artery of traffic were the "Black Bull" and the "Old Bell." There is nothing left of the first now except the great black effigy of a bull with a golden zone about the middle of him, and beyond the archway a courtyard which was once the galleried courtyard of the inn, but is now just the area of a block of peculiarly dirty "model" dwellings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COURTYARD OF THE "OLD BELL," HOLBORN. DEMOLISHED 1897.]

[Sidenote: _THE "OLD BELL"_]

What Londoner did not know the "Old Bell" Tavern, in Holborn, whose mellowed red brick frontage gave so great an air of distinction to that now commonplace thoroughfare. Among the last of the old galleried inns, some of its timbers dated back to 1521. The front of the house was comparatively juvenile, dating only from 1720. What its galleried courtyard was like let this sketch record. The site was sold for 11,600, and the house demolished, at the close of 1897, although its structural stability was unquestioned, and the place a favourite dining and luncheon house. Twenty-one coaches left that old house daily in the full flush of the coaching age; among them two Cheltenham coaches, the coaches to Faringdon, and Abingdon, Oxford, Woodstock, and Blenheim, all of which went by the Bath Road so far as Maidenhead, where they branched off _via_ Henley. In addition, there was the stage which ran twice a day to Englefield Green, branching off at Hounslow. The "Old Bell" could, indeed, claim the credit of being the last actual coaching-house in London, for it is only a few years since the last three-horsed omnibus was discontinued that ran between it and Amersham, in Bucks. When the Metropolitan Railway extension reached that place, the conveyance, of course, became quite unnecessary, and the last remote echo of the genuine coaching age died away.

VI

The Bath Road is measured from Hyde Park Corner, and is a hundred and five miles and six furlongs in length. The reasons for this being reckoned as the starting-point of this great highway are found in the fact that when coaches were in their prime, Hyde Park Corner was at the very western verge of London. Early in the eighteenth century Londoners would have considered it in the country; and, indeed, the turnpike gate which until 1721 crossed Piccadilly, opposite Berkeley Street, gave a quasi-official confirmation of that view. In that year, however, it was removed to Hyde Park Corner, just westward of the thoroughfare now known as Grosvenor Place, and so remained until October, 1825, when it was disestablished in favour of a turnpike gate opposite the spot where the Alexandra Hotel now stands. Beyond it--in the country--was the pretty rural village of Knightsbridge, with a gate by the barracks; and, beyond that, the remote village of Kensington, to which the Court retired for change of air, far away from London and its cares!

From 1721 to 1825, therefore, we may well regard Hyde Park Corner as the beginning of town. This was so well recognized that local allusions to the fact were plentiful. For instance, where Piccadilly Terrace now stands was an inn called the "Hercules' Pillars," a favourite sign for houses on the outskirts of large towns, just as churches dedicated to St. Giles were anciently placed outside the city walls. "Hercules' Pillars" was the cla.s.sic name for the Straits of Gibraltar, regarded then as the boundary of civilization; hence the peculiar fitness of the sign.

On the western side of this inn, a place greatly resorted to by the 'prentice lads who wanted to take their la.s.ses for a country outing in Hyde Park, was a little cottage, long known as "Allen's Stall," which stood here from the time of George the Second until 1784, when Apsley House was erected on its site. The ground is said to have been a present from George the Second to a discharged soldier named Allen, who had fought under his command at Dettingen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALLEN'S STALL AT HYDE PARK CORNER, ABOUT 1756.]

[Sidenote: _ALLEN'S STALL_]

The story is a pretty one, and tells how the King was riding into Hyde Park, when he noticed the soldier, still wearing a tattered uniform, taking charge of the stall in company with his wife.

"What can I do for you?" asked the King, replying to the military salute which the ragged veteran offered.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HYDE PARK CORNER, 1786.]

"I ask nothing better than to earn an honest living, your Majesty,"

replied the soldier; "but I am like to be turned away by the Ranger. If your Majesty were to give me a grant of the ground my stall stands on, I would be happy."

"Be happy, then," answered the King, and saw to it that Allen had his request satisfied.

The stall became a cottage, where Allen and his wife lived until they were gathered to the great majority, having in the meanwhile, it may be supposed, done pretty well for themselves, since we find their son to have been an attorney. The cottage was deserted, and the royal gift of the land partly forgotten, so that the Lord Chancellor of that period was granted a lease of the ground and began to build a mansion on it. Allen's son had to the full that shrewdness which has made the name of "attorney"

so generally detested that those "gentlemen by Act of Parliament" prefer nowadays to call themselves "solicitors." He waited until my Lord Chancellor had nearly completed his house, and then put forward his claim, finally obtaining 450 per annum as ground rent. He subsequently sold the land outright, and so Lord Chancellor Henry Bathurst, Baron Apsley, and Earl Bathurst, became the freeholder, and named his residence "Apsley House." The mansion was purchased by the nation for the great Duke of Wellington in 1820. It was, from its situation, long known as "No. 1, London."

VII

[Sidenote: _MUD BULWARKS_]

Let us see what kind of entrance to London this was in olden times. In Queen Mary's day the idea of a road leading so far as Bath seems to have been considered too fantastic for common use, and this was accordingly known as the "waye to Reading." In that reign, which was so reactionary that many were discontented with it, and roused up armed rebellions, the rebel Sir Thomas Wyatt brought his men thus far, having crossed the Thames at Kingston and struggled through the awful sloughs between that place and Knightsbridge. It seems quite likely that, but for the mud of those miscalled "roads," the rebellion would have been successful, and the course of history changed. But Wyatt's soldiers were utterly exhausted with the march; and when the Londoners saw them, plastered with mud from head to foot, they forgot their own discontent, and laughed at their would-be deliverers, calling them "draggle-tails." So, dispirited and contemned, they were easily disposed of by the Queen's troops, who, secure behind their girdle of muck, had only to wait and slay them at leisure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HYDE PARK CORNER, 1792.]

The lesson seems not to have been lost upon the authorities, and accordingly we find this defence of dirt in existence up to the year 1842.

For nearly three hundred years this "splendid isolation" set an almost impa.s.sable gulf between those who wished to get out of London and those who wanted to come in; for in the year just mentioned we learn that Knightsbridge was in so deplorable a state of neglect that it was perfectly impa.s.sable for persons possessing a common regard for cleanliness or comfort. Ankle-deep in mud and water, the pavement was rendered additionally dangerous by two steps, forming a sudden descent, so that those who were rash enough to attempt to pa.s.s that way in the dark generally bruised themselves severely at the best of it; or, at the worst, broke a leg or an arm.

But this was nothing compared with a former age, when Lord Hervey, writing from Kensington, said the road was so infamously bad that he lived there in a solitude like that of a sailor cast away upon a lonely rock in mid-ocean. The only people who enjoyed this condition of affairs appear to have been the footpads and the highwaymen, who had the very best of times, until they were caught. Indeed, in the days when the stage-coaches performed the then marvellous feats of travelling at anything from three to five miles an hour, under favourable circ.u.mstances, the road could not be considered safe after Hyde Park Corner was left behind; and records tell of highway robberies, with the romantic accessories of blunderbusses and horse-pistols, at Knightsbridge so late as 1799.

[Sidenote: _THE "HALFWAY HOUSE"_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HYDE PARK CORNER, 1797.]

There was at that time, and until 1848, an old inn standing by the way, near where are now Knightsbridge Barracks. This inn, the "Halfway House,"

occupied the exact site where Prince of Wales's Gate now gives access to Hyde Park. Hereabouts lurked all manner of bad characters, who had infested the neighbourhood from time immemorial, safe from the clutches of the law both in their numbers and in the isolation created by the almost bottomless sloughs of mud which then decorated what was, by courtesy or force of habit, called the "road."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "HALFWAY HOUSE." 1848.]

At this spot, in April, 1740, the Bristol mail was robbed by a footpad, who overpowered the post-boy and got off with both the Bath and Bristol bags; while in 1774, three men were hanged for highway robbery here. But the most thrilling and circ.u.mstantial story of highwaymen at this spot is that which relates the capture of William Belchier, in 1750. There had been numerous highway robberies in the neighbourhood of the "Halfway House," and at last one William Norton, a "thief-catcher," was sent to apprehend the man, if possible. He took the Devizes chaise at half-past one in the morning of June 3, and when they had come to the place, sure enough the robber was there, waiting for them, and on foot. He bade the driver stop, and, holding a pistol in at the window, demanded the pa.s.sengers' money. "Don't frighten us," replied Norton. "I have but a trifle; you shall have it." He also advised the three other pa.s.sengers to give up their coin; and, holding a pistol concealed in one hand and some silver in the other, let the robber take the money. When he had taken it the thief-taker raised his pistol and pulled the trigger. It missed fire; but the robber was too frightened to notice that. He staggered back, holding up both hands, exclaiming, "O Lord, O Lord!" Norton then jumped out after him, pursued him six or seven hundred yards, and then caught him. He begged for mercy on his knees, but Norton took his neck-cloth off, tied his hands, and brought him into London, where he was tried, found guilty, and hanged. The prisoner asked his captor in court what trade he followed. "I keep a shop in Wych Street," replied Norton; adding, with grim significance, "and sometimes I take a thief."

In Kensington Gore (which might have obtained its sanguinary name from these encounters--but didn't) a certain Mr. Jackson, of the Court of Requests at Westminster, was requested to "stand and deliver" on the night of December 27, in the same year, by four desperadoes. And so the tale goes on, with such curious side-lights on the state of society as are afforded by the stories of how pedestrians, desirous of journeying from London to Knightsbridge and Kensington, were used in those "good old times" to wait in Piccadilly until there were gathered a sufficient number of them to render the perilous journey safer. Even then they did not rely only on their numbers, but went well armed with swords, pistols, and cudgels.

[Sidenote: _TURNPIKE GATES_]

It is scarcely to be supposed that the turnpike-gates earned much money in those times, when ways were foul and dangerous, and when the cut-throats who lurked about that delectable "Halfway House" were in their prime.

Printed here will be found several views of the first gate, showing its development from 1786 to 1797. It will be seen that a high brick wall then bounded the Park. This was continued all the way, except where the houses, low inns, and cottages on the north side of the road stood, and where their successors stand to-day, to the eastward and westward of the present "Albert Gate." That imposing entrance to the Park was made in 1846, and the immense houses on either side--the "two Gibraltars," as they were called--built. They were so called because it was thought they would never be taken; but the one on the east side, now the French Emba.s.sy, was soon let to Hudson, the Railway King. As mentioned just now, the "Halfway House" stood where the Prince of Wales's Gate opens into the Park. It stood there until 1848, when the ground was purchased for 3000, and the house pulled down. If the owners had kept the land, their descendants to-day could have sold it for a sum that would represent a handsome fortune, as evidenced by the fact that a plot of ground of the same size, on which Thorney House stood, in Kensington Gore was sold in 1898 for 100,000. Thus does the value of land increase in the neighbourhood of London.

In 1827, London and its neighbourhood began to be relieved of the incubus of the turnpike-gates. In that year twenty-seven toll-gates were removed by Parliament; eighty-one were disestablished July 1, 1864; and sixty-one, October 31, 1865. Many others were swept away on the Ess.e.x and Middles.e.x roads on October 31, 1866, while the remainder ceased July 1, 1872. The first toll-gate which gave the traveller pause from 1856 to July 1, 1864, on the Bath and Exeter roads stood in Kensington Gore, and barred the roadway just where Victoria Road branches off. Many yet living can recall the "Halfpenny Hatch," as it was familiarly known. At the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851 the road was distinctly rural. It was that greatest of all exhibitions which gave an impetus to building in this neighbourhood. Up to that time London had not "discovered" Kensington, and the highway was not a mere street, but looked as though the country were round the corner, which, indeed, was very nearly the case. You could then, in fact, well imagine yourself to be on the highway to somewhere or another--a thing demanding more imagination to-day than most people are capable of calling up.

VIII

[Sidenote: _OLD KENSINGTON_]

It may be as well to put on record in this place the Kensington of my own recollection. My reminiscences of Kensington by no means go so far back as the time when Leigh Hunt wrote his "Old Court Suburb," a book which described what was then a village "near London;" but when I first knew that now bustling place it was, if not exactly to be described as rural, certainly by no stretch of imagination to be called urban. In those days the great shops, which are no longer called shops, but "emporia," or "stores," or "magazines," did not flaunt with plate-gla.s.s windows opposite St. Mary Abbot's Church, nor, indeed, did the present building of St. Mary exist. In its place was a hideous structure, erected probably at some early period of the eighteenth century. It had windows that purported to be Gothic, and a bell-turret that belonged to no known order of architecture. It, and the now demolished old church of St. Paul, Hammersmith, bore a singular likeness to one another. The present generation can only discover what these unlovely buildings were like by referring to old prints, because there are none other now existing in London to which they can be likened; and a very good thing too. I can recollect old St. Mary's very well indeed, and the days when the old Vestry Hall was still a place for the transaction of vestry business are quite vivid to me. In fact, at that time the Vestry Hall was somewhat new, and where the imposing Town Hall now stands beside it there was a tall building of very grimy brick, with quaint little figures of a boy and a girl perched high up on brackets above, and on either side of, the door.