The Brighton Road Part 1

The Brighton Road.

by Charles G. Harper.

PREFACE

_Many years ago it occurred to this writer that it would be an interesting thing to write and ill.u.s.trate a book on the Road to Brighton. The genesis of that thought has been forgotten, but the book was written and published, and has long been out of print. And there might have been the end of it, but that (from no preconceived plan) there has since been added a long series of books on others of our great highways, rendering imperative re-issues of the parent volume._

_Two considerations have made that undertaking a matter of considerable difficulty, either of them sufficiently weighty. The first was that the original book was written at a time when the author had not arrived at a settled method; the second is found in the fact of the BRIGHTON ROAD being not only the best known of highways, but also the one most susceptible to change._

_When it is remembered that motor-cars have come upon the roads since then, that innumerable sporting "records" in cycling, walking, and other forms of progression have since been made, and that in many other ways the road is different, it was seen that not merely a re-issue of the book, but a book almost entirely re-written and re-ill.u.s.trated was required. This, then, is what was provided in a second edition, published in 1906. And now another, the third, is issued, bringing the story of this highway up to date._

CHARLES G. HARPER.

_March, 1922._

I

The road to Brighton--the main route, pre-eminently _the_ road--is measured from the south side of Westminster Bridge to the Aquarium. It goes by Croydon, Redhill, Horley, Crawley, and Cuckfield, and is (or is supposed to be) 51-1/2 miles in length. Of this prime route--the cla.s.sic way--there are several longer or shorter variations, of which the way through Clapham, Mitcham, Sutton, and Reigate, to Povey Cross is the chief. The modern "record" route is the first of these two, so far as Hand Cross, where it branches off and, instead of going through Cuckfield, proceeds to Brighton by way of Hickstead and Bolney, avoiding Clayton Hill and rejoining the initial route at Pyecombe.

[Sidenote: VARIOUS ROUTES]

The oldest road to Brighton is now but little used. It is not to be indicated in few words, but may be taken as the line of road from London Bridge, along the Kennington Road, to Brixton, Croydon, G.o.dstone Green, Tilburstow Hill, Blindley Heath, East Grinstead, Maresfield, Uckfield, and Lewes; some fifty-nine miles. This is without doubt the most picturesque route. A circuitous way, travelled by some coaches was by Ewell, Leatherhead, Dorking, Horsham, and Mockbridge (doubtless, bearing in mind the ancient mires of Suss.e.x, originally "Muckbridge"), and was 57-1/2 miles in length. An extension of this route lay from Horsham through Steyning, bringing up the total mileage to sixty-one miles three furlongs.

This multiplicity of ways meant that, in the variety of winding lanes which led to the Suss.e.x coast, long before the fisher village of Brighthelmstone became that fashionable resort, Brighton, there were places on the way quite as important to the old waggoners and carriers as anything at the end of the journey. They set out the direction, and roads, when they began to be improved, were often merely the old routes widened, straightened, and metalled. They were kept very largely to the old lines, and it was not until quite late in the history of Brighton that the present "record" route in its entirety existed at all.

Among the many isolated roads made or improved, which did not in the beginning contemplate getting to Brighton at all, the pride of place certainly belongs to the ten miles between Reigate and Crawley, originally made as a causeway for hors.e.m.e.n, and guarded by posts, so that wheeled traffic could not pa.s.s. This was constructed under the Act 8th William III., 1696, and was the first new road made in Surrey since the time of the Romans.

It remained as a causeway until 1755, when it was widened and thrown open to all traffic, on paying toll. It was not only the first road to be made, but the last to maintain toll-gates on the way to Brighton, the Reigate Turnpike Trust expiring on the midnight of October 31st, 1881, from which time the Brighton Road became free throughout.

Meanwhile, the road from London to Croydon was repaired in 1718; and at the same time the road from London to Sutton was declared to be "dangerous to all persons, horses, and other cattle," and almost impa.s.sable during five months of the year, and was therefore repaired, and toll-gates set up along it.

Between 1730 and 1740 Westminster Bridge was building, and the roads in South London, including the Westminster Bridge Road and the Kennington Road, were being made. In 1755 the road (about ten miles) across the heaths and downs from Sutton to Reigate, was authorised, and in 1770 the Act was pa.s.sed for widening and repairing the lanes from Povey Cross to County Oak and Brighthelmstone, by Cuckfield. By this time, it will be seen, Brighton had begun to be the goal of these improvements.

The New Chapel and Copthorne road, on the East Grinstead route, was constructed under the Act of 1770, the route across St. John's Common and Burgess Hill remodelled in 1780, and the road from South Croydon to Smitham Bottom, Merstham, and Reigate was engineered out of the narrow lanes formerly existing on that line in 1807-8, being opened, "at present toll-free," June 4th. 1808.

In 1813 the Bolney and Hickstead road, between Hand Cross and Pyecombe, was opened, and in 1816 the slip-road, avoiding Reigate, through Redhill, to Povey Cross. Finally, sixty yards were saved on the Reigate route by the cutting of the tunnel under Reigate Castle, in 1823. In this way the Brighton road, on its several branches, grew to be what it is now.

The Brighton Road, it has already been said, is measured from the south side of Westminster Bridge, which is the proper starting-point for record-makers and breakers; but it has as many beginnings as Homer had birthplaces. Modern coaches and motor-car services set out from the barrack-like hotels of Northumberland Avenue, or other central points, and the old carriers came to and went from the Borough High Street; but the Corinthian starting-point in the brave old days of the Regency and of George the Fourth was the "White Horse Cellar"--Hatchett's "White Horse Cellar"--in Piccadilly. There, any day throughout the year, the knowing ones were gathered--with those green goslings who wished to be thought knowing--exchanging the latest scandal and sporting gossip of the road, and rooking and being rooked; the high-coloured, full-blooded ancestors of the present generation, which looks upon them as a quite different order of beings, and can scarce believe in the reality of those full habits, those port-wine countenances, those florid garments that were characteristic of the age.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SKETCH-MAP SHOWING PRINc.i.p.aL ROUTES TO BRIGHTON.]

No one now starts from the "White Horse Cellar," for the excellent reason that it does not now exist. The original "Cellar" was a queer place.

Figure to yourself a bas.e.m.e.nt room, with sanded floor, and an odour like that of a wine-vault, crowded with Regency bucks drinking or discussing huge beef-steaks.

It was situated on the south side of Piccadilly, where the Hotel Ritz now stands, and is first mentioned in 1720, when it was given its name by Williams, the landlord, in compliment to the House of Hanover, the newly-established Royal House of Great Britain, whose cognizance was a white horse. Abraham Hatchett first made the Cellar famous, both as a boozing-ken and a coach-office, and removed it to the opposite side of the street, where, as "Hatchett's Hotel and White Horse Cellar." it remained until 1884, when the present "Albemarle" arose on its site, with a "White Horse" restaurant in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

[Sidenote: SPORTSMEN]

What Piccadilly and the neighbourhood of the "White Horse Cellar" were like in the times of Tom and Jerry, we may easily discover from the contemporary pages of "Real Life in London," written by one "Bob Tallyho,"

recounting the adventures of himself and "Tom Dashall." A prize-fight was to be held on Copthorne Common between Jack Randall, "the Nonpareil"--called in the p.r.o.nunciation of that time the "Nunparell"--and Martin, endeared to "the Fancy" as the "Master of the Rolls."[1]

Naturally, the roads were thronged, and "Piccadilly was all in motion--coaches, carts, gigs, tilburies, whiskies, buggies, dogcarts, sociables, dennets, curricles, and sulkies were pa.s.sing in rapid succession, intermingled with tax-carts and waggons decorated with laurel, conveying company of the most varied description. Here was to be seen the dashing _Corinthian_ tickling up his _t.i.ts_, and his _bang-up set-out_ of _blood and bone_, giving the go-by to a _heavy drag_ laden with eight brawny, bull-faced blades, smoking their way down behind a skeleton of a horse, to whom, in all probability, a good feed of corn would have been a luxury; _pattering_ among themselves, occasionally _chaffing_ the more elevated drivers by whom they were surrounded, and pushing forward their nags with all the ardour of a British merchant intent upon disposing of a valuable cargo of foreign goods on 'Change. There was a waggon full of _all sorts_ upon the _lark_, succeeded by a _donkey-cart_ with four insides: but _Neddy_, not liking his burthen, stopped short in the way of a dandy, whose horse's head, coming plump up to the back of the crazy vehicle at the moment of its stoppage, threw the rider into the arms of a dustman, who, hugging his _customer_ with the determined grasp of a bear, swore, d--n his eyes, he had saved his life, and he expected he would stand something handsome for the Gemmen all round, for if he had not pitched into their cart he would certainly have broke his neck; which being complied with, though reluctantly, he regained his saddle, and proceeded a little more cautiously along the remainder of the road, while groups of pedestrians of all ranks and appearances lined each side."

On their way they pa.s.s Hyde Park Corner, where they encounter one of a notorious trio of brothers, friends of the Prince Regent and companions of his in every sort of excess--the Barrymores, to wit, named severally h.e.l.lgate, Newgate, and Cripplegate, the last of this unholy trinity so called because of his chronic limping; the two others' t.i.tles, taken with the characters of their bearers, are self-explanatory.

Dashall points his lordship out to his companion, who is new to London life, and requires such explanations.

[Sidenote: LORD CRIPPLEGATE]

"The driver of that tilbury," says he, "is the celebrated Lord Cripplegate,[2] with his usual equipage; his blue cloak with a scarlet lining hanging loosely over the vehicle gives an air of importance to his appearance, and he is always attended by that boy, who has been denominated his Cupid: he is a n.o.bleman by birth, a gentleman by courtesy (oh, witty Dashall!), and a gamester by profession. He exhausted a large estate upon _odd and even_, _seven's the main_, etc., till, having lost sight of the _main chance_, he found it necessary to curtail his establishment and enliven his prospects by exchanging a first floor for a second, without an opportunity of ascertaining whether or not these alterations were best suited to his high notions or exalted taste; from which, in a short time, he was induced, either by inclination or necessity, to take a small lodging in an obscure street, and to sport a gig and one horse, instead of a curricle and pair, though in former times he used to drive four-in-hand, and was acknowledged to be an excellent whip. He still, however, possessed money enough to collect together a large quant.i.ty of halfpence, which in his hours of relaxation he managed to turn to good account by the following stratagem:--He distributed his halfpence on the floor of his little parlour in straight lines, and ascertained how many it would require to cover it. Having thus prepared himself, he invited some wealthy spendthrifts (with whom he still had the power of a.s.sociating) to sup with him, and he welcomed them to his habitation with much cordiality. The gla.s.s circulated freely, and each recounted his gaming or amorous adventures till a late hour, when, the effects of the bottle becoming visible, he proposed, as a momentary suggestion, to name how many halfpence, laid side by side, would carpet the floor, and offered to lay a large wager that he would guess the nearest.

"'Done! done!' was echoed round the room. Every one made a deposit of 100, and every one made a guess, equally certain of success; and his lordship declaring he had a large stock of halfpence by him, though perhaps not enough, the experiment was to be tried immediately. 'Twas an excellent hit!

"The room was cleared; to it they went; the halfpence were arranged rank and file in military order, when it appeared that his lordship had certainly guessed (as well he might) nearest to the number. The consequence was an immediate alteration of his lordship's residence and appearance: he got one step in the world by it. He gave up his second-hand gig for one warranted new; and a change in his vehicle may pretty generally be considered as the barometer of his pocket."

And so, with these piquant biographical remarks, they betook themselves along the road in the early morning, pa.s.sing on their way many curious itinerants, whose trades have changed and decayed, and are now become nothing but a dim and misty memory; as, for instance, the sellers of warm "salop," the forerunners of the early coffee-stalls of our own day.

II

But hats off to the Prince of Wales, the Prince Regent, the King! Never, while the Brighton Road remains the road to Brighton, shall it be dissociated from George the Fourth, who, as Prince, had a palace at either end, and made these fifty-odd miles in a very special sense a _Via Regia_.

It was in 1782, when but twenty years of age, that he first knew Brighton, and until the last--for close upon forty-eight years--it retained his affections. He is thus the presiding genius of the way; and because, when we speak or think of the Brighton Road, we cannot help thinking of him, I have appropriately placed the portrait of George the Fourth, by the courtly Lawrence, in this book.

The Prince and King was the inevitable product of his times and of his upbringing: we mostly are. Only the rarest and most forceful figures can mould the world to their own form.

[Sidenote: THE PRINCE]

The character of George the Fourth has been the theme of writers upon history and sociology, of essayists, diarists, and gossip-mongers without number, and most of them have pictured him in very dark colours indeed.

But Horace Walpole, perhaps the clearest-headed of this company, shows in his "Last Journals" that from his boyhood the Prince was governed in the stupidest way--in a manner, indeed, but too well fitted to spoil a spirit so high and so impetuous, and impulses so generous as then were his.

He proves what we may abundantly learn from other sources, that the narrow-minded and obstinate George the Third, petty and parochial in public and in private, was jealous of his son's superior parts, and endeavoured to hide his light beneath the bushel of seclusion and inadequate training. It was impossible for such a father to appreciate either the qualities or the defects of such a son. "The uncommunicative selfishness and pride of George the Third confined him to domestic virtues," says Walpole, and adds, "Nothing could equal the King's attention to seclude his son and protract his nonage. It went so absurdly far that he was made to wear a shirt with a frilled collar like that of babies. He one day took hold of his collar and said to a domestic, 'See how I am treated!'"

The Duke of Montagu, too, was charged with the education of the Prince, and "he was utterly incapable of giving him any kind of instruction....

The Prince was so good-natured, but so uninformed, that he often said, 'I wish anybody would tell me what I ought to do; n.o.body gives me any instruction for my conduct.'" The absolute poverty of the instruction afforded him, the false and narrow ways of the royal household, and the evil example and low companionship of his uncle, the Duke of c.u.mberland, did much to spoil the Prince.

To quote Walpole again: "It made men smile to find that in the palace of piety and pride his Royal Highness had learnt nothing but the dialect of footmen and grooms.... He drunk hard, swore, and pa.s.sed every night in[3]

...; such were the fruits of his being locked up in the palace of piety."

He proved, too, an intractable and undutiful son; but that was the result to be expected, and we cannot join Thackeray in his sentimental snivel over George the Third.