The King's Post Part 7

On the site of the 'Bush,' the head offices of the late West of England and South Wales District Bank were erected. The directors of the Bristol and West of England Bank purchased the premises on December 31st, 1880.

Lloyd's Bank now stands on the site.

The White Lion, Bristol, was one of the most famous coaching houses in England, east, west, north, or south. It stood in Broad Street, a thoroughfare which belied its name as regards breadth, and could only be considered broad by comparison with the even narrower Small Street, which ran parallel with it. Yet at one time there were as many coaches pa.s.sing in and out of Broad Street as any street in Bristol, or even in London!

That the White Lion had attained a venerable age may be judged from the fact that it is mentioned in a list of old Bristol inns and taverns, published in 1606. On May 10, 1610, the Duke of Brunswick visited Bristol, and took up his quarters at this house. In 1621 the Earl of Ess.e.x, and in more modern times, the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, lodged there. The father of Sir Thomas Lawrence was host of the White Lion before he removed to the Bear Inn, Devizes. In 1684, it appears to have been the occasional hostelry of a Duke of Beaufort, for in that year, during Monmouth's rebellion, His Grace of Badminton was in Bristol, where he commanded several regiments of militia against the insurgents; and on that occasion "the backward stables of the White Lion, in Brode Street, were set on fire, and therein were burnt to death two of the Duke of Beaufort's best saddle horses. It was supposed to have been done by the malice and envy of the fanaticks, of whom a great many were sent prisoners from Bristol to Gloucester, and there secured till the rebellion was over."

In Matthew's "New History or Complete Guide to Bristol" for the year 1793, there are the following entries respecting this erstwhile great coaching establishment:--

WHITE LION, BROAD STREET.--Thomas Luce proprietor. To London: A coach in two days sets out on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sat.u.r.days at seven o'clock in the morning.

WHITE HART INN, BROAD STREET.--(The White Hart adjoined the White Lion, and was a distinct hostelry so far back as 1606.) George Poston. To London: A coach in one day every morning at four o'clock. To Birmingham: A coach every morning (Sundays excepted) at four o'clock, also a mail coach every evening at seven o'clock. To Gloucester: A coach every morning at eight o'clock. To Exeter: A coach every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning at six. To Bath: A coach every morning at nine o'clock and four in the afternoon.

The _Bristol Mirror_ made announcements touching the White Lion thus:--"March 10, 1804. Wonderful cheap travelling. Fare inside 10s.

6d., outside 8s. The public are respectfully informed that coaches set out every Tuesday and Thursday and Sat.u.r.day morning from the White Lion and White Hart, John Turner, Landlord, and arrive at Birmingham the same evening. Performed by Weeks, Poston & Co.

"November 8, 1823. J. Niblett, White Lion, Broad Street, announces change of Royal Mail coach route to London and back. The Emerald Post coach would run _via_ Bath, Devizes, Marlborough, and Maidenhead. 1 18s. inside, 16s. outside.

"April 12, 1832: New Royal Mail coach to Bath daily at 7 a.m. Leaves York House, Bath, on return at 5 p.m. Arrives at White Lion, Bristol, at 6.30 p.m.

"April 21, 1832. Royal Mail to Liverpool every day at 5 p.m. from White Lion, Broad Street; arrive twelve noon the following day by way of Chepstow, Monmouth, Hereford, Shrewsbury, and Gloucester. Return journey Liverpool 5 p.m. Arrive White Lion 12 noon next day.

Mr. Isaac Niblett, who became proprietor of the White Lion Inn in 1823, in which year Thomas Luce gave up the place, was a well-known individual in the coaching world when the mail coach system was at its zenith. He worked 600 coach and post horses--a number only exceeded by the great London coach proprietor Chaplin, with his 1,300, and Horne and Sherman with their 700. Of the twenty-two daily coaches between Bristol and London the greater proportion made the White Lion their headquarters.

Amongst other coaches with which Isaac Niblett was especially a.s.sociated were the "Red Rover" and the "Exquisite." The "Red Rover" ran from Bristol to Brighton through Bath, over Salisbury Plain, on to Southampton and Chichester, and covered the distance of 140 miles in fourteen hours. The "Exquisite" used to run from Birmingham to Cheltenham, thence on through Bristol to Exeter. In the _Bristol Directory and Gazette_ of 1859, Mr. Niblett's innkeepership is alluded to thus:--"Isaac Niblett, White Lion and British Coffee House, family commercial and posting house; hea.r.s.e and mourning coach proprietor." The White Hart, family and commercial hotel, Broad Street, was at that time kept by one Charles Smith.

Mr. Isaac Niblett, like John Weeks, of Bush Inn fame, had a country place near Bristol. He owned, and stayed from time to time at the Conigre House, Fylton. Mr. Niblett was for some time the owner of the old Bush Inn stables in Dolphin Street, according to evidence given in a recent trial before the Judge of a.s.size at Bristol. That site, as well as the Conigre Farm, Fylton, is, it is believed, still in the possession of his lineal descendants.

The Grand Hotel, one of the largest in the West of England, and most central in the city of Bristol, now stands on the sites of both the White Lion and the White Hart Hotels. Erected in 1869, it was known as the new White Lion until 1874, when its name was changed to that of the Grand Hotel. The accompanying ill.u.s.tration of the White Lion and the White Hart Inns, taken from a lithograph engraving of about 1880 by the well-known Bristol firm of lithographers, Messrs. Lavars, must have been copied from a picture produced subsequent to the old coaching days, and, judging from the costumes of the pedestrians depicted, the period was probably about 1860, or a few years before the demolition of the old inns. The figure of a white hart appears in the picture over the entrance door of that hostelry but the statue of a white lion, which for very many years stood over the entrance gateway to the inn of that name, and which is recollected by many persons still living, was for some reason or other omitted from the engraving.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD WHITE LION COACHING INN, BROAD STREET, BRISTOL.]

The White Lion appears to have been the leading Inn in the town in 1824, for on May 12 in that year the Mayor, Corporation, and leading citizens dined there on the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone of the Bristol Council House. Samuel Taylor Coleridge delivered lectures in the large room of the Inn in 1800. It was the "blue" house, and in later times the coach which most frequently entered its narrow archway was driven by his Grace the sixth Duke of Beaufort, who put up at the inn on his visits to Bristol, as he had, it is said, a great respect for Isaac Niblett's sterling qualities and fine sporting instincts.

What an evolution in pleasure and commercial traffic has come about in the last three-quarters of a century! When the White Lion in Broad Street and the Bush Tavern in Corn Street were in their prime as Coaching Inns, a four-in-hand Coach in Bristol's narrow streets and on the neighbouring country roads was so often in evidence as scarcely to induce the pedestrian even to turn his head round to look at one in pa.s.sing. Now such a patrician vehicle in Bristol's midst is brought down to an unit, and it is left to Mr. Stanley White, son of Sir George White, Bart., with his well-appointed Coach and his team of bright chestnuts, to link old Bristol with the traditions of past Coaching days. Strange that Mr. Stanley White should have blended in his one person the love of a coachman for a team with the will and nerve to render him one of Bristol's boldest and most expert drivers of the road machine of the latest kind, to wit: the Motor Car.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. STANLEY WHITE'S COACH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. STANLEY WHITE'S MOTOR CAR.]

At a function in Bath in 1902, described in these pages, Colonel Palmer, a descendant of John Palmer, presented a small curiosity to the Corporation. Readers of Pickwick will remember that, when Mr. Pickwick was proceeding to Bath, Sam Weller discovered inside the coach the name of "Moses Pickwick," and wanted to fight the guard for what he considered an outrage on his master. Among John Palmer's papers was an old contract for the Bristol and Bath Mail Service, and one of the parties bore the name of Pickwick, and was the landlord of the White Hart Hotel at Bath. It was that contract which Colonel Palmer presented to the Corporation, as a memorial both of his grandfather and of d.i.c.kens.

CHAPTER IX.

TOLL GATES AND GATE-KEEPERS.

As this book is devoted in great measure to the mail services of old time--which had to be carried on entirely by horse and rider or driver--allusion may fittingly be made to the toll gate system, which played its part in connection with mail vehicular transport.

Toll bars originated, it seems, so far back as the year 1267. They were at first placed on the outskirts of cities and market towns, and afterwards extended to the country generally. The tolls for coaches and postchaises on a long journey were rather heavy, as the toll bars were put up at no great distances from each other. In the year 1766, Turnpike Trusts, taking advantage of Sabbatarian feeling, charged double rates on Sundays, but experienced travellers sometimes journeyed on that day, and submitted to the double impost, to gain the advantage of avoiding highwaymen, who did not carry on their avocation on Sunday, but gave themselves up to riot, conviviality, or repose.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BAGSTONE TURNPIKE GATE HOUSE.

GATE ABOLISHED ABOUT 1870.]

Coaches which carried H. Majesty's mails were exempted by Act of Parliament from paying tolls. The exemption of mail coaches from paying tolls, a relief provided by the Act of 25th George III., was really a continuation of the old policy, by which the postboys of an earlier age, riding on horseback, and carrying the mails on the pommel of the saddle, had always been exempt from toll, and the light mail carts of a later age were always exempted.

It was no great matter, one way or the other, with the Turnpike Trusts, Mr. C.G. Harper tells us in "The Mail and Stage Coach," for the posts were then few and far between, and the revenue almost nil; but the advent of numerous mail coaches, running constantly and carrying pa.s.sengers, and yet contributing nothing to the maintenance of the roads, soon became a very real grievance to those Trusts situated on the route of the mails. In 1816 the various Turnpike Trusts approached Parliament for a redress of these disabilities.

Mail coaches continued, however, to go free until the end of the system, although from 1798 they had to pay toll in Ireland. In Scotland in 1813 an Act was pa.s.sed repealing the exemption in that part of the kingdom.

Pack horses were superseded by huge wagons on the busiest roads early in the eighteenth century. Over 5,000 Turnpike Acts for the improvement of local roads were pa.s.sed during the years 1700 and 1770. At the latter part of this period, narrow wheels were penalised more heavily than broad wheels.

Lewis Levy was a prominent man in the days of Turnpike Trusts, as he was a farmer of Metropolitan turnpike tolls to the tune of half a million pounds a year!

The history of toll bars is not wanting in romance: "Blow up for the gate," would say the coachman to the guard, when drawing near to a "pike" in the darkness of night. l.u.s.tily might guard blow, but it did not always have the desired effect. "Gate, gate!" would shout coachman and guard. Down would get guard and tootle-tootle impatiently. And out would shuffle in his loose slippers the "pike" keeper in a dazed condition from fatigue produced by frequent disturbances. As he opens the gate he is soundly rated by coachman and guard, and enjoined to leave the gate open for the next mail down, or he would have to pay a fine of 40s. to the Postmaster General, that being the penalty for not preserving an un.o.bstructed way for H. Majesty's mails.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TURNPIKE GATE HOUSE ON CHARFIELD AND WOTTON-UNDER-EDGE ROAD.

GATE ABOLISHED 1880.]

In the Bristol district toll bars were plentiful, and attempts were made to erect ornate little houses which should be pleasing to the eyes of travellers. That such attempts were not always unsuccessful, the picturesque toll-gate houses depicted in these pages will demonstrate.

In 1804, Sarah Rennison, widow of Thomas Rennison, advertised that she lately had the ladies' and gentlemen's cold baths, near Stokes Croft Turnpike, effectually cleaned. "These baths are supplied with water from a clear and ever-flowing spring, uncontaminated by anything whatever, as it flows from a clear and limpid stream from its source to the pipes in the baths."

This turnpike, named the Stokes Croft Gate, stood on the turnpike way designated Horfield Road. The gate was erected across the lane leading from the said road to Rennison's Baths.

Very soon after "Sarah's" announcement, this landmark of the old city was doomed to disappear, and the gate was removed from the top of the Croft to a site some four or five hundred yards further up the road, near to the present railway arch.

An advertis.e.m.e.nt from the _Bristol Journal_, Sat.u.r.day, July 14th, 1804, ran as follows:--"To be sold, the materials of the old Turnpike House at the top of Stoke's Croft. The purchaser to be at the expense of pulling down and carrying the same away. Also of pitching the site of the house by the 20th of August next. For further particulars apply to Messrs.

John and Jere Osborne."

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD TURNPIKE HOUSE ON THE WICKWAR ROAD.]

The tolls for the year ended the 29th September, 1823, realised the sum of 1,800. The notice respecting the letting of the tolls for the succeeding year, based on such takings, was signed by Osborne and Ward on the 14th of October, 1823:

The following is a toll gate announcement, issued on July 13, 1826:--

"Notice is hereby given that the Tolls arising at the Toll Gates hereinafter particularly mentioned will be severally Let by Auction, to the best Bidders at the White Hart Inn, Brislington, on Wednesday, the 16th day of August next, between the hours of Eleven o'clock in the forenoon and One o'clock in the afternoon, in the manner directed by the Acts pa.s.sed in the third and fourth years of the reign of his Majesty King George the Fourth, 'for regulating Turnpike Roads'; which Tolls produced last year the several Sums, and will be Let in the several Parcels or Lots following--viz.:--

"Lot I.--The Tolls arising from the Arno's Vale Gate, on the Brislington Road. 2,405.

"Lot II.--The Tolls arising at the Knowle Gate, on the Whitchurch Road. 660.

"Lot III.--The Tolls arising at the Saltford Gate, on the Brislington Road. 2,355.

"Lot IV.--The Tolls arising at the Whitchurch Gate, on the Whitchurch Road. 670.