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THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE BRIGHTON ROAD: Old Times and New on
a Classic Highway.

THE PORTSMOUTH ROAD, and its Tributaries,
To-day, and in Days of Old.

THE DOVER ROAD: Annals of an Ancient Turn-
pike.

THE BATH ROAD: History, Fashion, and Fri-
volity on an Old Highway.

THE EXETER ROAD: The Story of the West of
England Highway.

THE NORWICH ROAD : [In the Press.

THE

GREAT NORTH ROAD

THE OLD MAIL ROAD TO SCOTLAND

VOL. II
YORK TO EDINBURGH

BY CHARLES G. HARPER

AUTHOR OF ' THE BRIGHTON ROAD,' ' THE PORTSMOUTH ROAD,'

'THE DOVER ROAD,' 'THE BATH ROAD,' AND

' THE EXETER ROAD '

Illustrated by the Author, and from Old- Time
Prints and Pictures

LONDON : CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED
i 901

35CROFOMAED8Y

PRESERVATION
SERVICES

Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty

SEPARATE PLATES

PAGE

1. THE 'HIGHFLYER,' 1812. (After J. Emery)

Frontispiece.

2. YORK MINSTER, FROM THE WALLS .... 9

3. YORK MINSTER, FROM THE Foss. (After J. M. W.

Turner, fi.A.) 41

4. JONATHAN MARTIN, INCENDIARY. (Drawn in gaol at

York Castle by the Rev. J. Kilby) . . . -55

5. THE MINSTER ON FIRE ON THE NIGHT OF MAY 20,

1840. (From a Contemporary Print) . . . 59

6. NINEVEH . 97

7. THE EDINBURGH EXPRESS, 1837. (After James

Pollard) ........ 101

8. ' I SAY, FELLOW, GIVE MY BUGGY A CHARGE OF COKE,

YOUR CHARCOAL is TOO D D DEAR.' (From an

Old Print) 121

9. FERRYHILL: THE ABANDONED KOAD-WORKS . -133

10. ENTRANCE TO DURHAM 141

11. DURHAM CATHEDRAL, FROM PREBEND'S BRIDGE.

(After J. M. W. Turner, R.A.) 145

12. DURHAM CASTLE AND CATHEDRAL, FROM BELOW

FRAMWELLGATE BRIDGE 149

viii THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

PAGE

13. THE COAL COUNTRY 159

14. MODERN NEWCASTLE: FROM GATESHEAD . .181

15. OLD NEWCASTLE: SHOWING THE TOWN BRIDGE,

NOW DEMOLISHED, CARRYING THE GREAT NORTH

EOAD OVER THE TYNE. (After J. M. W.

Turner, R.A.) 187

1 6. MORPETH. (After J. M. W. Turner, JR. A.) . -199

17. THE MARKET-PLACE, MORPETH .... 203

18. ALNWICK. (After J. M. W. Turner, R. A.) . .213

19. ALNWICK CASTLE, FROM THE EOAD TO BELFORD, . 219

20. THE SCOTTISH BORDER : BERWICK TOWN AND BRIDGE

FROM TWEEDMOUTH 233

21. OFF TO THE BORDER 243

22. COCKBURNSPATH TOWER . . . . . 253

23. EDINBURGH, FROM TRANENT . . • . . . 267

24. CANONGATE TOLBOOTH 285

25. STATELY PRINCES STREET 297

26. EDINBURGH NEW TOWN, 1847, FROM MONS MEG

BATTERY. (By David Roberts, Pi. A.} . . .301

ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT

PAGE

Vignette — The Wicked Squire . . (Title-page)

List of Illustrations ....... vii

The Great North Eoad i

Old York : The Shambles . . 7

York Castle : Clifford's Tower . 16

All Saints, Pavement . . . . . . -5°

Bootham Bar . . . . . . . .61

Skelton Church . . . . . . . -63

The ' Spotted Dog,' Thornton-le-Street . . . .71

York Bar ......... 74

Robin Hood's Well 75

The Battlefield of Towton and Surrounding Country . 83
Saxton .......... 85

Towton Dale ... . . - 86

Lead Chapel ......... 87

Ruined Mill, overlooking Aberford ..... 89

Barvvick-in-Elmete . . . . . . . 91

Moor End ....... -95

Croft Bridge in

The Sockburn Falchion . . . . . . .112

' Locomotion ' : the First Engine of the Stockton and

Darlington Railway . . . . . . 1 1 7

The ' Experiment ' ... . 118

The Iron Road to the North . 125

Traveller's Rest . . .128

Rushyford Bridge ... .129

Road, Rail, and River : Sunderland Bridge . . 138

x THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

PAGE

Penshaw Monument . . . . . . .154

A Wayside Halt. (After Roiulandsori) . . . -163
Travellers arriving at an Inn. (After Rowlandsori) . .171

The ' Drunkard's Cloak ' .190

'Puffing Billy' 193

The Gates of Blagdon Park . . . . . .196

Felton Bridge ........ 205

Malcolm's Cross . . . . . . . . 222

Lamberton Toll ........ 241

The Tolbooth, Dunbar 257

Both well Castle . . . . . . . .261

Haddington Abbey, from Nungate ..... 263

Musselburgh 271

The 'White Horse' Inn . . . . • . . -279
' Squalor and Picturesqueness ' ..... 283
Old Inscription, Lady Stair's House .... 288
The ' Heave Awa ' Sign ....... 289

ATirle-Pin 289

The Wooden Horse . . . . . . -294

The Last of the Town Guard . . . . . .296

Tailpiece : Skyline of the Old Town .... 304

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD : YORK TO EDINBURGH

London (General Post Office) to — MILE8

York . . . . . . . . . i96f

Clifton . i98£

Rawcliff ......... 200^

Skelton . . . . . . . . 20 1£

Shipton ......... 202^

Tollerton Lanes ........ 206^

Easingwold ........ 2io£

White House 21 if

Thormanby 214^

Birdforth . . . . . . . -215

Bagby Common (' Griffin ' Inn) . . . .217^

Mile House . 2i8|

Thirsk . . . . . . . . . 22o|

South Kilvington . . . . . . .222

Thorn ton-le-Street . . . . . . 223^

Thornton-le-Moor 224!

Northallerton . . . . . . 229i

Lovesome Hill ....... 229!

Little Smeaton (cross River Wiske) . .. . 231!

Great Smeaton .232!

High Entercommon ...... 233!

Dalton-on-Tees 236!

Croft (cross River Tees) . . . . . -237!
Oxneyfield Bridge (cross River Skerne) . . . 238

Darlington .241!

Harrowgate ..... . 243^

Coatham Mundeville . . . 245!

xii THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

MILES

Aycliffe ......... 246!

Traveller's Rest . . . . . .248

Woodham ........ 249^

Rushyford Bridge ....-.., 250^

Ferryhill ........ 253

Low Butcher Race and Croxdale .... 255

Sunderland Bridge 255!

Browney Bridge (cross River Wear) . . . 256
Durham (cross River Browney) . . . .260
Durham Moor (Framwellgate) . . . .261
Plawsworth ........ 263!

Chester-le-Street 266

Birtley ......... 269

Gateshead Fell . . . . . . .271

Gateshead (cross River Tyne) . . . . . 273^

Newcastle-on-Tyne ....... 274^

Gosforth . . . . . . . -277

Seaton Burn ........ 28o|

Stannington Bridge (cross River Blyth) . . . 284
Stannington ........ 284^

Clifton 286i

Morpeth (cross River Wansbeck) .... 289^

Warrener's House . . . . . . .291^

Priest's Bridge . . . . . . .293!

West Thirston (cross River Coquet) > '. . 299}
Felton ......... 299!

Newton-on-the-Moor ...... 302^

Alnwick (cross River Aln) . . . . 3°8J

Heif erlaw Bank . . . . . . .31°

North Charlton . . . . . . .314!

Warenford . . . . . . . .318!

Belford ......... 323

Detchant Cottages . . . . . . • 325j

Fenwick ........ 328

YORK TO EDINBURGH xiii

MILES

Haggerston . . 331

Tweedraouth (cross River Tweed) . . * ' . * • 337|

Berwick-on-Tweed . . . ... . . 338

Lamberton Toll . . . . . . -341

(ENTER SCOTLAND)

Greystonelees . . . . . . 343!

Flemington Inn and Burnmouth (cross River Eye) . 344

Ayton ......... 346

Houndwood . . . . . . . , 351!

Grant's House . . . . . . . 354^

Cockburnspath ....... 358

Dunglass Dene . . . . . . • 359i

Broxburn ........ 363^

Dunbar ........ 365

Belhaven ........ 365!

Beltonford . . . . . . . • 367-3-

Phantassie . . . . . . . . 370

East Linton . . . . . . . . 370^

Haddington . . . . . . . . 376

Gladsmuir ........ 379!

Macmerry . . . . , . 381^

Tranent . . . . . . . . . 383!

Musselburgh (cross North Esk River) . . . 38 7 J

Joppa . .. 389^

Portobello . ... . . . . . 390

Jock's Lodge . . . . . . . 391^

Edinburgh . . . ... . . 393

VIA FERRYBRIDGE, WETHERBY, AND BOROUGHBRIDGE.

Doncaster (cross River Don) . , .. . . .

York Bar ........ 164

Red House . . . . . . . .

xiv THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Kobin Hood's Well

Went Bridge (cross River Went) . . . .172!

Darrington ........ 174^

Ferrybridge (cross Eiver Aire) . . . . 177!

Brotherton . . . . . . . . 178^

Fairburn ........ 180

Micklefield 184

Aberford i86j

Bramham Moor . . . . . . .189

Bramham ........ 190^

Wetherby (cross River Wharfe) ....

Kirk Deighton .......

Walshford Bridge (cross River Nidd) . . .197^
Allerton Park ....... 2 oof

Nineveh ........ 202i

Ornham's Hall . . . . . . 204^

Boroughbridge (cross River Ure) .... 206^

KirkbyHill 207^

Dishforth ........ 2ioi

Asenby . . . . . . . . .212^

Topcliffe (cross River Swale) 212!

Sand Hutton . . . . . . . .217

Newsham . . . . . . . .219

South Otterington 2 2 of

North Otterington . . . . .222^

Northallerton 225^

Edinburgh 389

,NORJH
ROAD

YOKE TO EDINBURGH

AT last we are safely arrived at York, — perhaps no
cause for comment in these days, but a circumstance
which 'once upon a time ' might almost have warranted
a special service of prayer and praise in the Minster.
One comes to York as the capital of a country, rather
than of a county, for it is a city that seems in more
than one sense Metropolitan. Indeed, you cannot
travel close upon two hundred miles, even in England
and in these days of swift communication, without
feeling the need of some dominating city, to act
partly as a seat of civil and ecclesiastical government,
and partly as a distributing centre ; and if something
of this need is even yet apparent, how much more
keenly it must have been felt in those ' good old days '
which were really so bad ! A half-way house, so to
speak, between those other capitals of London and
Edinburgh, York had all the appearance of a capital
in days of old, and has lost but little of it in these,
even though in point of wealth and population it

2 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

lags behind those rich and dirty neighbours, Leeds
and Bradford. For one thing, it has a history to
which they cannot lay claim, and keeps a firm hold
upon titles and dignities conferred ages ago. We
may ransack the pages of historians in vain in
attempting to find the beginnings of York. Before
history began it existed ; and just because it seems a
shocking thing to the well-ordered historical mind
that the first founding of a city should go back
beyond history or tradition, Geoffrey of Monmouth
and other equally unveracious chroniclers have oblig-
ingly given precise — and quite untrustworthy-
accounts of how it arose, at the bidding of kings
who never had an existence outside their fertile
brains.

When the Romans came, under Agricola, in A.D. 70,
York was here. We do not know by what name
the Brigantes, the warlike tribe who inhabited the
northern districts of Britain, called it ; but they
possessed forts at this strategic point, the confluence
of the rivers Ouse and Foss, where York still stands,
and evidently had the military virtues fully developed,
because it has seemed good to all who have come
after them, from the Eomans and the Normans to
ourselves, to build and retain castles on the same
sites. The BrigaDtes were a great people, despite
the fact that they had no literature, no science, and,
no clothes with which to cover their nakedness, and
were they in existence now, might be useful in
teaching our War Office and commanding officers
something of strategy and fortification. They have
left memorials of their existence in the names of

ROMAN YORK 3

many places beginning with ' Brig/ and they are the
sponsors of all the brigands that ever existed, for
their name was a Brito- Welsh word meaning 'hill-
men ' or ' highlanders ' ; and, as in the old days to be
a highlander was to be a thief and cutthroat, the

O . '

chain of derivative facts that connects them with the
bandits of two thousand years is complete.

A hundred and twenty years or so after the Romans
had captured the Brigantes' settlement here, we find
York suddenly emerging, a fully fledged Roman city,
from the prehistoric void, under the name of
Eboracum. This was in the time of the Emperor
Septimus Severus, who died in A.D. 211 in this, the
Altera Roma, the principal city, of Roman Britain.
For this much is certain, that, as Winchester was,
and London is, the capital of England, so was York
at one time the chief city of the Roman colony, the
foremost place of arms, of rule, and of residence ; and
so it remained until Honorius, the hard-pressed, freed
Britain from its allegiance in A.D. 410 and withdrew
the legionaries. Two hundred years is a considerable
length of time, even in the history of a nation, and
much happened in Eboracum in that while. Another
Roman emperor died here, in the person of Con-
stantius Chlorus ; and his son, Con stan tine the Great,
whom some will have it was even born here, suc-
ceeded him. Both warred with the Pictish tribes
from the North : that inhospitable North which
swallowed up whole detachments ; the North which
Hadrian had conquered over two hundred years
before, and now was exhausting the energies of the
conquerors. Empire is costly in lives and treasure,

4 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

and the tragedy of Roman conquest and occupation
is even now made manifest in the memorials un-
earthed by antiquaries, recording the deaths of many
of the Roman centurions at early ages. Natives of
sunny Italy or of the south of France, they perished
in the bleak hills and by the wintry rivers of
Northumbria, much more frequently than they did
at the hands of the hostile natives, who soon over-
whelmed the magnificence of Eboracum when the
garrisons left. The civilisation that had been estab-
lished here, certainly since the time of Severus, was
instantly destroyed, and Caer Evrauc, as it came to
be called, became a heap of ruins. Then came the
Saxons, who remodelled the name into Eoferwic,
succeeded in turn by the Danes, from whose ' Jorvic,'
pronounced with the soft J, we obtain Yorvic, the
' Euerwic ' of Domesday Book, and finally York.
But whence the original ' Eboracum ' derived, or what
it meant, is purely conjectural.

Christianity, fulfilling Divine promise, had brought
' not peace, but a sword ' to the Romans, and the
Saxon king, Edwin of Northumbria, had not long
been converted and baptized at York, on the site of
the present Minster, before he was slain in conflict
with the heathen. It was Paulinus, first Archbishop
of York, who had baptized Edwin in 625. Sent to
the north of England by Gregory the Great, as
Augustine had already been sent for the conversion
of the south, it was the Pope's intention to establish
two archbishoprics ; and thence arose centuries of
quarrelling between the Archbishops of Canterbury
and those of York as to who was supreme. York,

EPISCOPAL CONTENTIONS 5

indeed, only claimed equal rights ; but Canterbury
claimed precedence. In the Synod of 1072 the
Archbishop of York was declared subordinate to
Canterbury ; but half a century later, in order to
make peace, Rome adjudged them equal. Even this
did not still the strife, and Roger Pont 1'^veque, the
Archbishop of York, who was contemporary with
Becket, and aided the king in his struggle with
that prelate, was especially bitter in the attempt to
assert in all places and at all seasons this equality.
He renewed the contention with Becket's successor,
and provoked an absurd scene at the Council of
Westminster in 1176, when, arriving late and find-
ing the Archbishop of Canterbury present and already
seated, he sat down in his lap. The result was that
the Council of Westminster immediately resolved itself
into a faction fight, in which my lord of York was
jumped upon and kicked, for all the world like a
football umpire who has given an unpopular decision.
Even this did not settle either the Archbishop of
York or the strife, and so at last, in 1354, it was
decreed that each should be supreme in his own
province, and that the Archbishop of Canterbury
should be ' Primate of All England,' while his brother
of York should bear the title of 'Primate of Eng-
land ' ; but whenever an Archbishop of York was
consecrated he should send to the Primate of All
England a golden jewel, valued at £40, to be laid
on the Shrine of St. Thomas. 'Thus,' says Fuller,
in his inimitably humorous manner, ' when two
children cry for the same apple, the indulgent father
divides it between them, yet so that he gives the

6 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

better part to the child which is his darling.' Rome
has long since ceased to have part or lot in the
English Church, but this solemn farce of nomencla-
ture is still retained.

In such things as these does York retain some-
thing of its old pride of place. Even its Mayor is
a Lord Mayor, which was something to be proud
of before these latter days, now Lord Mayors are
three a penny, and every bumptious modern over-
grown town is in process of obtaining one. The
first Lord Mayor of York, however, was appointed
by Richard the Second, and thus the title has an
honourable antiquity.

In its outward aspect, York is varied. It runs
the whole gamut, from the highest antiquity to the
most modern of shops and villas ; from the neatest
and tidiest streets to the most draggle-tailed and
out-at-elbowed courts and alleys. From Clifton and
Koavesmire — which is a great deal more respectable
and clean than its evil-sounding name would lead
the stranger to suppose — to the Shambles, Fossgate,
and Mucky Peg's Lane (now purged of offence as
Finkle Street) is a further social than geographical
cry, and they certainly touch both extremes. ' Mucky
Peg' and the knaves of the waste lands outside the
city are as historic in their way as Roman York,
which lies nine feet below the present level of the
streets, and for whose scanty relics one must visit
the Museum of the Philosophical Society in the
grounds of the ruined St. Mary's Abbey. In those
grounds also the only fragment of the Roman walls
may be seen, in the lower stage of the M.ultangular

THE WALLS OF YORK

Tower, once commanding the bank of the river
Ouse.

York is perhaps of all English towns and cities
the most difficult place to explore. Its streets branch
and wind in every
direction, without
any apparent plan or
purpose, and thus an
exploration of the
Walls, of which the
city is, with reason,
extremely proud, be-
comes the best means
of ascertaining its
importance and the
relative positions of
Castle and Minster.
It is no short stroll,
for, by the time the
whole circuit is made,
a distance of nearly
three miles has been
covered. These
mediaeval walls fora^
indeed, the most de-
lightful promenade

imaginable, being . OLD YORK: THE SHAMBLES.

built on a grassy

rampart and provided with a paved footpath running
on the inner side of the battlements, and thus com-
manding panoramic views within and without the
city. Endeavour, by an effort of the imagination, to

8 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

see the ground outside the walls free from the suburbs
that now spread far in almost every direction, and you
have the York of ancient days, little changed ; for from
this point of view, looking down upon the clustered
red roofs of the city, with its gardens and orchards,
the towering bulk of the Minster, and the broad
expanse of adjoining lawns, nearly all the signs of
modern life are hidden. Something of an effort it is
to imagine the great railway station of York away,
for it bulks very largely outside the walls near the
Lendal Bridge ; but the mediaeval gates of the city
help the illusion, and hint at the importance of the
place in those times. Micklegate Bar, the chief of
them, still bears the heraldic shields sculptured hun-
dreds of years ago, when kings of England claimed
also to be kings of France and quartered the semee
of lilies with the lions. There are four arches now
to this and three to the other bars, instead of but
the one through which both pedestrian and other
traffic went in olden times ; but the side arches have
been so skilfully constructed in the mediaeval style
that they are not an offence, and are often, indeed,
taken on trust as old by those unlearned in these
things. Stone effigies of menrat-arms still appear
on the battlemented turrets, and take on threaten-
ing aspects as seen against the skyline by approaching
travellers. But did they ever achieve their purpose
and succeed in deceiving an enemy into the belief
that they were really flesh and blood? If so, they
must in those days have been very credulous folk,
to be imposed upon by such devices.

Crossing the Ouse by Lendal Bridge, where chains

THE SCOTS AT YORK n

stretched across the river from towers on either bank
formerly completed the circle of defences, Bootham
Bar is reached, spanning the exit from York along
the Great North Koad. Still a worthy approach to,
or exit from, the city, it wore a yet more imposing
appearance until towards the close of the coaching
age, when its barbican, the outworks with which
every one of the York bars was provided, was wan-
tonly destroyed. Those who would recall the ancient
appearance of Bootham Bar and its fellows, as viewed
from without, have only to see Walmgate Bar, whose
barbican still remains, the only one left in the march
of intellect and of 'improvements.' Then it pre-
sented a forbidding front to the North, and with the
walls, which were here at their highest and strongest,
disputed the path of the Scots. The walls have been
broken down and demolished between the river and
this bar, and. modern streets driven through, so that
something of the grim problem presented to a northern
enemy is lost to the modern beholder ; but the view
remains among the finest, and comprises the towers
of the Minster, peering in grandeur from behind this
warlike frontal. The Scots were here soon after
Bannockburn. In 1319 an army of 15,000 came
down, and York would probably have fallen had
it not been for these strong defences, the finest
examples of military architecture in England. As
it was, they found York too well cared for, and so,
destroying everything outside the walls and leaving
it on their left, they endeavoured to pass 'south by
Ferrybridge.. At Myton-upon-Swale, near Borough-
bridge, they met the English, hastily brought up by

12 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

the Archbishop, and defeated them with the utmost
ease. But prudence was ever a Scottish charac-
teristic, and so, with much booty, they retreated
into Scotland, instead of following up their advan-
tage.

The walk along the walls from Bootham Bar to
Monk Bar is glorious in spring, with the pink and
white blossoms of apple, pear, and plum trees, for
here the well-ordered gardens of the ecclesiastical
dignitaries are chiefly situated. Midway, the wall
makes a return in a south-easterly direction. Monk
Bar, whose name derives from General Monk, Duke
of Albemarle, was once known as Goodramgate, and
the street in which it stands still bears that name,
supposed to be a corruption of ' Guthram,' the name
of some forgotten Danish chieftain. At some dis-
tance beyond it, the wall goes off due east, to touch
the river Foss at Layerthorpe, where that stream
and the quagmires that once bordered it afforded
an excellent defence in themselves, without any
artificial works. Thus it is that the wall' ceases
entirely until the Red Tower is reached, on the outer
bank of the Foss, where it recommences and takes
a bend to the south-west. From this point to Walm-
gate Bar and the Fishergate Postern it is particularly
slight, the necessary strength being provided by the
Foss itself, forming a second line of defence, with
the Castle behind it. Thence we come to the broad
Ouse again, now crossed by the Skeldergate Bridge,
but once protected, as at Lendal, by chains drawn
from bank to bank. On the opposite bank, on the
partly natural elevation of Baile Hill, stood a sub-

WHIPMA WHOPMA GATE 13

sidiary castle, and here the wall is carried on a very
high mound until it rejoins Micklegate Bar.

There are but few so-called ' streets ' in York.
They are mostly 'gates,' a peculiarity of description
which is noticeable throughout the Midlands and the
North. And queerly named some of these 'gates'
are. There is Jubbergate, whose name perpetuates
.the memory of an ancient Jewish quarter established
here ; Stonegate, the narrow lane leading to the
Minster, along which went the stone with which
to build it ; Swinegate, a neighbourhood where the
unclean beasts were kept ; and many more. But most
curious of all is ' Whipmawhopmagate,' a continua-
tion of Colliergate. This oddly named place is rarely
brought to the notice of the stranger, because it has
but two houses ; but, despite its whimsical name, it
has a real, and indeed a very old, existence. Con-
nected with its name is the institution of 'Whip
Dog Day,' a celebration once honoured on every
St. Luke's Day, October 18, by the thrashing of
all the dogs met with in the city. According to
the legend still current, it seems that in medieval
times, while the priest was celebrating the sacrament
at the neighbouring church of St. Crux, he dropped
the consecrated pax, which was swallowed by a stray
dog who had found his way into the building. For
this crime the animal was sentenced to be severely
whipped, and an annual day was set apart for the
indiscriminate thrashing of his fellows. A more
likely derivation of the name of Whipmawhopmagate
is from the spot having been the whipping-place of
religious penitents, or of merely secular misdemeanants.

i4 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

The grim blackened walls of York Castle confront
the traveller who approaches the city by Fishergate,
and lend a gloomy air to the entrance ; the more
gloomy because those heavy piles of sooty masonry
nowadays encircle a prison for malefactors, rather than
form the defences of a garrison, and keep our social
enemies within, instead of a more chivalric foe with-
out. For over two hundred years York Castle has
been an assize court and a gaol, and the military
element no longer lends it pure romance. Komance
of the sordid kind it has, this beetle-browed place
of vain regrets and expiated crimes, of dismal cells
and clanking fetters ; but if you would win back to
the days of military glory which once distinguished
it, your imaginary journey will be lengthy indeed.
These battlemented walls, enclosing four acres of
ground, and with a compass of over eleven hundred
yards, were completed in 1856, and, with the prison
arrangements within, cost £200,000. If, as the poet
remarks, ' Peace hath her victories no less renowned
than War,' she also needs defences, as much against
the villainous centre-bit as against the foreign foe.

But there is still something left of the York Castle
of old, although you must win to it past frowning
portals eloquent of a thousand crimes, great and
small, guarded by prison warders and decorated with
notice-boards of prison regulations. Clifford's Tower9
this ancient portion, itself goes no further back into
history than the time of Edward the First; and of

MASSACRE OF THE JEWS 15

the buildings that witnessed the appalling massacre of
the Jews, in March 1190, nothing fortunately remains.
It cannot be to the advantage of sightseers that the
blood-stained stones of that awful time should stand.
History alone, without the aid of sword or shattered
wall, is more than sufficient to keep the barbarous
tale alive, of how some five hundred Jews of all ages
and sexes fled for protection to the Castle keep, and
were besieged there for days by Christians thirsting
for their blood. Their death was sure : only the
manner of it remained uncertain. The wholesale
slaughter of Jews at Lynn, Lincoln, and Stamford
made surrender impossible ; and rather than die
slowly in the agonies of starvation they set the
Castle on fire, husbands and brothers slaying the
women and children, and then stabbing themselves.
Those few who feared to die then opened the gates as
morning dawned. ' Affliction has taught us wisdom,'
they said, ' and we long for baptism and for the faith
and peace of Christ ' ; but even as they said it the
swords and axes of ruthless assassins struck them
down. Christ was avenged, and, incidentally, many
a Christian debtor cried quits with his Jewish creditor
as he dashed out the infidel's brains. It is not often
given to champions of causes, religious or political,
to make one blow serve both public and private ends,
and those Christians were fortunate. At the same
time, sympathy with the murdered Jews may easily
be overstrained. They had but sowed the wind and
reaped the whirlwind. Trading and following the
traditional Jewish occupation of usury, they had
eaten like a canker into the heart of York. They

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

had lived in princely style, and knew how to grind
the faces of their Christian debtors, whose lives they
had made miserable ; and so simply fell victims to
that revenge which has been aptly described as ' a
kind of wild justice.'

Clifford's Tower, standing where these scenes were
enacted, is a roofless shell, isolated on its mound
within the Castle walls, and obtains its name, not

YORK CASTLE : CLIFFORD'S TOWER.

from its builder, but from Francis Clifford, Earl of
Cumberland, who made a doorway in it in the time
of Charles the First. It was ruined by explosion and
fire in 1684, and so remains, shattered and overgrown
with trees and grass, a picturesque object that the
eye loves to linger upon in contrast with the classic
buildings that occupy the old Castle wards, and speak
of crime and its penalties. He who would bring back

A PRISON MUSEUM 17

the crimes and ferocities of a hundred and fifty years
or more to the mind's eye can have his taste gratified
and the most vivid pictures conjured up at the sight
of such choice and thrilling relics as the horn-handled
knife and fork with which the bodies of rebels cap-
tured in the '45 were quartered ; the leathern strap
that Holroyd used for the purpose of hanging his
father from the boughs of a cherry-tree; a frag-
ment of the skull of Eugene Aram's victim, Daniel
Clark ; the curiously varied implements used by
wives and husbands who murdered their yoke- fellows,
ranging from the unwifely sledge-hammer and razor
wielded by wives, to the knives and pokers chiefly
affected by the husbands ; Jonathan Martin the
incendiary's impromptu flint and steel, and the bell-
rope by whose aid he escaped from the Minster ;
and those prime curiosities, Dick Turpin's fetters.
Even Turpin's cell can be seen by those who, after
much diligent application to the Prisons Department
of the Home Office, procure the entree to the Castle ;
and in that 'stone jug/ as the criminals of old called
their cells, the imaginative can reconstruct their
Turpin as they will. Many a better man than he
has occupied this gloomy dungeon, but scarce a
worse.

Ill

One of the most notorious of the criminals who
were haled forth from this condemned hold to end
their days on Knavesmire was Richard Turpin, who

1 8 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

was hanged on the 17th of April, 1739. This cruel
and mean ruffian, around whose sordid career the
glamour of countless legends of varying degrees of
impossibility has gathered, was the son of a small
innkeeper and farmer at the appropriately named
village of Hempstead, in Essex. The inn, called the
Koyal Oak, almost wholly rebuilt, however, is in
existence to this day, and his baptismal record may
yet be read in the parish register: — ' 1705, Sept. 21,
Richardus, filius Johannis et Mariae Turpin.'

Apprenticed to a butcher in Whitechapel, he soon
set up in business for himself, obtaining his cattle
by the simple and ready expedient of stealing them.
He married a girl named Palmer, whose name he
afterwards took ; and after a career of house-breaking
and cattle -lifting in Essex and parts of Middlesex,
in which he figured as one of a numerous gang who
never attacked or plundered unless they were armed
to the teeth and in a great numerical superioiity,
found the home counties too hot to hold him ; and
so, after shooting his friend, one of the three brothers
King, all highwaymen, in the affray at Whitechapel
in 1737, in which he escaped from the Bow Street
officers, he fled first into Essex and then into Lincoln-
shire. Authorities disagree, both as to the particular
King who wTas shot, and on the question of whether
Turpin shot him accidentally in aiming at one of
the officers, or with the purpose of preventing him
giving evidence disclosing his haunts. The legends
make Tom King the martyr on this occasion, and
represent him as bidding Turpin to fly ; but the facts
seem to point to Matthew being the victim, and to

DICK TURPIN 19

his cursing Turpin for a coward as he died. It
is quite certain that a Tom King, a highwayman,
suffered at Tyburn in 1755, eight years later.

As for Turpin, or Palmer, as he now called him-
self, he settled at "VVelton, near Beverley, and then
at Long Sutton, Lincolnshire, as a gentleman horse-
dealer. He had not long been domiciled in those
parts before the farmers and others began to lose
their stock in a most unaccountable manner. The
wonder is that no one suspected him, and that he
could manage, for however short a period, to safely
sell the many horses he stole. He even managed
to mix freely in company with the yeomen of the
district, and, despite his ill-favoured countenance,
made himself not unwelcome. But his brutal nature
was the cause of his undoing. Returning from a
shooting excursion, he wantonly shot one of his
neighbour's fowls, and, on being remonstrated with,
threatened to serve one of his new friends the same.
He was accordingly summoned at the Beverley Petty
Sessions, when it appeared that he had no friends to
find bail for him, and that he was, in point of fact,
a newqomer to the district, whose habits, now investi-
gated for the first time, proved suspicious. Eventu-
ally he was charged with stealing a black mare, blind
of the near eye, off Heckington Common. Com-
mitted to York Castle, from his dungeon cell he
wrote a letter to his brother at Hempstead, to cook
him up a character. The letter was not prepaid, and
the brother, not recognising the handwriting, refused
to pay the sixpence demanded by the Post Office. On
such trivial things do great issues hang ! The village

20 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

postmaster happened to have been the schoolmaster
who had taught Turpin to write. He recognised the
handwriting and read the letter. He was a man of
public spirit, and, travelling to York, identified the
prisoner as the Richard Turpin who had long been
' wanted ' for many crimes.

After his trial and condemnation the farmers
flocked in hundreds to see him. His last days in
prison were as well attended as a levee, and, to do
hi m justice, his courage, conspicuously lacking at
other times, never faltered at the last. He became
one of the shows of that ancient city for a time, but
nothing daunted him. He spent his last days in
joking, drinking, and telling stories, as jovial, merry,
and frolicsome as though the shadow of the gallows
was not impending over him. He scouted the Ordi-
nary, and suffered no twinges of conscience, but
busied himself in preparing a decent costume for his
last public appearance. Nothing would serve him
but new clothes and a smart pair of pumps to die in.
On the morning before the execution, he gave the
hangman £3, 10s. to be divided among five men who
were to follow him as mourners, and were to be
furnished with black hatbands and mourning gloves.
When the time came and he went in the tumbril to
be turned off, he bowed to the ladies and flourished
his cocked-hat as though he would presently see them
again. He certainly, when he had mounted the
ladder, kept the people waiting for the spectacle they
had come to see, for he talked with the hangman for
over half an hour. But when the conversation was
ended, he threw himself off in the most resolute

THE END OF TURPIN 21

fashion, and had the reward of his courage, for he
died in a moment.

Thus died the famous Turpin, in the thirty-third
year of his age. After the execution his body lay in
state for that day and the succeeding night at the
' Black Boar ' inn in Castlegate. The following
morning it was buried in the churchyard of St.
George's, by Fishergate Postern, and the evening
afterwards it was dug up again by some of the city
surgeons, for dissection. By this time the mob had
apparently agreed that this brutal horse-stealer, who
according to the contemporary London Magazine
was ' so mean and stupid a wretch/ was really a very
fine fellow; and they determined that his remains
should not be dishonoured. Accordingly they rescued
the body and reinterred it, in black lime, so as to
effectually balk any further attempts on the part of
the surgeons.

Dick Turpin, although his name bulks so largely in
the legendary story of the roads, was by no means the
foremost of his profession. He was brutal, and lacked
the finer instincts of the artist. It could never, for
instance, have been in his nature to invite the wife
of a traveller he had just robbed to dance a coranto
with him on the Common, as Duval did on Hounslow
Heath when the distant clocks were sounding the
hour of midnight. With Turpin it was an oath and
a blow. Curses and violence, not courtesy, were his
methods. Therefore, it is with the less compunction
that we may tear away the romance from Kichard
Turpin and say that, so far from being the hero of
the Ride to York, he never rode to York at all, except

22 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

on that fatal morning when he progressed to York
Castle in chains, presently to be convicted and hanged
for the unromantic crimes of horse, sheep, and cattle
stealing. He was little better than a vulgar burglar
and horse-thief. It was Harrison Ainsworth who
made Turpin a hero from such very unpromising
material, and he, in fact, invented not only the Ride
to York, but Black Bess as well. According to the
novelist, Turpin started from Kilburn, and came into
the Great North Eoad at Highgate, with three
mounted officers after him. Thence he turned into
Hornsey, and so by the .Ware route, the mare clearing
the twelve-feet-high toll-gate on the way without an
effort. They always do that in fiction, but the animal
that could do it in fact does not exist.

At Tottenham (always according to the novelist,
of course) the people threw brickbats at the gallant
Turpin. They ' showered thick as hail, and quite as
harmlessly, around him/ and Turpin laughed, — as,
indeed, he had an occasion to do, because the Totten-
ham people must have been the poorest of marksmen.
And so pursuers and pursued swept through Edmon-
ton and Ware, and quite a number of places which
are not on our route. At Alconbury Hill he comes
into view again, and the inconceivable chase proceeds
until Black Bess expires, at sunrise, within sight of
the glorious panorama of York's spires and towers.

There are very many who believe Ainsworth's long
rigmarole, and take their ideas of that unromantic
highwayman from his novel ; but the dashing, high-
souled (and at times maudlin) fellow of those pages
is absolutely fictitious.

NEVISON 23

Ainsworth constructed his fictitious hero from a
very slight basis of fact. What a pity he did not
rear his narrative on better lines, and give the
credit of the Ride to York to the man who really
did it ! For it was done, and it was a longer ride
by some twenty -six miles, at least, than that
recounted in the vulgar romance of Rookwood. It
was, in fact, a better ride, by a better man, and
at a much earlier period.

John Nevison was the hero of this exploit. It was
on a May morning in 1676, at the unconscionable
hour of four o'clock, that he robbed a traveller on
Gad's Hill, near Chatham, and, fired with the ambi-
tion of establishing an alibi, immediately set off to
ride to York. Crossing the Thames from Gravesend
to Tilbury, he rode on his ' blood bay ' to Chelmsford,
where he baited and rested his horse for half an hour.
Thence on to Cambridge and through the town
without drawing rein, he went through by-lanes to
Fenny Stanton, Godmanchester, and Huntingdon,
where he took another half-hour's rest ; continuing,
by unfrequented ways, until York was reached, the
same evening. Of course, he must have had several
fresh horses on the way. Stabling the horse that
had brought him into the cathedral city, he hastily
removed the travel-stains from his person, and
strolled casually to the nearest bowling-green, where

24 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

the Mayor of York happened to be playing a game
with some friends. Nevison took the opportunity of
asking him the time, and received the answer that it
was just a quarter to eight. That was sufficient for
his purpose. By this question and the reply he had
fixed the recollection of himself and of the time in
the Mayor's mind, and had his alibi at need. Sure
enough, he needed it a little later, when he was
arrested for another highway robbery, and the Gad's
Hill traveller happened to be the one witness who
could swear to him. Nevison called his York
witnesses, who readily enough deposed to his being
there on the evening of the day on which the
traveller swore he had been robbed by him near
Chatham. This was conclusive. No one conceived
it possible for a man to have been in two places so
remote in one day, and he was acquitted. Then,
when the danger was past, his sporting instincts
prevailed, and he told the story. He became the
hero of a brief hour, and Charles the Second, who
dearly loved a clever rogue, is said to have christened
him ' Swift Nick.' If we roughly analyse this ride
we shall find that Nevison's performance amounted to
about 230 miles in fifteen hours: a rate of over
fifteen miles an hour. To have done as much was a
wonderful exploit, even though (as seems certain) he
had remounts at the houses of confederates. He
probably had many such houses of call, for he was
one of a numerous band of highwaymen whose head-
quarters were at Newark.

This escape served him for eight years longer,
for it was in 1684 that his career came to a close

NEVISON AS ROBIN HOOD 25

on Knavesnrire, where he was hanged on the 4th
of May.

There was something of the Eobin Hood in
Nevison's character, if we are to believe the almost
legendary stories told in Yorkshire of this darling
of the Yorkshire peasantry. He robbed the rich and
gave to the poor, and many are the tales still told of
his generosity. Such an one is the tale that tells of
his being at a village inn, when the talk turned upon
the affairs of an unfortunate farmer whose home had
been sold up for rent. Among those in the place was
the bailiff, with the proceeds of the sale on him.
Nevison contrived to relieve him of the cash, and
restored it to the farmer. Perhaps he was not so
well liked by the cattle-dealers along the Great North
Koad, whom he and his gang robbed so regularly
that at length they commuted their involuntary
contributions for a quarterly allowance, which at the
same time cleared the road for them and afforded
them protection against any other bands. Indeed,
Nevison, or Bracy, as his real name appears to have
been, was in this respect almost a counterpart of those
old German barons on the Rhine, who levied dues on
the travellers whose business unfortunately led them
their way. The parallel goes no greater distance, for
those picturesque miscreants were anything but the
idols of the people. Nevison was sufficiently popular
to have been the hero of a rural ballad, still occasion-
ally heard in the neighbourhood of his haunts at
Knaresborough, Ferrybridge, York, or Newark. Here
are two verses of it; not perhaps distinguished by
wealth of fancy or resourcefulness of rhyme :—

26 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

' Did you ever hear tell of that hero,
Bold Nevison, that was his name 1
He rode about like a bold hero,

And with that he gain'd great fame.

He maintained himself like a gentleman,

Besides, he was good to the poor ;
He rode about like a great hero,

And he gain'd himself favour therefore.'

Yorkshire will not willingly let the fame of her
Nevison die. Is not his Leap shown, and is not the
inn at Sandal, where he was last captured, still pointed
out 1 Then there is the tale of how he and twenty
of his gang attacked fifteen butchers who were riding
to Northallerton Fair, an encounter recounted in a
pamphlet dated 1674, luridly styled Bloody News
from Yorkshire. Another memory is of the half-
dozen men who at another time attempted to take
him prisoner. He escaped and shot one of them,
also a butcher. Nevison and butchers were evidently
antipathetic. Released once on promising to enter
the army, he, like Boulter, deserted. That he could
break prison with the best he demonstrated fully at
Wakefield ; but his final capture was on a trivial
charge. It sufficed to do his business, though, for
the prosecution were now prepared with the fullest
evidence against him and his associates, and their
way of life. They had secured Mary Brandon, who
acted as housekeeper for the gang. According to her
story, they were John Nevison, of York; Edmund
Bracy, of Nottingham ; Thomas Wilbere, of the same
town ; Thomas Tankard, vaguely described as ' of
Lincolnshire ' ; and two men named Bromett and

BOULTER 27

Iverson. This last was ' commonly at the " Talbott,"
in Newarke/ which was their headquarters. The
landlord of that inn was supposed to be cognisant of
their doings, as also the ostler, one William Anwood,
' shee haveinge often seene the said partyes give him
good summs of money, and order him to keepe their
horses close, and never to water them but in the night
time.' They kept rooms at the ' Talbot ' all the year
round, and in them divided their spoil, which in one
year, as the result of ten great robberies, came to over
£1500. No other highwaymen can hold a candle to
this gang, either for their businesslike habits or the
success of their operations.

That once dreaded mid-eighteenth century highway-
man, Thomas Boulter, junior, of Poulshot in Wiltshire,
once made acquaintance with York Castle. The
extent of his depredations was as wide as his in-
difference to danger was great. A West-countryman,
his most obvious sphere of operations was the country
through which the Exeter Eoad passed ; but being
greedy and insatiable, he soon exhausted those
districts, and thought it expedient to strike out for
roads where the name of Boulter was unknown, and
along which the lieges still dared to carry their
watches and their gold. He came up to town at the
beginning of 1777 from his haunts near Devizes,
and, refitting in apparel and pistols, gaily took the

28 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Great North Road. Many adventures and much
spoil fell to him in and about Newark, Leeds, and
Doncaster ; but an encounter between Sheffield and
Ripon proved his undoing. He had relieved a gentle-
man on horseback of purse and jewellery, and was
ambling negligently away, when the traveller's man-
servant, who had fallen some distance behind his
master, came galloping up. Thus reinforced, the
plundered one chased Mr. Boulter, and, running him
to earth, haled him off to the nearest justice, who,
quite unmoved by his story of being an unfortunate
young man in the grocery line, appropriately enough
named Poore, committed him to York Castle, where,
at the March assizes, he was duly found guilty and
sentenced to be hanged within fifteen days. Heavily
ironed, escape was out of the question, and he gave
himself up for lost, until, on the morning appointed
for his execution, the news arrived that he might
claim a free pardon if he would enter his Majesty's
service as a soldier, and reform his life. His Majesty
badly wanted soldiers in A.D. 1777, and was not nice
as to the character of his recruits ; and indeed the
British army until the close of the Peninsular War
was composed of as arrant a set of rascals as ever
wore out shoe-leather. No wonder the Duke of
Wellington spoke of his army in Spain as 'my
blackguards.' But they could fight.

This by the way. To return to Mr. Thomas
Boulter, who, full of moral resolutions and martial
ardour, now joined the first marching regiment halting
at York. For four days he toiled and strove in the
barrack -yard, finding with every hour the burdens of

PRISONERS ESCAPE 29

military life growing heavier. On the fifth day he
determined to desert, and on the sixth put that
determination into practice ; for if he had waited
until the morrow, when his uniform would have been
ready, escape would have been difficult. Stealing
forth at dead of night, without mishap, he made
across country to Nottingham, and so disappears
altogether from these pages. The further deeds that
he did, and the story of his end, are duly chronicled
in the pages of the Exeter Road, to which they
properly belong.

The authorities did well to secure their criminal
prisoners with irons, because escape seems to have
otherwise been easy enough. In 1761, for instance,
there were a hundred and twenty-one French prisoners
of war confined in York Castle, and such captives
were of course not ironed. Some of them filed
through the bars of their prison and twenty escaped.
Of these, six were recaptured, but the rest were never
again heard of, which seems to be proof that the
prison was scarcely worthy of the name, and that the
city of York contained traitors who secretly conveyed
the fugitives away to the coast.

The troubles and escapades of military captives
are all in the course of their career, and provoke
interested sympathy but not compassion, because we
know full well that they would do the same to their
foes, did fortune give the opportunity. Altogether
different was the position of the unfortunate old
women who, ill-favoured or crazy, were charged on
the evidence of ill-looks or silly talk with being
witches, and thrown into the noisome cells that

3o THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

existed here for such. Theirs were sad cases, for the
world took witchcraft seriously and burnt or strangled
those alleged practitioners of it who had survived
being ' swum ' in the river close by. The humour
of that old method of trying an alleged witch was
grimly sardonic. She was simply thrown into the
water, and if she sank was innocent. If, on the
other hand, she floated, that was a proof that Satan
was protecting his own, and she was fished out
and barbarously put to death. Trials for witchcraft
were continued until long after the absurdity of the
charges became apparent, and judges simply treated
the accusations with humorous contempt : as when
a crazy old woman who pretended to supernatural
powers was brought before Judge Powell. ' Do you
say you can fly?' asked the judge, interposing. 'Yes,
I can,' said she. ' So you may, if you will, then,'
rejoined that dry humorist. ' I have no law against
it.' The accused did not respond to the invitation.

So farewell, grim Castle of York, old-time prison
of such strangely assorted captives as religious
pioneers, poor debtors, highwaymen, prisoners of
war, and suspected witches ; and modern gaol whose
romance is concealed beneath contemporary common-
places. Blood stains your stones, and persecution is
writ large on the page of your story. Infidel Jews,
Protestants, Catholics, and Nonconformists of every
shade of nonconformity have suffered within your walls
in greater or less degree ; and even now, from your
roofs the black flag occasionally floats dolorously in
the breeze, in token that the penalty for the crime
of Cain has been exacted.

Before railways came and rendered London the
chief resort of fashion, county towns, and many lesser
towns still, were social centres. Only the wealthier
among the country squires and those interested in
politics to the extent of having a seat in the House
visited London ; the rest resorted to their county
town, in which they had their town-houses and social
circles. Those times are to be found reflected in the
pages of Jane Austen and other early novelists, who
picture for us the snug coteries that then flourished
and the romances that ran their course within the
unromantic-looking Georgian mansions now either
occupied by local professional men or wealthy trades-
folk, or else divided into tenements. It was the
era before great suburbs began to spring up around
every considerable town, to smother the historic in
the commonplace ; the time before manufacturing
industries arose to smirch the countryside and to rot
the stonework of ancient buildings with smoke and
acid-laden air; the days when life was less hurried
than now. York, two days' journey removed from
London, had its own society and a very varied one,
consisting of such elements as the Church, the Army,
and the Landed Interest, which last must also be
expressed in capital letters, because in those days to
be a Landowner was a patent of gentility. Outside
these elements, excepting the dubious ones of the
Legal and Medical professions, there was no society.

32 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Trade rendered the keepers of second-hand clothes-
shops and wealthy manufacturers equally pariahs
and put them outside the pale of polite intercourse.
Society played whist in drawing-rooms ; tradesmen
played quoits, bowls, or skittles in grounds attached
to inns, or passed their evenings in convivial bar-
parlours. Yet York must have been a noted place
for conviviality, if we are to believe the old poet : —

' York, York for my monie,
Of all the cities that ever I see,
For merry pastime and companie,
Except the citie of London.'

And for long after those lines were written they
held good. Not many other cities had York's advan-
tages as a great military headquarters, as well as the
head of an ecclesiastical province ; and its position
as a great coaching centre, to and from which came
and went away many other coaches besides those
which fared the Great North Eoad, was commanding.
Cross-country coach-routes radiated from the old
cathedral city in every direction ; just as, in fact,
the railways do nowadays. It is no part of our
business to particularise them, but the inns they
frequented demand a notice. Some of these inns
were solely devoted to posting, which in this broad -
acred county of wealthy squires was not considered
the extravagance that less fortunate folks thought
it. Chief among these was — alas ! that we must
say was — the 'George,' which stood almost exactly
opposite the still extant 'Black Swan' in Coney
Street. A flaunting pile of business premises occu-
pied by a firm of drapers now usurps the site of

YORK'S INNS 33

that extremely picturesque old house, which rejoiced
in a sixteenth-century frontage, heavily gabled and
enriched with quaint designs in plaster, and a yawn-
ing archway, supported on either side by curious
figures whose lower anatomy ended in scrolls, after
the manner of the Renaissance. The ' George ' for
many years enjoyed an unexampled prosperity, and
the adjoining houses, of early Georgian date, with
projecting colonnade, were annexed to it. When it
went, to make way for new buildings, York lost
its most picturesque inn ; for the York Tavern, now
Barker's Hotel, though solid, comfortable, and pro-
sperous-looking, with its cleanly stucco front, is not
interesting ; and the ' Black Swan ' is a typical red-
brick building of a hundred and eighty years ago,
square as a box, and as little decorative as it could
possibly be. As for the aristocratic Etteridge's,
which stood in Lendal, it may be sought in vain in
that largely rebuilt quarter. Etteridge's not only
disdained the ordinary coaching business, but also
jibbed at the average posting people — or, perhaps, to
put it more correctly, even the wealthy squires who
flung away their money on posting stood aghast at
Etteridge's prices. Therefore, in those days, when
riches and gentility went together — before the self-
made millionaires had risen, like scum, to the top—
Etteridge's entertained the most select, who travelled
in their own ' chariots,' and were horsed on their
almost royal progresses by Etteridge and his like.

From the purely coaching point of view, the
' Black Swan ' is the most interesting of York's
hostelries. To the York Tavern came the mails,

34 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

while the ' Black Swan ' did the bulk of the stage-
coach business, from the beginning of it in 1698
until the end in 1842. It was here that the old
'York in Four Days' coaching bill of 1706 was
discovered some years ago. The house remains, one
of the very few unaltered inns of coaching days ;
and the stableyard is the same as it was a hundred
years or more since, even to the weather-beaten old
painted oval sign of the Black Swan, removed from
the front and nailed over one of the stable-doors.

York still preserves memories of the old coachmen ;
some of them very great in their day. Tom Holtby's,
for instance, is a classic figure, and one that remained
until long after coaching came to an end. He died
in June 1863, in his seventy-second year, and was
therefore not greatly beyond his prime when he drove
the Edinburgh mail into York for the last time, in
1842, on the opening of the railway. That last drive
was an occasion not to be passed without due cere-
mony ; and so, when the mail, passing through Selby
and Kiccall, on its way to the city, reached Escrick
Park, it was driven through, by Lord Wenlock's
invitation, and accompanied by him on his drag up
to the ' Black Swan ' and to the York Tavern. The
mail flew a black flag from its roof, and Holtby gave
up the reins to Lord Macdonald.

'Please to remember the coachman,' said my lord'
to Holtby, in imitation of the professional's usual
formula. ' Yes,' replied Holtby, ' I will, if you '11
remember the guard.' 'Eight,' said that innocent
nobleman, not thinking for the moment that coach-
men and guards shared their tips ; ' he shall have

AN OLD COACHMAN 35

double what you tip me.' Holtby accordingly
handed him a £5 note, so that he reaped a profit
of £2, 10s. on the business.

Holtby's career was as varied as many of the old
coachmen's, but more prosperous. He began as a
stable-hand at the ' Rose and Crown,' Easingwold,
and rose to be a postboy. Thence to the box of a
cross-country coach was an easy transition, and his
combined dash and certainty as a whip at last found
him a place on the London and Edinburgh ' High-
flyer,' whence he was transferred to the mail. During
these years he had saved money, and was a compara-
tively rich man when coaching ended ; so that although
he lost some heavy sums in ill-judged investments,
still he died worth over £3000. ' Rash Tom,' as they
called him, from his showy style of driving, was
indeed something of a ' Corinthian,' and, coming into
contact with the high and mighty of that era, reflected
their manners and shared their tastes. If the reflec-
tion, like that of a wavy mirror, was not quite perfect,
and erred rather in the direction of caricature, that
was a failing not found in Tom only, and was accord-
ingly overlooked. Moreover, Tom was useful. No
man could break in a horse like him. and nowhere
was a better tutor in the art of driving. ' If,' said
Old Jerry, ' Tom Holtby didn't live on potato-skins
and worn't such a one for lickin' folks' boots, he 'd
be perfect.' ' Old Jerry/ who probably had some pro-
fessional grudge against Holtby, referred to potato-
skins as well as to boot-licking in a figurative way.
He meant to satirise Holtby as a saving man and as
an intimate of those who at the best treated Jerry

36 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

himself with obvious condescension. Jerry himself
was one of the most famous of postboys, and remained
for long years in the service of the ' Black Swan.'
The burden of his old age was the increasing mean-
ness of the times. 'Them wor graand toimes for
oos ! ' he would say, in his Yorkshire lingo, talking
of the early years of the nineteenth century ; and so
they must have been, for that was the tail-end of the
era when all England wrent mad over Parliamentary
elections, and when Yorkshire, the biggest of all the
counties, was the maddest. Everybody posted, money
was spent like water on bribery and corruption, and
on more reputable items of expenditure, and postboys
shared in the golden shower.

VII

The most exciting of these Homeric election con-
tests was the fierce election for Yorkshire in 1807.
At that time the huge county, larger than any other
two counties put together, only returned two repre-
sentatives to Parliament, and the city of York was
the sole voting-place. Yorkshire, roughly measuring
eighty miles from north to south, and another eighty
from east to west, must have contained ardent poli-
ticians if its out -voters appeared at the poll in any
strength. But if polling-places were to seek and
voting the occasion of a weary pilgrimage, at least
the authorities could not be accused of allowing too
little time for the exercise of that political right.
The booths remained open for fifteen days. William

YORKSHIRE ELECTIONS 37

AVilberforce had for years been the senior member,
and had hitherto held a secure position. On this
particular occasion the contest lay between the rival
houses of Fitzwilliam and Lascelles, Whigs and Tories
respectively, intent upon capturing the junior seat.
Lord Milton, the eldest son of Earl Fitzwilliam, and
the Honourable Henry Lascelles, heir to the Earl
of Harewood, were the candidates. Lord Hare wood
expressed his intention of expending, if necessary,
the whole of his Barbadoes estates, worth £40,000
a year, to secure his son's return, and equal deter-
mination was shown by the other side. With such
opponents, it was little wonder that Yorkshire was
turned into a pandemonium for over a fortnight.
All kinds of vehicles, from military wagons, family
chariots, and mourning-coaches at one extreme, to

* o y

sedan-chairs and donkey-carts at the other, were
pressed into the service. Invalids and even those in
articulo mortis were herded up to the poll.

' No such scene,' said a Yorkshire paper, ' had been
witnessed in these islands for a hundred years as the
greatest county in them presented for fifteen days
and nights. Repose and rest have been unknown,
unless exemplified by postboys asleep in the saddle.
Every day and every night the roads leading to York
have been covered by vehicles of all kinds loaded
with voters — barouches, curricles, gigs, coaches,
landaus, dog-carts, flying wagons, mourning-coaches,
and military cars with eight horses, have left no
chance for the quiet traveller to pursue his humble
journey in peace, or to find a chair at an inn to sit
down upon.'

38 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

As a result, Wilberforce kept his place, Viscount
Milton was elected second, and Lascelles was rejected.
The figures were : —

Wilberforce, . . 11,806
Milton, . . . 11,177
Lascelles, . . . 10,988

Only some thirty-four thousand voters in the great
shire !

It was said that Earl Fitzwilliam's expenses were
£107,000 and his unsuccessful opponent's £102,000.
Wilberforce, who in the fray only narrowly kept at
the head of the poll, was at little expense, a public
subscription which reached the sum of £64,455
having been made on his behalf. A great portion
of it was afterwards returned by him. He after-
wards wrote that had he not been defrauded of
promised votes, his total would have reached 20,000.
' However,' said he, ' it is unspeakable cause for thank-
fulness to come out of the battle ruined neither in
health, character, or fortune.' It was in this election
that a voter who had plumped for Wilberforce and
had come a long distance for the purpose, boasting
that he had not spent anything on the journey, was
asked how he managed it. ' Sure enow/ said he, ' I
cam all d'way ahint Lord Milton's carriage.'

A story is told of a by-election impending in
Yorkshire, in which Pitt had particularly interested
himself. Just upon the eve of the polling he paid

a visit to the famous Mrs. B , one of the Whig

queens of the West Riding, and said, banteringly,
' Well, the election is all right for us. Ten thousand

ELECTION FUNDS STOLEN 39

guineas for the use of our side go down to Yorkshire
to-night by a sure hand.'

' The devil they do ! ' responded Mrs. B ; and

that night the bearer of the precious burden was
stopped by a highwayman on the Great North Road,
and the ten thousand guineas procured the return of
the Whig candidate. The success of that robbery
was probably owing to the ' sure hand ' travelling
alone. Had he gone by mail-coach, the party funds
would have been safe, if we may rely upon the
bona fides of the York Post Office notice, dated
October 30, 1786, which was issued for the re-
assurance of those intending to travel by mail, and
says : ' Ladies and gentlemen may depend on every
care and attention being paid to their safety. They
will be guarded all the way by His Majesty's servants,
and on dark nights a postillion will ride on one of
the leaders.' The notice concluded by saying that
the guard was well armed. This was no excess of
caution, or merely issued to still the nerves of timid
old ladies, for at this period we find ' safety ' coaches
advertised, 'lined with copper, and secure against
bullets ' ; and recorded encounters with armed high-
waymen prove that these precautions wrere not un-
necessary.

VIII

York Minster, although so huge and imposing a
pile when reached, is not glimpsed by the traveller
approaching the city from the Selby route until well

40 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

within the streets ; and only when Knavesmire is
passed on the Tadcaster route are its three towers
seen rising far behind the time-worn turrets of
Micklegate Bar. In bulk, it is in the very front
rank among English cathedrals, but the flatness of
its site and the narrow streets that lead to the
Minster Yard render it quite inconspicuous from
any distance, except from a few selected points and
from the commanding eyrie of the City Walls,
whence, indeed, it is seen at its grandest. ' Minster '
it has been named from time immemorial, but for
no apparent reason, for York's Chapter was one of
secular priests, and as the term 'minster' derives
from ' monasterium,' this is clearly a misnomer. But
as the larger churches were those in connection with
monastic rule, it must have seemed in the popular
view that this gigantic church was rightly a Minster,
no matter what its government.

It lies quite away from the tortuous streets by
which the traveller proceeds through York for the
road to the North, and it is only when nearly leaving
the city by Bootham Bar that glimpses of its grey
bulk are seen, at the end of some narrow lane like
Stonegate or Petergate, framed in by old gabled
houses that lean upon each other in every attitude
suggesting age and decay, or seem to nod owlishly
to neighbours just as decrepit across the cobble-
stoned path. These be ideal surroundings. In the
ancient shops, too, are things of rarity and price,
artfully displayed to the gaze of unwary purchasers
who do not know the secrets of the trade in antiques
and curiosities, and are quite ignorant of the fact

a 5

YORK MINSTER 43

that they pay twice or thrice the value at such places
as these for the old china, the silver, the chairs and
bookcases of quaint design that take their fancy.
Only a narrow space prevents the stranger from
butting up against the Minster, at the end of these
lanes ; for here at York we find no such wide and
grassy Cathedral close as that of Winchester, or those
of Canterbury, Wells, or Peterborough. Just a paved
yard, extremely narrow along the whole south side
and to the east, with a broader paved space at the
west front, and some mingled lawns and pavements
to the north, where dwell the Dean, the prebendaries,
and suchlike : these are the surroundings of the
Minster, which render it almost impossible to gain a
comprehensive view of any part save the west front.

The Minster— the Cathedral Church of St. Peter,
to call it by its proper title — is the fifth building on
this site. First of all in the series was the wooden
chapel erected for the baptism of Edwin, the Saxon
king, in A.D. 62V, followed by a stone church, begun
by him in 028 and completed eight years later by
King Oswald, who placed the head of Edwin, slain
in battle by the heathen at Hatfield near Doncaster,
here in the chapel of St. Gregory. Thirty-five years
later this second church was found by Wilfrid the
Archbishop to be in a state of decay, and he ac-
cordingly repaired the roofs and the walls, which he
rendered ' whiter than snow by means of white lime,'
as we are told by contemporary chroniclers. In
point of fact, he whitewashed the cathedral, just as
the churchwardens of a hundred years ago used to
treat our village churches, for which conduct we have

44 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

been reviling them for many years past, not knowing
that as whitewashes they could claim such dis-
tinguished kinship. About the year 741 this second
building was destroyed by fire and was replaced by
another, completed in 780, itself burnt in 1069. The
fourth was then begun by Thomas of Bayeux, the
first Norman archbishop, and completed about 1080 ;
to be in its turn partly demolished by Roger Pont
r^veque, who about 1170 rebuilt the choir on a
larger scale. Following him came Archbishop Gray,
who rebuilt the south transept in its present form
between 1230 and 1241 ; the north transept and
the central tower in its original form being the work
of John Rom anus, sub- dean and treasurer from 1228
to 1256. To the son of the sub-dean, Archbishop
Romanus, fell the beginning of a new nave, which
was commenced by him in 1291, but was not com-
pleted until 1345, and is the existing one. All these
rebuildings were on a progressive scale of size and
magnificence ; and so by the time they had been
completed it happened that Archbishop Roger's Late
Norman choir, which had replaced the smaller Early
Norman one by Thomas of Bayeux, was itself regarded
as too small and mean, and so was pulled down to make
room for the existing choir, completed about 1400.
Thus the earliest architectural features of the exist-
ing Minster above ground are the Early English
transepts, and nothing remains of those vanished
early buildings save some dubious Saxon masonry
and Norman walling in the crypt.

The first impression gained of the exterior of York
Minster — an impression which only becomes slightly

EXTERIOR OF THE MINSTER 45

modified on further acquaintance — is that of a vast,
rambling, illogical mass of overdone ornament very
much out of repair and very disappointing to the
high expectations formed. Nor is the great central
tower greatly calculated to arouse enthusiasm among
those who know that of Lincoln. An immense mass,
whose comparative scale is best seen from a distance,
its severity of outline borders closely upon clumsi-
ness, a defect which is heightened by its obviously
unfinished condition and the clearly makeshift battle-
ments that outrage the skyline with an effect as of an
armoured champion wearing feminine headgear. It
seems clear that the intention, either of the original
architect of the tower, in the Early English period, or
of those who re-cased it, some two hundred years
later, was to carry it up another story. The two
western towers belong to much the same period, the
years from 1433 to 1474, and have more than the
usual commonplace appearance of the Perpendicular
style. They form part of the most completely logical
west front in England and almost the least inspired,
excepting always that early Perpendicular fiasco, the
west front of Winchester Cathedral. But the re-
deeming feature of York's west front is the beautiful
window which, whether regarded from without or
within, is one of the finest details of the building, its
tracery of the flowing Decorated period narrowly
approaching to the French Flamboyant style, and
resembling in its delicacy and complicated parts the
weblike design seen on the skeleton of a leaf.

A great portion of the Minster is in the Decorated
style ; not, however, conceived in the inspired vein of

46 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

the west window. The nave and chapter-house cover
the period of the sixty years during which Decorated
Gothic flourished ; and, making the round of the
exterior, we find its characteristic mouldings and
traceries repeated in a long range of seven bays,
interrupted by the beautiful compositions of north
and south transepts, entirely dissimilar from one
another, but individually perfect, and the most
entirely satisfactory features of the exterior. The
architects of that period were more fully endowed
with the artistic sense than those who went before
or those who succeeded them ; and their works, and
the more daring and ambitious, but something
braggart, designs of their successors, remain to prove
the contention. Eastward, beyond the transepts,
extends the long, nine-bayed choir, the view of it
obscured from the north by the protruding octagonal
chapter-house, but well seen on the south, where
the soaring ambition of its designers may advan-
tageously be compared writh the more modest but
better ordered art of the unknown architect who
built the south transept. The architects of the choir
would seem to have dared their utmost to produce
the largest windows with the smallest proportion
of wall-space, and to have at the same time been
emulative of height. With these obvious ambitions,
they have succeeded to wonderment in rearing a
building that is nearly all windows, with an ap-
parently dangerously small proportion of walling to
hold them together, but has already survived the
storms of five hundred years unimpaired. A great
engineering feat for that time, rather than a master-

THE CHOIR 47

piece of artistry, as those can see who stand by and
compare south transept and choir, seen in one glance.
That the perceptions of those who built the choir
were blunted is proved by the almost flat roof their
ambition for lofty walling has necessitated. With
their side walls carried up to such a height, abutting
against the central tower, they could not obtain the
steep pitch of roof which is seen on the transepts,
for a higher pitch would have committed the archi-
tectural solecism of cutting above the sills of the
great tower windows, into the windows themselves.
Thus their lofty choir is robbed of half its effect
and looks square - shouldered and ungraceful by
comparison.

An odd and entirely inexplicable device is found
outside the four eastern windows of the choir
clerestory, north and south, in the placing of the
triforium passage outside the building, and the
screening of it and the windows with a great
skeleton framework of stone. The reason of this —
whether it was a mistaken idea of decoration, or
for some structural strengthening purpose — is still
to be sought. But the east end is an equally crude
and artless piece of work, almost wholly given up
to the east window ; the small flanking windows
looking mean and pinched by comparison, and the
abundant decoration characterised by stupid re-
petition and want of invention. Here we see the
Perpendicular style at a very low ebb, and thus it
is not altogether a disadvantage that the road is
so narrow at this point that a full view of the east
end is difficult to obtain.

Criticism is at once disarmed on entering. One
enters, not by the great portals in the west front,
but by the south porch, the most impressive entrance,
as it happens. For this is at once the noblest and
the earliest portion of the great church, and here,
in one magnificent view from south to north, we
obtain one of the finest architectural vistas in
England. Majesty personified, these Early English
transepts are in themselves broad and long and
lofty enough to furnish a nave for many another
cathedral. Spaciousness and nobility of proportion
are the notes of them, and even the beautiful nave,
with its aisles, light and graceful, loftier and broader
than almost any other in the land, dwindles by
comparison. They produce in the surprised traveller
who first beholds them the rare sensation of satis-
faction, of expectations more than realised, and give
an up-lifting of spirit as thrilling as that caused by
some inspiring passage of minstrelsy. To stand at
the crossing and gaze upwards into that vast tower
which looks so clumsy to the outward view, is to
receive an impression of beauty, of combined strength
and lightness, which is not to be acquired elsewhere,
for it is the finest of lantern towers, and, open to
the vaulting of its roof, a hundred and eighty feet
above the pavement, its great windows on all sides
entrap the sunbeams and shed a diffused glory on
arcade and pier. Perhaps one of the most daring
attempts at effect is that which confronts the visitor
as he enters by the south porch. Daring, not from
the constructional, but from the decorative point of
view, — the five equal-sized lancet windows, the ' Five

THE 1FIVE SISTERS' 49

Sisters,' that occupy three parts of the space in the
wall of the north transept, might so easily have been
as glaring a failure as they are a conspicuous success.
Their very prominence has doubtless given them their
name, and caused the legend to be invented of their
having been the gift of five maiden sisters. The

o o

beauty of the original Early English glass which
still remains in these lancets has a considerable share
in producing this successful effect. That the un-
earthly beauty of that pale green glass is preserved
to us, together with much more in the Minster,
is due to Sir Thomas Fairfax, the Parliamentary
general, himself a Yorkshireman, who kept the
pious but narrow-minded and mischievous soldiery
in order, who otherwise would have delighted in
flinging prayer-books and missals through every
window in this House of God, and have accounted
it an act of religious fervour.

We cannot explore the Minster in greater detail,
for the road yet lies in many a league before us ;
nor recount how York, city and shire, broke into
rebellion when the old religion was suppressed by
Henry the Eighth, and the Minster's treasures,
particularly the head of St. William, were stolen.
The Pilgrimage of Grace was the result, in which
the Yorkshire gentlemen and others assembled, with
Robert Aske at their head, and taking as their badge
the Five Wounds of Christ, prepared to do battle
for their faith. Aske ended on a gallows from the
height of Micklegate Bar. The same troubles re-
curred in the time of Elizabeth, and Yorkshire, the
last resort of Roman Catholicism, was again in

5°

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

arms, with the Earls of Northumberland and West-
moreland conspiring with the Duke of Norfolk to
release the captive Queen of Scots and restore the
old religion. The movement failed, and Northumber-
land was executed on the Pavement, others being
put to death or deprived of their estates. That was
the last popular movement in favour of the old

ALL SAINTS, PAVEMENT.

faith ; and although the city had been prelatical and
Royalist during the first years of Charles the First's
reign, public opinion at last veered completely round,
so that shortly after the Parliamentary victory of
Marston Moor in 1644, and the consequent surrender
of the Royalist garrison of York, the city became
as Puritan and republican as it had been the opposite.
Gifts made by Charles to the Minster were torn

down and dispersed, the very font was thrown out,
and dean and chapter were replaced by four divines
elected by an assembly. Many of the York parish
churches were wrecked by fanatics carrying out an
order to destroy ' superstitious pictures and images,'
and nearly all were without incumbents. When
the restoration of the monarchy and the church
was effected together in 1661, York became 'one
of the most factious and malignant towns in the
kingdom/ and two years later broke into a revolt
for which twenty-one rebels were executed. The
final outburst occurred in 1688, wheti. James the
Second was suspected of an intention to appoint the
Roman Catholic Bishop of Callipolis to the vacant
see of York. The bishop was taking part in a
religious procession through the streets, when an
infuriated mob set upon him and seized his silver-
gilt crozier, which was taken as a trophy to the
vestry, where it may yet be seen. The bishop
fled. A few days later James the Second ceased to
reign, and with that event ended these religious
contentions.

But the stirring history of the Minster itself was
not yet completed, for the final chapter in a long
record of events was not enacted until the early
years of the nineteenth century.

The roads in the neighbourhood of York on
February 2, 1829, were thronged with excited

52 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

crowds hurrying to the city. Dashing through them
came the fire-engines of Leeds, and others from
Escrick Park. Far ahead, a great column of smoke
hovered in the cold February sky. York Minster
was on fire.

It was no accident that had caused this conflagra-
tion, but the wild imaginings of one Jonathan Martin,
which had prompted him to become the incendiary
of that stately pile. A singular character, compacted
of the unlovely characteristics of Mawworm and the
demented prophet, Solomon Eagle, this was the
crowning act of a life distinguished by religious
mania. Jonathan Martin was born at Hexham in
1782, and apprenticed to a tanner. His parents
were poor, and he had only the slightest kind of
education. At the expiration of his apprenticeship
he found himself in London, and was speedily en-
trapped by the pressgang and sent to serve his
Majesty as an able seaman. It seems to have been
at this period that the unbalanced state of his mind
first became noticeable. He was with the fleet at
many places, and often in action, from Copenhagen
to the Nile. At times he would exhibit cowardice,
and at others either indifference to danger or actual
bravery. He would be religious, dissolute, industri-
ous, idle, sulky, or cheerful by turns : a pretended
dreamer of dreams and communicant with angels.
' Parson Saxe,' his shipmates named him ; ' but,' said
one, years afterwards, ' I always thought him more
rogue than fool.'

Martin was paid off in 1810. He settled to work
for a farmer, at Norton, near Durham, and shortly

A RELIGIOUS MANIAC 53

afterwards married. He became a member of the
Wesleyan Methodist body at Norton, and began those
religious exercises which he claims to have converted
him and to have emancipated him from the law,
being ' justified by faith ' only. How dangerous such
views of personal irresponsibility can be when held
by the weak-minded his after career was only too
plainly to show. He immediately conceived an
abhorrence of the Church of England, as a church
teaching obedience to pastors and masters, and of
the clergy for their worldliness. In this last respect,
indeed, Martin — as we think now — had no little
justification, for the Church had not then begun to
arise from the almost Pagan slough of laziness, in-
difference, and greed of wealth and good living which
throughout the previous century had marked the
members of the Establishment, from the country
parson up to the archbishops. When clergymen
could find it in them to perform the solemn rite of
the burial service while in a state of drunkenness ;
when under Martin's own observation at Durham
the Prince-Bishop of that city enjoyed emoluments
and perquisites amounting to £30,000 per annum,
there is little cause for surprise that hatred and con-
tempt of the cloth should arise.

This basis of justification, acting upon a mind
already diseased, and not rendered more healthy by
fasting and brooding over the Scriptures, resulted
in his attempting to preach from church pulpits, in
writing threatening letters to the clergy, and eventu-
ally in a silly threat to shoot the Bishop of Oxford
when at Stockport. For this he was rightly confined

in a lunatic asylum at Gateshead. Some months
later he managed to escape, and after wandering
about the country took service with his former
employer at Norton, the magistrates consenting to
his remaining at liberty. In 1822 he left for Dar-
lington, where he lived until 1827. His wife had
died while he was in the asylum, and in 1828, while
engaged in hawking a pamphlet biography of himself
at Boston, he made the acquaintance of a young
woman of that town and married her. By this time
his religious mania had grown worse, and when, on
December 20, 1828, he and his wife journeyed to
York, it would appear that he went there with the
design of burning the Cathedral already half formed.
He haunted the building day by day, leaving denun-
ciatory letters from time to time. One, discovered
on the iron grille of the choir screen, exhorted the
clergy to 'repent and cry For marcey for know is
the day of vangens and your Cumplet Destruction
is at Hand for the Lord will not sufer you and the
Deveal and your blind Hellish Docktren to dseve
the works of His Hands no longer. . . . Depart you
Carsit blind Gides in to the Hotest plase of Hell to
be tormentid with the Deveal and all his Eanguls
for Ever and Ever.'

Violent language ! but one may hear harangues
very like it any day within Hyde Park, by the
Marble Arch. There are many incendiaries in the
making around us to-day, and as little attention is
paid to them as to Martin's ravings.

Undoubtedly mad, he possessed something of the
madman's cunning, and with the plan of firing the

JONATHAN MARTIN, INCENDIARY.

(Drawn in Goal at York Castle by the Rev. J. Kilbij.)

56 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Cathedral fully formed, set out with his wife for
Leeds, as he gave out, on the 27th of January. At
Leeds he remained a few days, and was remarkable
for his unusually quiet and orderly behaviour. He
left on Saturday morning, ostensibly for Tadcaster,
saying he should return on the Monday; but went
instead to York. Here the madman's cunning broke
down, for he stayed at a place where he was well
known ; at the lodgings, in fact, that he had left a
few days before. He prowled about the Cathedral
the whole of the next day, Sunday, and attended
service there, hiding behind a tomb in the north
transept; overheard the notes of the organ — the
finest in England — thundering and booming and
rolling in echoes amid the fretted roofs. The sound
troubled the brain of the maniac. ' Buzz, buzz,' he
whispered ; ' I '11 teach thee to stop thy buzzing,' and
hid, shivering with religious and lunatic ecstasy, in
the recess until the building was empty.

The short February day closed, and left the
Cathedral in darkness; but he still waited. The
ringers paid their evening visit to the belfry, and
he watched them from his hiding-place. He watched
them go, and then began his work. The ringers
had left the belfry unlocked. Ascending to it, he
cut a length of about a hundred feet off the prayer-
bell rope, and, with his sailor's handiness, made a
rough ladder of it, by which to escape. Those were
the days before lucifer matches. He had come pro-
vided with a razor, which he used as a steel ; a flint,
tinder, and a penny candle cut in two. Climbing,
then, into the choir, he made two piles on the floor

BURNING OF THE MINSTER 57

of prayer-books, curtains, hassocks, and cushions, and,
taking a candle from the altar, cut it up and dis-
tributed it between the two. Then, setting light to
them, he set to work to escape. He had taken a
pair of pincers from the shoemaker with whom he
lodged, and breaking with them a window in the
north transept, he hauled his rope through, and
descended into the Minster Yard, soon after three
o'clock in the morning.

The fire was not discovered until four hours later.
By that time the stalls were half consumed, and the
vestry, where the communion plate was kept, was
on fire. The plate was melted into an unrecognis-
able mass. By eight o'clock, despite the exertions
of many willing helpers, the organ-screen was burnt,
and the organ-pipes fell in thunder to the pavement,
to the accompaniment of a furious shower of molten
lead from the roof, which was now burning. The
city fire-engines, those of the Cathedral, and others
from Leeds and Escrick, were all playing upon the
conflagration that day, and the 7th Dragoon Guards
and the Militia helped with a will, or kept back the
vast crowds which had poured into the city from far
and near. It was not until evening that the fire was
quenched, and by that time the roof of the choir, over
130 feet in length, had been destroyed, and with it
the stalls, the Bishop's throne, and all the mediaeval
enrichments of that part of the building. Curiously
enough, the great east window was but little damaged.
The cost of this madman's act was put at £100, 000.
A singular coincidence, greatly remarked upon at the
time, was that on the Sunday following this disaster,

58 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

one of the lessons for the day was the sixty-fourth
chapter of Isaiah, the Church's prayer to God, of
which one verse at least was particularly applicable :
' Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers
praised Thee, is burned with fire ; and all our pleasant
things are laid waste.'

Martin was, in the first instance, connected with
the outrage by the evidence of the shoemaker's pincers
he had left behind him. They were identified by his
landlord. Meanwhile, the incendiary had fled along
the Great North Koad ; first to Easingwold, thirteen
miles away, where he drank a pint of ale ; and then
tramping on to Thirsk. Thence he hurried to North-
allerton, arriving at three o'clock in the afternoon,
worn out with thirty -three miles of walking. That
night he journeyed in a coal -cart to West Auckland,
and so eventually to a friend near Hexham, in whose
house he was arrested on the 6th of February. Taken
to York, he was tried at the sessions at York Castle
on 30th March. The verdict, given on the following
day, was ' not guilty, on the ground of insanity,' and
he was ordered to be kept in close custody during
his Majesty's pleasure. Martin was shortly after-
wards removed from York Castle to St. Luke's Hos-
pital, London, in which he died in 1838. Two years
later, the Minster was again on fire, as the result of
an accident, and the western tower was burnt out.

CLIFTON

6 r

We must now leave York for the North. To do
so, we proceed through Bootham Bar, where the moth-
eaten ' flys ' linger that ply between the city and the
railway station, and seem to come into competition on
the score of antiquity with the mediaeval Bar itself.
Outside the walls we come at once into the suburb

BOOTHAM BAR.

of Clifton, after Knavesmire the finest suburb of
York ; the wide road lined with old mansions that
almost reek of prebendal appointments, J.P/s, incomes
of over two thousand a year, and butlers. It is true
that there are those which cannot be included in
this category, but they are here on sufferance and

62 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

as a foil to the majesty of their superiors, just as
the Lunatic Asylum a little further clown the road
gives, or should give, by contrast a finer flavour to
the lives of those who have not to live in it. There
is another pleasing thing at Clifton, in the altogether
charniino; new building of the ' White Horse ' inn,

O O *

which seems to hint that they have at last begun
to recover the lost art in Yorkshire of building houses
that are not vulgar or hideous. It is full time.

Would you see a charming village church, a jewel
in its sort ? Then, when reaching Skelton, three
miles onward, explore the by-road at the back of
the village, over whose clustered few roofs its Early
English bell-cote peeps. But a moment, please, before
we reach it. This ' by-road ' is the original highway,
and the ' back ' of the village street its old front.
There is a moral application somewhere in these
altered circumstances for those who have the wit,
the inclination, and the opportunity to seek it.

The improved road, perhaps a hundred years
old, is carried straight and level past the rear of
the cottages, and the rugged old one goes serpentin-
ing past the front doors, where the entrance to the
' Bay Horse ' looks out across a little green to where
the church stands, the faded old Bay Horse himself
wondering where the traffic that use to pass this
way has all gone to. The signs of the ' Bay Horse '
and the ' Yorkshire Grey ' are, by the way, astonish-
ingly frequent on the Great North Road.

But the church. It is an unpretending building,
without a tower, and only a bell-cote rising from its
broad roof; but perfect within its limits. Early

English throughout, with delicately cut mouldings,
beautiful triple lancets at the east end, and fine porch,
the green and grey harmonies of its slate roof and
well-preserved stonework complete a rarely satisfying
picture. A legend, still current, says it was built
from stone remaining over after the building of the
south transept of York Cathedral, in 1227. The
Church in the Wood it was then, for from the gates

SKELTON CHURCH.

of York to Easingwold, a distance of thirteen miles,
stretched that great Forest of Galtres, through which
to guide wandering travellers, as we have already
seen, the lantern-tower and burning cresset of All
Saints in the Pavement, at York, were raised
aloft.

Red deer roamed the Forest of Galtres, and bandits
not so chivalrous as Robin Hood ; so few dared to
explore its recesses unarmed and unaccompanied.

64 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

But where in olden times these romantic attendants
of, or dissuading circumstances from, travel existed,
we have now only occasional trees and an infinity
of flat roads, past Shipton village to Tollerton Cross
Lanes and Easingwold. This country is dulness
personified. The main road is flat and featureless,
and the branch roads instinct with a melancholy
emptiness that hives in every ditch and commonplace
hedgerow. A deadly sameness, a paralysing nega-
tion, closes the horizon of this sparsely settled district,
depopulated in that visitation of fire and sword when
William the Conqueror came, in 1069, and massacred
a hundred thousand of those who had dared to with-
stand him. They had surrendered on promise of
their lives and property being respected, but the
fierce Norman utterly destroyed the city of York
and laid waste the whole of the country between
York and Durham. Those who were not slain
perished miserably of cold and famine. Their pale
ghosts still haunt the route of the Great North Eoad
and afflict it, though more than eight hundred years
have flown.

Now comes Easingwold : grimly bare and gritty
wide street, with narrow pavements and broad
selvedges of cobbles sloping from them down into
a roadway filled, not with traffic, but with children
at noisy play. Shabby houses lining this street,
houses little better than cottages, and ugly at that ;
grey, hard-featured, forbidding. Imagine half a mile
of this, with a large church on a knoll away at the
northern end, and you have Easingwold. One house
is interesting. It is easily identified, because it is

EASING WOLD 65

the only one of any architectural character in the
place. Now a school, it was once the chief coaching
and posting establishment, under the sign of the
' Rose and Crown,' and in those times kept five post-
boys, and, by consequence, twenty horses, others
being kept for the ' Wellington ' and ' Express '
coaches which Lacy, the landlord, used to horse on
the Easingwold to Thirsk stage. The 'New Inn,'
although an inferior house, was the place at which
the Royal mail and the ' Highflyer ' changed.

An old postboy of the 'Rose and Crown' sur-
vived until recent years, in the person of Tommy
Hutchinson. Originally a tailor, he early forsook
the board and the needle for the pigskin and the
whip. If a tailor be the ninth part of a man,
certainly the weazened postboys (who ever saw a
fat one ?) of old were themselves only fractions, so
far as appearance went ; and accordingly Tommy was
not badly suited. But a power of endurance was
contained within that spare frame, and he eclipsed
John Blagg of Retford's hundred and ten miles'
day on one occasion, riding post five times from
Easingwold to York and back, a distance of a hundred
and thirty miles. Tommy used to express an utter
contempt for ' bilers on wheels,' as he called loco-
motives. ' Ah divvent see nowt in 'em,' he would
say; 'ye can't beat a po'-shay and good horses.'
Peace be with him !

That rare thing on the Great North Road, a rise,
leads out of Easingwold, past unkempt cottages, to
' White House Inn,' a mile and a-half distant, where
the inn buildings, now farmhouses, but still brilliantly

66 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

whitewashed, stand on either side of the road, in a
lonely spot near where the Kyle stream, like a flowing
ditch, oozes beneath Dawnay Bridge.

The ' White House ' was the scene of a murder in
1623. At that time the innkeeper was a certain
Ralph Raynard, who ' kept company ' with a girl
in service at Red House, Thornton Bridge. The
lovers quarrelled, and in a pique the girl married
a farmer named Fletcher, of Moor House, Raskelfe.
Unhappily, she did not love the man she had married,
while she certainly did retain an affection for her old
sweetheart, and he for her. Going between Raskelfe
and Easingwold on market-days on her horse, she
would often stop at the ' White House ' and chat with
Ralph Raynard ; the ostler, Mark Dunn, minding the
horse when she dismounted. Raynard's sister kept
house with him at the inn, and she saw that no good
could come of these visits, but he would not listen
to her warnings, and the visits continued. It was
not long before Fletcher's neighbours began to hint
to him something of these little flirtations of his wife
with her old lover ; and one evening he caught the
ostler of the ' White House ' in his orchard, where he
was waiting for an opportunity to deliver a message
from Raynard to her. The man returned to the inn
without having fulfilled his mission, and smarting
from a thrashing he had received at the hands of
the indignant farmer. Shortly after this, Fletcher
had occasion to go a journey. Things had not been
going well with him latterly, and his home was
rendered unhappy by the evidence of his wife's
dislike of him. Little wonder, then, that he had

A WA YSIDE MURDER 67

dismal forebodings as he set out. Before leaving,
he wrote on a sheet of paper :—

'If I should be missing, or suddenly wanted be,
Mark Kalph Raynard, Mark Dunn, and mark my
wife for me,'

addressing it to his sister.

No sooner was he gone than Mrs. Fletcher mounted
her horse and rode to Raskelfe, where, with Raynard
and Mark Dunn, 'a murderous plot was contrived for
putting Fletcher out of the way. They were waiting
for him when he returned at evening, and as he stood
a moment on Dawnay Bridge, where the little river
runs beneath the highway, two of them rushed upon
him and threw him into the water. It would be
difficult for a man to drown here, but the innkeeper
and the ostler leapt in after him, and as he lay there
held his head under water, while his wife seized his
feet. When the unfortunate man was quite dead
they thrust his body into a sack, and, carrying their
burden with them to the inn, buried it in the garden,
Raynard sowing some mustard -seed over the spot.
This took place on the 1st of May. On the 7th of
July, Raynard went to Topcliffe Fair, and put up a.t
the ' Angel.' Going into the stable, he was confronted
by the apparition of the unhappy Fletcher, glowing
with a strange light and predicting retribution. He
rushed out among the booths, and tried to think he
had been mistaken. Coming to a booth where they
sold small trinkets, he thought he would buy a present
for his sweetheart, and, taking up a chain of coral
beads, asked the stallkeeper how it looked on the
neck. To his dismay the apparition stood opposite,

68 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

with a red chain round its neck, with its head hanging
to one side, like that of an executed criminal, while
a voice informed him that presently he and his accom-
plices should be wearing hempen necklaces.

When night had fallen he mounted his horse and
rode for home. On the way, at a spot called the
Carr, he saw something in the road. It was a figure
emerging from a sack and shaking the water off it,
like a Newfoundland dog. With a yell of terror
the haunted man dug his heels into his horse and
galloped madly away ; but the figure, irradiated by
a phosphorescent glimmer and dragging an equally
luminous sack after it, was gliding in front of him
all the while, at an equal pace, and so continued
until the ' White House ' was reached, where it slid
through the garden hedge and into the ground where
Fletcher's body had been laid.

Raynard's sister was waiting for him, with supper
ready, and with a dish of freshly cut mustard. She
did not see the spectre sitting opposite, pointing a
minatory finger at that dreadful salad, but he did, and,
terrified, confessed to the crime. Sisterly affection
was not proof against this, and she laid information
against the three accomplices before a neighbour-
ing justice of the peace, Sir William Sheffield of
Raskelfe Park. They were committed to York
Castle, tried, and hanged on July 28, 1623. The
bodies were afterwards cut down and taken to the
inn, being gibbeted near the scene of the crime, on a
spot still called Gallows Hill, where the bones of the
three malefactors were accidentally ploughed up a
hundred years ago.

THE HAMBLETON HILLS 69

If its surroundings may be said to fit in with a
crime, then this seems an ideal spot for the com-
mission of dark deeds, — this eerie place where an
oozy plantation, or little wood, is placed beside the
road, its trees standing in pools or on moss-grown
tussocks ; the road in either direction a solitude.

Raskelfe, or ' Rascall ' as it is generally called, lies
away from the road. It has a church which still
possesses a wooden tower, and the local rhyme,

'Wooden church, wooden steeple,
Rascally church, and rascally people,'

is yet heard in the mouths of depreciatory neighbours.

The Hambleton Hills now come in sight, and close
in the view on the right hand, at a distance of five
miles ; running parallel with the road as far as
Northallerton : suJlen hills, with the outlines of
mountains, and wanting only altitude to earn the
appellation. The road, in sympathy with its nearness
to them, goes up and down in jerky rises and falls,
passing the outlying houses of Thormanby and the
farmsteads of Birdforth, which pretends, with its
mean little church, like a sanctified cow-shed, to be
a village — and signally fails.

The gates of Thirkleby Park and the ' Griffin ' inn,
standing where a toll-gate formerly stood on what
was once Bagby Common, bring one past a by-road
which leads to Coxwold, five miles away, and to the

70 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Hambleton White Horse, a quite unhistorical imita-
tion, cut in the hillside in 1857, of its prehistoric
forerunners in Berkshire and Wilts. Coxwold is a
rarely pretty village, famous as having been the
living of the Reverend Laurence Sterne from 1*760
to 1768. The house he lived in, now divided into
three cottages, is the place where Tristram Shandy
was finished and the Sentimental Journey written.
' Shandy Hall ' it is called, ' shandy ' being the local
dialect- word for ' crazy.'

Thirsk lies less than three miles ahead. There
have been those who have called it 'picturesque.'
Let us pity them, for those to whom Thirsk shows a
picturesque side must needs have acquaintance with
only the sorriest and most commonplace of towns.
The place is, in fact, a larger Easingwold, with the
addition of a market-place like that of Selby — after
the abbey has been subtracted from it ! There are
Old Thirsk and New Thirsk, the new town called
into existence by the railway, a mile to the west.
The 'Three Tuns,' 'Crown/ and 'Fleece' were the
three coaching inns of Thirsk, and still show their
hard-featured faces to the grey, gaunt streets. The
one pretty ' bit ' is encountered after having left the
town behind. Passing the church, the road is
bordered by the beautiful broad sheet of water
formed by damming the Caldbeck. Looking back-
wards, the view is charming, with the church-tower
coming into the composition, a glance to the left
including the Hambleton Hills.

The hamlet of Thornton-le-Street, which derives its
name from standing on an old Roman road, is a tiny

THORNTON-LE-STREET 7 1

place with a small church full of large monuments,
and the remains of a huge old posting establishment,
once familiar to travellers as the ' Spotted Dog,'
standing on either side of the road. One side
appears to be empty, and the other is now the post-
office. A graceful clump of Lombardy poplars now

THE ' SPOTTED DOG,' THORNTON-LE-STREET.

shades the sharp bend where the road descends, past
the lodge-gates of the Hall, the seat of the Earl of
Cathcart. Presently the road climbs again to the
crest whence Thornton-le-Moor may be glimpsed on
the left, and thence goes, leaving the singularly
named Thornton-le-Beans on the right, in common-
place fashion to Northallerton.

72 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

As are Easing wold and Thirsk, so is Northallerton.
Let that suffice for its aspect, and let us to something
of its story, which practically begins in 1138, at the
battle of Northallerton, dimly read of in schooldays,
and still capable of conferring an interest upon the
locality, even though the site of that old-time struggle
on Standard Hill is three miles away to the north on
Cowton Moor. The position of the townlet, directly
in the line of march of Scots descending to harry the
English, and of the English marching to punish those
hairy-legged Caledonians, led to many plundering^
and burnings, and to various scenes of retribution,
enacted in the streets or along the road ; and
although Northallerton must nowadays confess to a
mile-long dulness, time cannot have hung heavily
with its inhabitants when the Scots burnt their
houses in 1319 and again in 1322; when the rebel
Earls of 1569 were executed near the church ; when
the Scottish army held Charles the First prisoner here
in 1647, or when — last scene in its story — the Duke
of Cumberland encamped on the hillsides in 1745.

The name of Allerton is said to derive from the
Anglo-Saxon aelr, an alder- tree, and many are the
Allertons of sorts in Yorkshire. Its central feature
—which, however, is not geographically central, but
at the northern end of the one long street — is the
church, large and with a certain air of nobility which
befits the parish church of such a place as Northaller-
ton, anciently the capital of a ' soke,' and still giving a
name to the ' Northallertonshire ' district of Yorkshire.
The old coaching inns of the town, like those of so
many other northern towns and villages on this road,

NORTHALLERTON INNS 73

are not impressive to the Southerner, who, the further
north he progresses, is, with Dr. Johnson, still more
firmly convinced that he is leaving the finest fruits of
civilisation behind him. First now, as then, is the
' Golden Lion,' large but not lovely ; the inn referred
to as the ' Black Swan ' by Sydney Smith when
writing to Lady Grey, advising her how to journey
from London, in the passage, 'Do not set off too
soon, or you will be laid up at the " Black
Swan/' Northallerton, or the " Elephant and Castle,"
Boroughbridge ; and your bill will come to a
thousand pounds, besides the waiter.' The true
sportsman who reads these lines will put up at the
' Golden Lion ' to test whether or not the reverend
humorist is out of date as regards the tariff;
nor will he forget to try the Northallerton ale, to
determine if Master George Meryon's verse, written
in the days of James the Second, is still topical : —

' Northallerton, in Yorkshire, doth excell
All England, nay, all Europe, for strong yell.'

The ' Golden Lion ' was, at the close of the coaching;

era, the foremost inn at Northallerton, and at its doors
the 'Wellington' London and Newcastle coach changed
teams until the railway ran it off the road. The
Edinburgh mail changed at the ' Black Bull,' which
survives as an inn, but only half its original size,
the other half now being a draper's shop.. The ' King's
Head,' another coaching house, has quite retired
into private life, while the ' Old Golden Lion,' not
a very noted coaching establishment, except perhaps
for the by-roads, remains much the same as ever.

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

XII

At Northallerton we reach the junction of the
alternative route, which, branching from the Selby
and York itinerary, goes over difficult, but much
more beautiful, country by way of Wetherby and

YORK BAR.

Boroughbridge. The ways diverge at the northern
extremity of Doncaster ; and as both can equally claim
to be an integral part of the Great North Koad, it is
necessary to go back these sixty-three miles to that
town and explore the route. Beginning at a left-
hand fork by the flat meadows that border the river
Don, it comes in a mile to York Bar, a name recalling

ROBIN HOOD

the existence of a turnpike-gate, whose disappearance
so recently as 1879 seems to bring us strangely near
old coaching days. The toll-house still stands, and
with the little inn beyond, backed and surrounded
by tall trees, forms a pleasant peep down the long
flat road. ' Red House/ nearly three miles onward,
is plainly indicated by its flaring red-painted walls.
Now a farmhouse, it was once a small coaching inn

ROBIN HOOD'S WELL.

principally concerned with the traffic along the Wake-
field road, which branches off here to the left.
Passing this, we come in two miles to Robin Hood's
Well, a group of houses by Skelbrooke Park, where
at the ' New Inn ' and the ' Robin Hood ' many
coaches changed horses daily, the passengers taking
the opportunity of drinking from Robin Hood's Well,
a spring connected with that probably mythical
outlaw, who is said to have met the Bishop of

76 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Hereford travelling along the road at this spot, and
to have not only held him to heavy ransom, but to
have compelled him to dance an undignified jig
round an oak in Skelbrooke Park, on a spot still called
(now the tree itself has disappeared) ' Bishop's Tree
Root.' Among famous travellers who have sipped of
the crystal spring of Robin Hood's Well is Evelyn,
who journeyed this way in 1654. ' Near it,' he says,
' is a stone chaire, and an iron ladle to drink out of,
chained to the seat.' Some fifty years later, the very
ugly building that now covers the spring was erected
by Vanbrugh for the Earl of Carlisle. It cannot be
said to add much to the romantic associations of the
place, but the efforts of the wayfarers, who in two
centuries have carved every available inch of its
surface with their names, render it a curious sight.

Here the road begins a long climb up to the spot
where five ways meet, the broad left-hand road
conducting into Leeds. This is, or was, Barnsdale
Bar, where some of the local Leeds coaches branched
from the Great North Road, the chief ones between
London and Leeds continuing along this route as far
as Peckfield Turnpike, five miles to the other side of
Ferrybridge. Barnsdale Bar is, like all the other
toll-bars, a thing of the past, but the old toll-house
still hides among the trees by the roadside. Beyond
it the way lies along an exposed road high up on the
hill-tops ; a lonely stretch of country where it is a
peculiarly ill mischance to be caught in a storm.
Thence it plunges suddenly into the deep gorge of
Went Bridge, where the little river Went goes with
infantile fury among rocks and mossy boulders along

WENT BRIDGE 77

a winding course thickly overhung with trees. The
wooded sides of this narrow valley are picturesque in
the highest degree, but were probably not highly
appreciated by timid coach-passengers who, having
been driven down the precipitous road at one side at
the peril of their lives, were turned out by the guard
to ease the toiling horses by walking up the corre-
sponding ascent at the other. This is the prettiest
spot in all 'merry Barnsdale,' and anciently one of
those most affected by Eobin Hood. His very de-
generate successors, the poachers and cutthroats of
James the First's time, found it a welcome harbourage
and foregathered at the predecessor of the Old Blue
Bell Inn, which was accordingly deprived of its
licence for some time. The old sign, bearing the
date of 1633, when business was probably resumed, is
still kept within the house, as the rhymed inscription
on the modern one outside informs the passer-by : —

' The Blue Bell on Wentbridge Hill,
The old sign is existing still
Inside the house.'

An old posting inn, the ' Bay Horse,' has long since
reverted to the condition of a private house.

The road rising out of Went Bridge runs between
the jagged rocks of a cutting made in the last years
of the coaching age to lighten the pull up ; but still it
is a formidable climb. This is followed by a hollow
where a few outlying houses of Darrington village are
seen, and then the bleak high tableland is reached
that has to be traversed before the road drops down
into the valley of the Aire at Ferrybridge, that now
dull and grimy town which bears no appearance of

78 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

having had an historic past. Yet Ferrybridge was
the scene of the skirmish that heralded the battle of
Towton, and stands in the midst of that mediaeval
cockpit of England, wherein for centuries so many
rival factions contended together. Near by is Ponte-
fract, in whose castle Richard the Second met a
mysterious death ; and not far off lies Wakefield.
Towton Field itself lies along the Tadcaster route to
York. In every direction blood has been shed, for
White Rose or Red, for King or Parliament; but
Ferrybridge is anything but romantic to the eye,
however greatly its associations may appeal to the
well-stored mind. Coal-mining and quarrying in-
dustries overlie these things. The place-name explains
the situation of the townlet sufficiently well, and
refers to the first building of a bridge over the old-
time ferry by which wayfarers crossed the Aire to
Brotherton, on the opposite bank. It is quite un-
known when the first bridge was built, but one existed
here in 1461, the year when Towton fight was fought.
This was succeeded by a wooden structure, itself
replaced by the present substantial stone bridge,
built at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
This was always a troublesome part of the road to
keep in repair, as we may judge from old records.
Forty days' indulgences were granted by the Bishop
of Durham early in the fourteenth century to the
faithful who would contribute to the repair of the
road between Ferrybridge and Brotherton, in these
words : — ' Persuaded that the minds of the faithful
are more ready to attach themselves to pious works
when they have received the salutary encouragement

ROAD-MENDING 79

of fuller indulgences, trusting in the mercy of God
Almighty and the merits and prayers of the glorious
Virgin his Mother, of St. Peter, St. Paul, and of the
most holy confessor Cuthbert, our patron, and of all
saints, we remit forty days of the penances imposed
on all our parishioners and others, sincerely contrite
and confessed of their sins, who shall help by their
charitable gifts, or by their bodily labour, in the
building or in the maintenance of the causeway
between Brotherton and Ferrybridge, where a great
many people pass by.'

Let us hope that the pious, thus incited to the
commission of good works, responded. It was a
more serious matter, however, in later ages, when
a great many more people passed by, and when
road -surveyors, unable to dispense these ghostly
favours, repaired the roads only at the pecuniary
expense of the ratepayers. These Yorkshire streams,
the Aire, the Wharfe, and many others, descending
from the high moorlands, develop an extraordinary
force in times of flood, and have often destroyed half
the communications of these districts. Such was
the havoc wrought, in 1795 that many of the bridges
were washed away and great holes made in the
roads. Three bridges on this road between Don-
caster and Ferrybridge disappeared. With such
perils threatened, travellers deserved to be comfort-
ably housed when they lay by for the night. And
comfort was the especial feature of these inns.

The most luxurious inn and posting-house in the
north of England was held to be the ' Swan ' at
Ferrybridge ; ' in 1 7 3 7 and since the best inn upon

8o THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

the great northern road,' according to Scott. How-

O O

ever that may have been, certainly the ' Angel ' at
Ferrybridge was the largest. Both, however, have
long since been given up. The many scattered build-
ings of the ' Angel ' have become private houses, and
the ' Swan/ ejnpty for many years past, is falling
into a roofless ruin by the riverside. Innkeeping
was no mean trade in those times, especially when
allied with the proprietorship of horses and coaches.
Thus, in the flower of the coaching age, the ' Angel '
was in the hands of a medical man, a certain Dr.
Alderson, the son of a local clergyman, who actually
found time to attend properly to his practice and
to conduct the business of a licensed victualler and
coach-proprietor. He thought it not derogatory to
his social position to be * mine host,' and he certainly
made many friends by his enterprise. Ferrybridge,
as the branch ing- off" place of yet another Great North
Road route — the Tadcaster route to York — was a
very busy coaching centre, and besides the two
inns mentioned there were the ' Greyhound ' and
the 'Golden Lion.' The last-named was especially
the drovers' house. Drovers were a great feature of
the road in these old days, and their flocks and herds
an unmitigated nuisance to all other travellers. Un-
couth creatures from Scotland, they footed it all the
way to London with their beasts, making their
twenty miles a day ; their sheep and cattle often
numorous enough to occupy a whole mile of road,
and raising dust-clouds dense enough to choke a
whole dib t. It was, at the pace they went, a
three weeks journey from the far north to London ;

THE TAD CASTER ROUTE 81

and the fat cattle that started on the four hundred
miles' walk must, with these efforts, have become the
leanest of kine on arrival at Smithfield.

The ' Old Fox ' inn, which still stands on the
other side of the river at Brotherton, was also a
drovers' place of call. It stands at the actual fork
of the roads, eleven miles from Tadcaster, and
twenty from York. The Edinburgh mail originally
ran this way, finally changing to the Selby route,
while the ' Highflyer ' and ' Wellington ' — London
and Edinburgh and London and Newcastle — coaches
kept on it until the end in 1.840 ; but it was chiefly
crowded with the cross-country coach traffic, which
was a very heavy one.

The places are few and uninteresting on these
twenty miles into York ; Sherburn and Tadcaster—
that town of ales — the chief of them ; white the tiny
godless village of Towton, without a church, on the
way, is disappointing to the pilgrim, eager to see it
for the sake of its association with the great battle.
The road skirts the eastern side of that tragic field,
after passing the hamlet of Barkston Ash.

XIII

The battle of Towton, March 29, 1461, was the
bloodiest ever fought on English ground, the slain
on both sides in that desperate fight and in the
skirmishes at Ferrybridge and Dintingdale amount-
ing to more than 30,000 men. The events that had

82 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

preceded it were alternately cheering and depressing
to the hopes of the Yorkists, who had been defeated
with great slaughter at Wakefield on the last day but
one of the previous December, had gained the im-
portant victory of Mortimer's Cross on the 2nd of
February, and had been defeated again at the second
battle of St. Albans on the 17th of the same month ;
and although on March 4th the young Duke of York
had entered London and assumed the crown as
Edward the Fourth, the Lancastrians still held the
Midlands and, lying at York, interposed a bold front
against an advance. It was a singular position.
The Lancastrians had their headquarters at the city
from which their opponents took their title, and two
kings of England, equally matched in power, ani-
mated their respective adherents with the utmost
loyalty.

After their victory at St. Albans the Lancastrians,
exhausted, had retired to York, the south being as
dangerous to a Lancastrian army, as the north, loyal
to the Ked Eose, was to the Yorkists. The Yorkists,
on their part, eager to enter London, did not pursue
their rivals. Both sides required breathing time,
for events had marched too rapidly in the past two
months for the pace to be maintained. Still, the
Yorkists were in force, three weeks later, at Ponte-
fract, and threatening to cross the Aire at Ferry-
bridge, a strategic point on their contemplated line
of advance to the city of York. It was here, early
in the morning of the 28th, that the bloody pre-
lude to the battle opened, in a sudden Lancastrian
attack on the Yorkist outpost. Lord Fitz waiter,

TO WTON FIELD

the Yorkist commander, lay asleep in bed at the
time. Seizing a pole-axe at his sudden awakening,
he was slain almost instantly, but his force, succeed-
ing in driving the enemy across the river, took up
a position at Broth erton, the Lancastrians falling-
back in disorder to Dintingdale, near Barkston Ash,
where, later in the

\\« Bramtam

TATKASTER

day, the Lancas-
trian, Lord Clifford,
was slain by an
arrow. The advance-
guard of the Lancas-
trian army now fell
back upon the main
body, which took up
a well- chosen posi-
tion between the
villages of Saxton
and Towton, lying
across a rising road
which led out of the
former place, and
having on its right
the steeply falling
meadows leading
down into the deep
depression of Towton Dale, where the Cock Beck still
wanders in far-flung loops in the flat lands below. On
their left the ground stretched away for some distance
and then fell gently towards the flats of Church Fenton.
At their rear the road descended steeply again into
Towton, while Tad caster lay three miles and York

iancasfriant
Yor/cists

FERRYBRIDGE

THE BATTLEFIELD OF TOWTON AND
SURROUNDING COUNTRY.

84 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

eleven miles beyond. It was a position of great
strength and one that could only possibly be turned
from the left. The fatal defect of it lay in the
chance, in the case of defeat, of the beaten army
being disorganised by a retreat down so steep a
road, leading as it did to the crossing of a stream
swollen with winter rains.

In visiting this spot, we must bear in mind that
the broad road from Ferrybridge to Tadcaster and
York was not then in existence. The way lay across
the elevated land which, rising from Barkston Ash
towards Saxton, reaches to a considerable height
between that village and Towton. From this com-
manding spot the valleys of the Wharfe and Ouse
lie plainly unfolded, and the towers of York itself
may be seen on the skyline, on the verge of this wide
expanse of meadows and woodlands.

The hedgerows on the way to the battlefield are
remarkable for the profusion of briar-roses that grow
here in place of the more usual blackberry brambles
and thorns ; and Bloody Meadow, the spot where the
thickest of the fight took place, was until quite
recently thickly overgrown with the red and white
roses with which Nature had from time immemorial
planted this scene of strife. Latterly they have all
been grubbed up by farmers, keener on the purity of
their grasslands than on historic associations.

The main body of the Yorkists, advancing to
Saxton, opened the attack on the Lancastrians early
in the morning of Palm Sunday, the 29th. The
centre of the fight was in the meadow on the left
hand of the road leading towards Towton, a short

THE BATTLE OF TOWTON 85

distance beyond Towton Dale quarry. The Lan-
castrians numbered 60,000 men, the Yorkists 48,600.
For ten hours the furious encounter raged, 'sore
fought, for hope of life was set aside on every
part.' Six years' warfare, from 1455, when the
first battle of St. Albans had been fought, had
rendered the enemies implacable. Almost every

combatant had already lost kinsfolk, and intense
hatred caused the order on both sides that no quarter
was to be given and no prisoners taken. The day
was bitterly cold, and snowstorms swept the upland,
driving in the faces of the Lancastrians with such
blinding fury that their arrows, shot in reply to the
Yorkist volleys, could not be properly aimed, and
so missed their mark. A hand-to-hand encounter

86 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

with swords and battle-axes then followed, obstinately
fought, but resulting practically in the butchery of
the Lancastrians, for nearly the half of their whole
force were slain or met their death either in Towton
Dale or at the crossing of the stream down the road
past Towton Hall. The rest fled to Tadcaster and
on to York, where Henry the Sixth, the Queen, and
the young Prince of Wales were waiting the result of

TOWTON DALE.

the fight. They left immediately, and the victorious
Duke of York entered the ancient city.

Many proud nobles fell that day with the men-at-
arms ; among others, Lord Dacre, fighting for the
Eed Rose, shot by a boy concealed in what the country
people call a ' bur-tree/ that is to say, an elder. He
lies buried in the churchyard of Saxton, on the north
side of the church, under a much-mutilated altar-
tomb, whose inscription refers to him as ' verus miles '

RELICS OF THE FIGHT

—a true knight. Tradition yet tells of his death, in
the local rhyme :—

' The Lord of Dacres
Was slain in the North Acres,'

fields still known by that name. Many grave mounds
remain in Bloody Meadow, where a rude cross leans,
half hidden under a tangled hedge ; and in 1848,
during some excavations in Saxton churchyard, a

LKAD CHAPEL.

stratum of bones, four feet in thickness, was exposed,
the poor relics of those who fell in the great fight.
Others still are said to have been buried in the little
chapel of Lead, a mile away, by the banks of the
Cock, whose stream ran red that day. A few stones
at the back of Towton Hall mark the place where
a votive chapel was erected where prayers might
be said for the souls of the dead, whose numbers on
both sides are said by one authority to have reached
36,776. Relics have been found on the battlefield.

88 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Many years ago a wandering antiquary found a
farmer's wife breaking sugar with a battle-axe dis-
covered in the river. She did not know what it
was, but he did, and secured it. It is now at Alnwick
Castle. In 1785 was found a gold ring which had
belonged to the Earl of Northumberland, who was
carried mortally wounded from the field. It weighs
an ounce, and bears the Percy Lion, with inscription,
'Now ys thus.' Another interesting and pathetic
find was a spur, engraved with ' En loial amour, tout
mon coer/ the relic of some unknown knight.

XIV

It is a wild, weird kind of country upon which we
enter, on the way from Brotherton to Aberford and
the North. Away to the left suddenly opens a wide
valley, in an almost sheer drop from the road, look-
ing out upon illimitable perspectives. Then comes
Fairburn, followed by what used to be Peckfield
Turnpike, where the ' Boot and Shoe ' inn stands at
the fork of the roads, and where the Leeds and
London ' Royal Mail,' ' Rockingham/ and * Union
Post' coaches turned off. Micklefield, two miles
beyond, approached by a fine avenue of elms, is an
abject coal-mining village ; and hauling-gear, smoke,
and the inky blackness of the roads emphasise the
fact, even if the marshalled coal -wagons on the
railway did not give it insistence. Coming up the
craggy rise out of Micklefield and its coal, on to Hook

ABERFORD 89

Moor, one of the finest stretches of the road, qua
road, brings the traveller past the lodge-gates of
Parlington Park and the oddly ecclesiastical-looking
almshouses beyond, down into the stony old village
of Aberford, which lies in a depression on the Cock
Beck. Beyond the village, on journeying towards
it, one sees the long straight white road ascending
the bastioned heights of windy Bramham Moor ; and
the sight clinches any half-formed inclination to

RUINED MILL, OVERLOOKING ABERFORD.

rest a while at Aberford before climbing to that airy
eminence.

Aberford still seems to be missing its old posting
and coaching traffic, and to be awaiting the return
of the days when the Carlisle and Glasgow mail
changed at the ' Swan,' a fine old inn, now much
shrunken from its original state. Stone-quarrying
and the neighbouring coal-mines keep the village
from absolutely decaying ; but it still lives in the

9o THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

past. The picturesque old settles and yawning fire-
places of the ' Swan,' and of that oddly named inn,
the * Arabian Horse/ eloquent of the habits of genera-
tions ago, survive to show us what was the accom-
modation those old inns provided. If more primitive,
it was heartier, and a great deal more comfortable,
than that of modern hotels.

A ruined windmill of strange design, perched on
the hillside road behind the village, is the best point
whence to gain an idea of the country in midst of
which Aberford is set. It is boldly undulating
country, hiding in the folds of its hills many old-
world villages. Chief among them, two miles off
the road, is Barwick-in-Elmete — i.e. in the elm
country — with its prehistoric mounds and the modern
successor of an ancient maypole, set up in the village
street by the cross, presented in May 1898 by Major-
General Gascoigne, of Parlington Park.

The road two miles out of Aberford reaches that
home of howling winds, that most uncomfortable and
undesirable place, Bramham Moor. Here, where the
Bramham Moor inn stands at the crossing of the
Leeds and York road, a considerable traffic enlivened
the way until sixty years ago. Since that time the
broad roadways in either direction have been empty,
except when the hounds meet here in the hunting
season, when, for a brief hour, old times seem come
again. It was along this cross-road that ' Nimrod,'
that classic coaching authority, travelled in 1827, his
eagle eye engaged in criticism of the Yorkshire pro-
vincial coaches.

The rustical driver of the Leeds to York stage,

A COACHING CRITIC

happily, did not know who his passenger was. Let
us hope he never saw the criticism of himself, his
coach and horses, and everything that was his, which
appeared shortly afterwards in the Sporting Magazine.

BAUWICK-IN-ELMETE.

Everything, says ' Nimrod,' was inferior. The man
who drove (he scorns, you see, to call him a coach-
man) was more like a Welsh drover than anything
else. The day was cold, but he had neither gloves,
boots, nor gaiters. However, he conducted the
coach only a ten miles' stage, and made up with

92 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

copious libations of gin for the lack of warm clothing.
On the way he fell to bragging with his box-seat
passenger of the hair's-breadth escapes he had ex-
perienced when driving one of the Leeds to London
opposition coaches ; and ' Nimrod ' complimenting
him on the skill he must have shown on those
occasions, he proceeded to give a taste of his quality,
which resulted in his getting the reins clubbed and
a narrow escape from being overturned. ' Nimrod '
soon had enough of it, and at the first opportunity
pretended to be ill and went inside, as being the
least dangerous place. Arriving at Tadcaster, ten
miles from York, the door was opened, and ' Please
to remember the coachman' tingled in the ears of
the passengers. ' What now ? ' asked ' Nimrod,' ' are
you going no farther ? ' ' No, sir, but ah's goes
back at night,' was the Yorkshireman's answer.
' Then you follow some trade here, of course ? ' con-
tinued the great coaching expert. ' No, sir,' said a
bystander, 'he has got his horses to clean.' Fancy
a coachman, even if only of that inferior kind, who
could not be called anything better than 'the man
who drove,' — fancy a coachman seeing to his own
horses ! ' Nimrod ' was properly shocked at this, and
with memories of coaching nearer London, with
stables and yards full of ostlers and helpers, and
the coachmen, their drinking done, flirting with the
Hebes of the bar, could only say, with a gasp, ' Oh !
that's the way your Yorkshire coaching is done,
is it?'

He then saw his fellow-passengers pull out sixpence
each and give it to the driver, who was not only

HUMOURS OF THE BY-STAGE 93

satisfied, but thankful. This also was a novelty.
Coachmen were, in his experience, tipped with
florins and half-crowns, nor even then did they
exhibit symptoms of thankfulness, but took the coin
as of right. ' What am I to do ? ' ' Nimrod ' asked
himself; ' I never gave a coachman sixpence yet,
and I shall not begin that game to-day.' So he
' chucked ' him a ' bob,' which brought the fellow's
hat down to the box of the fore-wheel in gratitude.

With a fresh team and another driver the journey
was continued to York. About half-way, the coach
stopped at a public-house, in the old style ; the driver
got down, the gin-bottle was produced, and, look-
ing out of window, ' Nimrod ' was surprised to see
the man whom he had thought was left behind at
Tadcaster. ' What, are you here ? ' he asked. ' Why.
yes,' answered the man ; ' 'tis market-day at York,
and ah's wants to buy a goose or two.' ' Ah,'
observed ' Nimrod,' ' I thought you were a little in
the huckstering line.'

Bramham Moor leads down into Bramham
village, past the Park, where a ruined manor-house,
destroyed by fire, stands amid formal gardens and
looks tragical. The place wears the aspect of
romance, and seems an ideal home for the ideal
Wicked Squire of Early Victorian novels. Lord
Bingley, who built it and 'laid out the grounds in

94 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

the time of Queen Anne, was not more wicked than
the generality of his contemporaries, but here are all
the ' properties ' with which those novelists sur-
rounded the cynical deceivers of innocence, who
stalked in inky cloaks, curly hats, and tasselled
riding -boots through their gory pages. Here is
Lord Bingley's Walk, an avenue of gigantic beeches
where he did not meet the trustful village maiden,
as he ought to have done, by all the rules ; here
also is the obelisk at the suggestively named Black-
fen, whence twelve avenues diverge — where no
tattered witch ever cursed him, so far as can be
ascertained. Lord Bingley evidently did not live
up to the possibilities of the place, or of his station ;
nor did those who came after him, for no horrid
legend is narrated with bated breath in Bramham
village, which lies huddled together in the hollow
below the park, the world forgetting and by the
world forgot, ever since that leap year, 1408, when
on the 29th of February the Earl of Northumberland,
rebelling against Henry the Fourth, was defeated
and slain by Sir Thomas Rokeby at the battle of
Bramham Moor.

Rising steeply out of Bramham and coming to
the crest at Moor End, where the road descends long
and continuously to Wetherby and the river Wharfe,
we come to what used to be regarded as the half-way
town between London and Edinburgh. The exact
spot, where a milestone told the same tale on either
face, is, in fact, one mile north, where the ' Old Fox '
inn stands. This was, of course, the most noted
landmark on the long road, and the drovers who

WETHERB Y

journeyed past it never failed to look in at the ' Old
Fox ' and * wet their whistles,' to celebrate the com-
pletion of half their task. At Wetherby itself the
' Angel ' arrogated the title of ' half-way house,' and
was the principal coaching inn. It still stands, like
its rival, the ' Swan and Talbot,' smaller *han of yore,
the larger portion of its stables now converted into
cottages. At the 'Angel' the down London and

MOOR END.

Glasgow mail dined, with an hour to spare ; the up
coach hurrying through to its change at Aberford.
Wetherby was a change for the stage-coaches, which
ran the whole seventeen miles to Ferrybridge with
the same teams ; a cruelly long and arduous stretch
for the horses.

This is a hard-featured, stony town ; still, as of
old, chiefly concerned with cattle-raising and cattle-
dealing, and crowded on market-days with farmers

96 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

and drovers driving bargains or swearing at the
terrified efforts of beasts and sheep to find their way
into the shops and inns. Down on the southern side
of the town runs the romantic Wharfe, between rocky
banks, hurrying in swirling eddies towards its con-
fluence with the Ouse, below Tadcaster ; and on to the
north goes the road, through the main street, on past
the conspicuous spire of Kirk Deighton church,
coming in three miles to Walshford, where a bridge
crosses the rocky, tree-embowered Nidd, and that
old posting-house, the comfortable-looking ' Walsh-
ford Bridge Inn/ stands slightly back from the road,
looking like a private mansion gone diffidently into
business.

Beyond Walshford Bridge the road turns suddenly
to the left, and, crossing the railway at lonely
Allerton station, passes a substantial red-brick farm-
house which looks as if it had seen very different
days. And indeed it has, for this was once the
' New Inn,' a changing-place for the mails. Now on
the right comes the long wall of Allerton Park, and
presently there rises ahead that strange mound known
by the equally strange name of Nineveh, a tree-
crowned hill, partly artificial, girdled with prehistoric
earthworks, and honeycombed with the graves of the
forgotten tribes, to whom it was probably at once a
castle, a temple, and a cemetery. The road onward
to Boroughbridge is, indeed, carried over a Roman
way, which itself probably superseded the tracks of
those vanished people, and led to what is now the
village of Aldborough near Boroughbridge, once that
great Roman city of Isurium which rivalled York

BOROUGHBRIDGE 99

itself, and now yields inexhaustible building-stones
for modern cottages, and relics that bring the life of
those ancients in very close touch with that of our
own time : oyster-shells and oyster-knives, pomatum-
pots, pins, and the hundred little articles in daily use
now and fifteen hundred years ago.

Boroughbridge was originally the settlement founded
by the Saxons near the ruined and deserted city of
Isurium. Afraid of the bogies and evil spirits with
which their dark superstitions peopled the ruins, they
dared not live there, but built their abiding-place
by the river Ure, where the mediaeval, but now
modernised, village of Boroughbridge stood, and
where the bridge built by Metcalf, the blind road- and
bridge-maker, over a century ago, spans the weedy
stream in useful but highly unornamental manner.
The battle of Boroughbridge, fought in 1322, is
almost forgotten, and coaching times have left their
impress upon the town instead. The two chief
coaching inns, the ' Crown ' and the ' Greyhounds,'
still face one another in the dull street ; the ' Grey-
hounds ' a mere ghost of its former self, the ' Crown '
larger, but its stables, where a hundred horses found a
shelter, now echoing in their emptiness to the occa-
sional footfall. Oddly enough, a medical practitioner,
a Dr. Hugh Stott, was landlord of the ' Crown ' for
more than fifty years. Probably he and the landlord
of the ' Angel ' at Ferrybridge were the only two
inn-keeping doctors in the kingdom. The 'Crown'
was anciently the home of the Tancreds, a county
family owning property in the neighbourhood : the
' Greyhounds ' obtains its curious plural from the

ioo THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

heraldic shield of the Mauleverers, which displays
three greyhounds, ' courant.' Hotel accommodation
was greatly in request at Boroughbridge in the old
days ; for from this point branched many roads.
Here the Glasgow coaches turned off, and a number
of coaches for Knaresborough, Bipon, Harrogate, and
the many towns of south-west Yorkshire. The
' Edinburgh Express/ which went by way of Glasgow,
also passed through. Boroughbridge was a busy
coaching town, so that ruin, stark, staring, and
complete, fell upon it when railways came.

The remaining nineteen miles to Northallerton
scarce call for detailed description. Kirkby Hill, a
mile out of Boroughbridge, lies to the left, its church-
tower just within sight. This is followed by the
unutterably dull, lifeless, and ugly village of Dish-
forth, leading to the hamlet of Asenby, where the
road descends to the picturesque crossing of the
Swale and the Cod Beck, with the village of Topcliffe
crowning the ridge on the other side : a village better
looking, but as lifeless as the others. Thence flat or
gently undulating roads conduct in twelve miles to
Northallerton, past Busby Stoop Inn, the villages
of Sand Hutton, Newsham, and North and South
Otterington.

South Otterington lives with a black mark in the
memory of antiquaries as that benighted place where
the parishioners thought so little of their church
registers some years ago that they allowed the parish
clerk to treat all the old ones, dating from before the
eighteenth century, as so much waste-paper ; some of
them making an excellent bonfire to singe a goose

PARISH RE GISTERS 1 03

with. They were not singular in this respect, for
churchwardens of different places have been known to
do the most extraordinary things with these valuable
documents. Thoresby, the antiquary, writing of a
particular register, remarks that 'it has not been a
plaything for young pointers. It has not occupied a
bacon-cratch or a bread-and-cheese cupboard. It
has not been scribbled on, within and without/ from
which we infer that that was the common fate, and
that others had been so treated.

The junction of the two main routes of the Great
North Road at Northallerton takes place ignominiously
outside the goods station at a level- crossing.

XVI

The alternative route now described and North-
allerton regained by it, we may resume the long
journey to Edinburgh. It is the completest kind of
change from the wild ups and downs of the Borough-
bridge and Wetherby route to the long featureless
stretches that now lie before us. We will not linger
in the town, but press onward to where the Battle of
the Standard, as the battle of Northallerton is often
known, was fought, on the right-hand side of the
road, near the still unenclosed fragments of Cowton
Moor. It was not a great struggle, for the Scots fled
after a short resistance, and the great numbers of
their slain met their fate rather at the hands of the
peasantry, while fleeing through a hostile country,
than in combat with the English army.

io4 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Standing amid the heathy tussocks of Standard
Hill, looking over the Moor, the wide-spreading hill
and dale of the Yorkshire landscape fades into a blue
or misty distance, and must in its solitude look much
the same as it did in those far distant days. Nothing
save the name of the hillock and that of the farm
called Scot Pits, traditionally said to have been the
place where the Scottish dead were buried, remains to
tell of the struggle. ' Baggamoor,' as old chroniclers
call the battlefield, from the baggage thrown away
by the Scots in their flight, is traversed by the road,
which proceeds by way of Oak Tree and Lovesome
Hills to Great Smeaton, where the mails changed
horses on the short seven miles' stage between it and
Northallerton, or the nine miles to Darlington. The
' Blacksmith's Arms ' was in those times the coaching
inn here, but it has long since been converted into
cottages. William Tweedie, the last of a succession
of three Tweedies who kept the ' Blacksmith's Arms '
and owed their prosperity to the mails changing at
their house, was also the village postmaster. A
God-fearing man and an absent-minded, it is recorded
of him that during a sermon at the parish church
he was surprised in the midst of one of his mental
absences by hearing the preacher enlarge upon the
text of ' Render unto Caesar.' ' Ay,' he said, in a
loud voice, when the duty of paying the king's taxes
and just demands was brought home to the congrega-
tion, ' that puts me in mind o't : there 's old Granny
Metcalf's bin owin' the matter o' eightpence on a
letter these two months past.' Now Widow Metcalf
had paid that eightpence. She was in church, too.

WA YSIDE INNS OF ROMANCE 105

The suddenness of the unjust accusation made her
forget time and place, and she retorted with, 'William
Tweedie, ye 're a liar ! '

The old coach passengers driving through, or
changing at, Great Smeaton must have often
wondered, seeing the smallness of the place, what
size the neighbouring Little Smeaton, away off to the
left, could have been. Their inquiries on that head
were usually answered by the coachmen, who were
wags of sorts, that Little Smeaton consisted of one
dog-kennel and two hen-coops. It is a lonely road
between Northallerton and Darlington, and quips of
this kind probably tasted better when administered
on the spot than they do to the armchair traveller.
Particularly lonely is High Entercommon, where a
turnpike-gate stood in the days that are done,
together with an inn, the ' Golden Lion/ where a few
coaches which made a longer stage from Northallerton
changed. Were it not that William Thompson, land-
lord at the best period in the history of coaching, was
a highly reputable person, and had been coachman to
Sir Bellingham Graham before he set up as innkeeper,
we might point to the house and say how suitable
a locality for the secret roadside crimes of old, of
which novelists delight to tell ! Roads, and travel-
ling before railways, used to set the romancists busily
engaged in spinning the most blood-curdling stories
of villainous innkeepers who, like Bob Acres, kept
'churchyards of their own,' and murderous trap-doors
in their guest-rooms giving upon Golgothas filled
with the bones of their many victims. If one might
credit these astounding stories, the inns that were not

io6 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

murder-shops were few and far between ; but happily
those writers, anxious only to make your blood creep,
were as a rule only exercising their particularly gory
imaginations.

A story of this order is that of a lady who set out
in her carriage to visit some friends in Yorkshire.
She had come to within thirty miles of her destination,
when a thunderstorm which had been threatening
broke violently overhead. Struggling against the
elements, the coachman was glad to espy an old-
fashioned roadside inn presently visible ahead, and,
his mistress expressing a wish to alight and rest
until the storm should abate, he drove up to the
door. It was a wild and solitary spot (they always
are in these stories, and it is astonishing how soli-
tary and wild they are, and how many such places
appeared to exist). The rusty sign creaked dismally
overhead, and the window-shutters flapped violently
in the wind on their broken hinges ; altogether it was
not an inviting spot. But any port in a storm, and
so the lady alighted. She was shown into a large
old-fashioned apartment, and the horses and carriage
were stabled until such time as it might be possible
to resume the journey. But, instead of passing off,
the storm grew momentarily worse. Calling her
servant, she asked him if it was possible to continue
that night, and, on his replying in the negative, re-
luctantly resigned herself to staying under a strange
roof. She had her dinner in solitary state, and then
found all the evening before her, with nothing to
occupy the time. She went to the window and
looked out upon the howling storm, and, tired of that

THE TAPESTRY-ROOM 107

uninviting prospect, gazed listlessly about the room.
It was a large room, ill-furnished, and somewhat out
of repair, for the inn had seen its best days. Evi-
dences of a more prosperous time were left in the
shape of some scattered articles of furniture of a
superior kind and in the presence of a curious piece
of ancient tapestry facing her on the opposite wall,
bearing a design of a life-sized Roman warrior
wielding a truncheon.

But one cannot spend all the evening in contem-
plating the old chairs and moth-eaten tapestry of a
half-furnished room, and the storm-bound traveller
soon wearied of those objects. With nothing else to
do, she took out her purse and began to count her
money and to calculate her travelling expenses.
Having counted the guineas over several times and
vainly tried to make the total balance properly with
her expenditure and the amount she had set out with,
she chanced involuntarily to glance across the room.
Her gaze fell upon the stern visage of the helmeted
Roman, and to her horror the lack-lustre tapestry
eyes were now replaced by living ones, intently re-
garding her and her money. Ninety-nine of every
hundred women would have screamed or fainted, or
have done both ; but our traveller was evidently the
hundredth. She calmly allowed her gaze to wander
absent-mindedly away to the ceiling, as if still
speculating as to the disposition of the missing odd
guineas ; and then, exclaiming, ' Ah ! I have it,' made
for the door, to call her servant, leaving her purse,
apparently disregarded, on the table. In the passage
outside she met the landlord, who desired to know

io8 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

what it might be she wanted. ' To see my man, with
orders for the morning,' said she. The landlord
shuffled away, and her servant presently appeared.
She told him what she had observed, and mounting
upon the furniture he examined the tapestry, with
the result that he found the wall behind it sound
enough in all places, with the exception of the eyes.
On pressing the fabric at those points it gave way,
disclosing a hole bored through the wall and com-
municating with some other room. This discovery
of course aroused the worst suspicions ; but the storm
still raged, it was now late, and to countermand the
accommodation already secured for the night would
be to apprise the landlord of something having been
discovered. There was nothing for it but to stay the
night. To sleep was impossible, and so the lady,
retiring to her bedroom, securely bolting the door,
and assuring herself that no secret panel or trap-door
existed, sat wakefully in a chair all night. Doubtless
the servant did the same, although the story does not
condescend to details where he is concerned. At
length morning came, without anything happening,
and, equally without incident, they set out after
breakfast from this place of dread, the lady having
previously ascertained that the room on the other side
of the wall behind the tapestry was the landlord's
private apartment.

These adventures being afterwards recounted, it
was called to mind that an undue proportion of high-
way robberies had for some time past been occurring
in the immediate neighbourhood of the inn, and a
queer story was remembered of a traveller who had

RUIN OF THE WICKED LANDLORD 109

stayed there overnight being robbed soon after leav-
ing by a highwayman, who, without any preliminary
parley, desired him to instantly take off his right
boot — the boot in which, as a matter of fact, he had
stowed away his money. The highwayman, who evi-
dently had been informed of this secret hiding-place,
extracted the coin, and, returning the boot, went on
his way. It afterwards appeared that the traveller
had stowed his money in his boot while under the
impression that he was alone in the tapestry-room.
He had reckoned without the Centurion.

The inn of course fell into evil repute, and the
landlord was soon afterwards compelled to give up
business. But the provoking part of it all, from the
point of view of the historian, is that the story does
not descend to topographical particulars, and that the
description of the place as being in Yorkshire is
necessarily of the vaguest, considering the vastness
of the shire.

XVII

Dalton-upon-Tees, three miles onward from High
and Low Entercommon, shows little to the passer-by
on the Great North Road, who, a mile beyond its
scattered cottages, looking as though they had lost
themselves, comes to Croft, to the river Tees, and
to the end of Yorkshire. It behoves one to speak
respectfully of Croft and its Spa, for its waters are
as nasty as those of Harrogate, with that flavour
of rotten eggs so highly approved by the medical

no THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

profession ; and only the vagaries of fashion can be
held accountable for the comparative neglect of the
one and the favouring of the other. Sulphur renders
both equally nauseous and healthful, but Croft finds
few votaries compared with its great and successful
rival, and a gentle melancholy marks the spot where,
on the Yorkshire bank, the mouldy-looking Croft Spa
Hotel fronts the road, its closed assembly-rooms,
wbere once the merry crowds forgathered, given
over to damp and mildew. But Croft is a pretty
place, straggling on both the Yorkshire and Durham
banks of the Tees ; with a fine old church com-
manding the approach from the south, and an equally
fine old Gothic bridge carrying the road across the
stream into the ancient Palatinate of Durham. It
was here that each successive Prince-Bishop of that
see was met and presented with the falchion that
slew the Sockburn Worm, one of the three mythical
monsters that are said to have infested Durham
and Northumberland. Like the Lambton Worm,
and the Laidly — that is to say, the Loathly — Worm
of Spindleston Heugh, the Sockburn terror, according
to mediaeval chroniclers, was a ' monstrous and poy-
sonous vermine or wyverne, aske or werme which
overthrew and devoured many people in fight, for
y* ye sent of ye poyson was so strong y* noe p'son
might abyde it/ The gallant knight who at some
undetermined period slew this legendary pest was
Sir John Conyers, descended from Roger de Conyers,
Constable of Durham Castle in the time of William
the Conqueror. The family held thp manor of Sock-
burn by the curious tenure of presenting the newly

THE SOCKBURN WORM

appointed Bishop Palatine of Durham on his first
entry into his diocese with the falchion that slew
the Worm. The presentation was made on Croft
Bridge, with the words : — ' My Lord Bishop, I here
present you with the falchion wherewith the cham-
pion Conyers slew the worm, dragon, or fiery flying
serpent which destroyed man, woman and child ; in
memory of which the king then reigning gave him
the manor of Sockburn, to hold by this tenure, that
upon the first entrance of every bishop into the

CROFT BRIDGE.

county the falchion should be presented.' Taking
the falchion into his hand, the Bishop immediately
returned it, wishing the owner of Sockburn health,
long life, and prosperity, and the ceremony was
concluded. Sockburn, seven miles below Croft, on
the Durham shore of the Tees, is no longer owned by
that old heroic family, for the proud stock which in
its time had mated with the noblest in England
decayed, and the last Conyers, Sir Thomas, died
a pauper in Chester-le- Street workhouse in 1810.
The manor-house of Sockburn has long since been

112

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

swept away, and the old church is a roofless ruin,
the estate itself having long since passed to the
Blackett family, in whose possession the wondrous
falchion now remains. The Bishops of Durham, no
longer temporal princes, do not now receive it, the
last presentation having been made to Bishop Van
Mildert by the steward of Sir Edward
Blackett in 1826.

Croft Bridge, a massive and venerable-
looking stone structure of seven arches,
built in 1676, is itself the successor of
a much older building, referred to in a
Eoyal Brief of 1531 as being ' the moste
directe and sure waye and passage for
the King o'er Soveraigne Lorde's armie
and ordyn'ce to resort and pass over into
the north p'tes and marches of this his
reaulme, for the surtie and defence of
the same againste the invasion of the
Scotts and others his enemyes, over
which such armys and ordyn'ces hathe
hertofor always bene accostomyed to
goo and passe.'

Here we are in Durham, and three miles
from Darlington. Looking backwards on crossing the
bridge, the few scattered houses of the hither shore
are seen beside the way ; one of them, the * Comet '
hotel, with a weather-beaten picture-sign of the
famous pedigree bull of that name, and the inscrip-
tion, '"Comet," sold in 1810 for one thousand
guineas.' The Tees goes on its rippling way through
the pointed arches of the historic bridge, with Broad

THE SOCKBURN
FALCHION.

'HELL'S KETTLES' 113

shingly beaches over against the rich meadows, the
road pursuing its course to cross that rival stream,
the Skerne, at Oxneyfield Bridge, a quarter of a
mile ahead. Close by, in a grass meadow to the
right of the road, are the four pools called by the
terrific name of ' Hell's Kettles,' which testify by
the sulphureous taste of their water to the quality
of Croft Spa. Of course, they have their wonderful
legends, the first telling how on Christmas Day
1179 the ground rose to the height of the highest
hills, 'higher than the spires and towers of the
churches, and so remained at that height from nine
of the morning until sunset. At the setting of the
sun the earth fell in with so horrid a crash that all
who saw that strange mound and heard its fall were
so amazed that for very fear many died, for the
earth swallowed up that mound, and where it stood
was a deep pool.' This circumstantial story was told
by an abbot of Jervaulx, but is not sufficiently
marvellous for the peasantry, who account for the
pools by a tale of supernatural intervention. Accord-
ing to this precious legend, the farmer owning the
field being about to carry his hay on June 11, St.
Barnabas' Day, it was pointed out that he had much
better attend to his religious duties than work on
the anniversary of the blessed saint, whereupon he
replied : —

' Barnaby yea, Barnaby nay,
I '11 hae my hay, whether God will or nay ' ;

and, the ground opening, he and his carts and horses
were instantly swallowed up. . The tale goes on to
say that, given a fine day and clear water, the

n4 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

impious farmer and his carts and horses may yet
be seen floating deep down in these supposedly
fathomless pools ! De Foe, however, travelling this
way in 1724, is properly impatient of these tales.
* Tis evident/ says he, ' they are nothing but old
coal-pits, filled with water by the river Tees.'

XVIII

Darlington, to which we now come, is a very busy,
very prosperous, very much rebuilt town, nursing a
sub-Metropolitan swagger of architectural pretension
in its chief streets infinitely unlike anything expected
by the untravelled in these latitudes. There is a
distinctly Holloway Eoad — plus Whitechapel Road—
and Kennington Lane air about Darlington which
does but add to the piquancy of those streets.
Tumbledown houses of no great age and no con-
ceivable interest are shouldered by flaunting shops ;
or rather, to speak by the card, by 'stores' and
' emporia ' ; these alternating with glittering public-
houses and restaurants. The effect can only be
paralleled by imagining a typical general servant
dressed in a skirt and train for a Queen's Drawing
Room, with ploughboy's boots, a cloth jacket, and
ostrich-feathered hat to complete the costume. It is
a town only now beginning to realise that prosperity
must make some outward show of the fact, and it
is accordingly going .in for show in whole-hearted
fashion, and emerging from the grime in which James

DARLINGTON 115

the First found it in 1617. 'Darneton!' he said
when told its name ; ' I think it 's Darneton i' th'
Dirt.' Dirty indeed it must have been for James,
fresh from his own capital, where they flung their
sewage from the windows into the streets, to have

found it remarkable. De Foe, fifty years later, said,
' Darlington, a post-town, has nothing remarkable in
it but dirt, and a high bridge over little or no water.'
An odd contemporary commentary upon this seems
to lurk in the fact that cloth was then brought to
Darlington from all parts — even from Scotland — to
be bleached !

More akin to those times than these are the names
of the streets, which, like those of York, are chiefly
'gates': — High Northgate, Skinnergate, Bondgate,
Black wellgate, and Priestgate.

In vain will the pilgrim seek the ' Black Bear/
the inn at Darlington to which Frank Osbaldistone,
in the pages of Rob Roy, came. Scott describes the
wayfarers whom the young squire met on his way
from London to York and the North as * characters
of a uniform and uninteresting description,' but they
are interesting to us, belonging as they do to a time
long past. ' Country parsons, jogging homewards
after a visitation ; farmers, or graziers, returning
from a distant market ; clerks of traders, travelling
to collect what was due to their masters in provincial
towns ; with now and then an officer going down
into the country upon recruiting service.' These
persons kept the tapsters and the turnpikes busy,
and at night-time, when they forgathered at the
roadside inns, sandwiched their talk of cattle and the

n6 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

solvency of traders with terrifying tales of robbers.
' At such tales, like children, closing their circle round
the fire when the ghost-story draws to its climax,
they drew near to each other, looked before and
behind them, examined the priming of their pistols,
and vowed to stand by each other in case of danger ;
an engagement which, like other offensive and defen-
sive alliances, sometimes glided out of remembrance
when there was an appearance of actual peril.'

This was about 1715. In those days, as Scott
says, 'journeys of any length being made on horse-
back, and, of course, by brief stages, it was usual
always to make a halt on the Sunday in some town
where the traveller might attend divine service, and
his horse have the benefit of the day of rest. A
counterpart to this decent practice, and a remnant
of old English hospitality, was, that the landlord of
a principal inn laid aside his character of publican
on the seventh day and invited the guests who
chanced to be within his walls to take a part of the
family beef and pudding.'

The 'Black Bear' at Darlington, as pictured by
Scott, was such a place and the landlord as typical
a host ; and here Frank Osbaldistone met the first
Scot he had ever seen, ' a decentish hallion — as canny
a North Briton as e'er crossed Berwick Bridge '-
which was high praise from mine host, for innkeepers
loved not Scottish folk and their thrifty ways. But,
as already remarked, the ' Black Bear ' at Darlington
does not exist, and coaching relics are rare in this
town, whose modern prosperity derives from railways.
It is, therefore, with singular appropriateness that

THE PIONEER RAIL WA Y

117

Stephenson's ' Locomotion,' the first engine for that
first of railways, the Stockton and Darlington, long
since withdrawn from service, has been mounted on
a pedestal at Darlington Station. In heathen lands
this ancestor of the modern express locomotive would
be worshipped as a fetich, and truly it is an ugly and
uncanny-looking object.

The Stockton and Darlington Railway Act dates
from 1821; the line to be worked by 'men and

5 *• D. R. N? I. 1825

'LOCOMOTION': THE FIRST ENGINE OF THE STOCKTON AND
DARLINGTON RAILWAY.

horses, or otherwise/ steam not being contemplated.
The construction was begun in May 1822, and mean-
while the Rainhill experiments had proved the possi-
bility of locomotive engines. The Act was therefore
amended, to authorise the use of them and to pernjit
the conveyance of passengers ; a kind of traffic which,
odd though it may seem now, was not contemplated
by the projectors, whose original idea was a railway
for the conveyance of coal. It was on September

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

27th, 1825, that the line was opened, a train of
thirty- eight wagons travelling, as a contemporary
newspaper breathlessly announced, 'with such velo-
city that in some parts the speed was frequently
twelve miles an hour.' Curiously enough, however,
the first passengers, after the opening ceremony, were
conveyed, not by steam, but by a rough coach, like
a gipsy caravan, running on the rails and drawn
by a horse. This odd contrivance was called the
' Experiment/ and did the twelve miles in two hours.

THE 'EXPERIMENT.'

It was followed by other vehicles, consisting of old
stage-coach bodies mounted on railway wheels, and
it was not until some months had passed that pas-
sengers were intrusted to the locomotive. The first
passenger train ran a spirited race with the coach
over the twelve miles' course, steam winning by a
hundred and twenty yards, amid the cheers of excited
crowds. After thirty -eight years of independent
existence, the Stockton and Darlington line was, with
its branches, finally absorbed into the North -Eastern
system, in 1863.

OLD TRAVEL AND NEW 119

Darlington is thus a place entirely inimical to
coaching interests and memories. Here, on its
pedestal, stands the first of the iron monsters that
killed the coaches, and the town itself largely lives
by manufacturing railway wagons and iron and steel
bridges. But coaching had had its day, and did not
die untimely. A few years longer and the great high-
roads, already inconveniently crowded, must have
been widened to accommodate the increased traffic.
Eailways have been beneficent in many directions,
and they have enabled many hundreds of thousands
to live in the country who would otherwise have been
pent in stuffy streets. Imagination fails in the task
of endeavouring to picture what the roads would have
been like to-day if road-travel had remained the only
means of communication. Locomotion would have
been immensely restricted, of course ; but the mere
increase of population must have brought huge
crowds of additional passengers. Figures are com-
monly said to be dry, but they can occasionally be
eloquent enough. For instance, when we compare
the population of the United Kingdom in 1837, when
the Queen came to the throne, and now, and con-
sider the bearing of those figures on this question,
they are more than eloquent, and are even startling.
There were twenty-five and a-half millions of persons
in these islands in the first year of Victoria's reign.
There are now forty millions and a-half. Fifteen
millions of persons, most of whom would have used
the roads, added in sixty years ! Of course, the
opportunities for cheap and quick travel have made
frequent travellers of those who otherwise would

120 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

never or rarely have stirred from their homes ; but
railways have wrought greater changes than that.
What, let us think, would have been the present-
day position of the city of London without railways ?
It must needs have remained largely what it was
when the ' short stages ' conveyed such citizens as
did not live in the city to and from their residences
in the suburbs, which then extended no further than
Highgate, Chiswick, Norwood, and Stockwell. A
stage-coach commonly held sixteen persons, twelve
outside and four in ; and allowing for those who might
manage to walk into the city, how many of such
coaches should we require nowadays, supposing rail-
ways suddenly abolished, to convey the city's myriad
day population ? So many thousands that the task
would be impossible. The impossibility of it gives
us at once the measure of the railways' might, and
raises them from the mere carriers we generally think
them to the height of all-powerful social forces whose
effects may be sought in every detail of our lives.
To them the wide-spreading suburbs directly owe
their existence, equally as the deserted main roads of
yester-year owed their loneliness to the same cause ;
and social scientists have it that they have performed
what may at first sight seem a miracle : that, in fact,
they have increased the population. If railways had
not come to ease the growing pressure that began to be
felt upon the roads in the early ' twenties,' something
else must have appeared to do the work of speedy
conveyance, and that something would have been the
Motor Car. Kailway competition and the restrictive
legislation that forbade locomotive carriages on high-

KISE OF RAIL WA YS 123

ways served to keep motor cars under until recently ;
but away back to 1787, when the first steam-carriage
was made, the problem of mechanical traction on
roads was being grappled with, and many very good
steam-cars made their appearance between 1820 and
1830. The caricaturists of the period were kept
busily engaged making more or less pertinent fun of
them ; in itself a testimony to the interest they were
exciting even then. Here is a typical skit of the
period which takes a renewed interest now that we
are on the threshold of an era of horseless traction.

Few things are more remarkable than the speed
with which railways were constructed through the
length and breadth of the country, but it was long
before through communication between London and
Edinburgh was established. It was a coach-guard on
this road who, just before the last coach was run off
it by the locomotive, sadly remarked that 'railways
were making a gridiron of England.' They \vere ;
but it was not until 1846 and 1848, twenty-one and
twenty-three years after the initial success of the
Stockton and Darlington line, that by the opening of
the Edinburgh and Berwick Railway, and the build-
ing of the railway bridge across the Tweed, the last
links of the railway journey between the two capitals
were completed. Even now, it requires the united
efforts of three entirely distinct and independent
railway companies to convey the through traffic of
under four hundred miles between the' two capitals.
The Great Northern territory ends at Shaftholrne,
near Doncaster, whence the North-Eastern's system
conducts to the Border at Berwick-upon-Tweed, the

i24 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

remaining fifty miles belonging to the North British
Railway.

De Quincey, in his rhapsody on the ' English Mail
Coach/ says: 'The modern modes of travelling cannot
compare with the old mail-coach system in grandeur
and power. They boast of more velocity, not, how-
ever, as a consciousness, but as a fact of our lifeless
knowledge, resting upon alien evidence ; as, for
instance, because somebody says that we have gone
fifty miles in the hour, though we are far from feeling
it as a personal experience, or upon the evidence of a
result, as that actually we find ourselves in York,
four hours after leaving London. Apart from such an
assertion, or such a result, I myself am little aware
of the pace. But, seated on the old mail-coach, we
needed no evidence out of ourselves to indicate the
velocity. We heard our speed, we saw it, we felt it
as a thrilling ; and this speed was not the product of
blind, insensate agencies, that had no sympathy to
give, but was incarnated in the fiery eyeballs of the
noblest amongst brutes, in his dilated nostril, spas-
modic muscles, and thunder-beating hoofs.'

But, in truth, railways and coaches have each their
especial variety of the romance of speed. De Quincey
missed the quickening rush and contact of the air
quite as much as any other of the sights, sounds, and
sensations he speaks of when travelling by railway ;
a method of progression which does not admit of
outside passengers. Nothing in its special way can
be more exhilarating than travelling by coach as an
' outside ' ; few things so unsatisfactory as the position
of an ' inside ' ; and if a well-groomed coach is a

ROMANCE OF THE RAIL WA Y

'25

thing of beauty, there is also a beautiful majesty in a
locomotive engine that has been equally well looked
after. One of the deep-chested Great Northern
expresses puffing its irresistible way past the green
eyes of the dropped semaphores of some busy junction
at night-time, or coming as with the rush and certainty
of Fate along the level stretches of line that characterise
the route of the iron road to the North, is a sight

THE IRON ROAD TO THE NORTH.

calculated to rouse enthusiasm quite as much as a
coach. Nor are railways always hideous objects.
It is true that in and around the great centres of
population where railway lines converge and run in
filthy tunnels and along smoke- begrimed viaducts
they sound the last note of squalor, but in the country
it is a different matter. The embankments are in
spring often covered with a myriad wildflowers ; the
viaducts give a human interest to coombe and gully.

i26 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Lovers of the country can certainly point to places
which, once remote and solitary, have been populated
and spoiled by the readiness of railway access ; but
the locomotive has rendered more holidays possible,
and has kept the roads in a decent solitude for the
cyclist. Imagine, if you please, the Great North
Eoad nowadays without the railway. A hundred
coaches, more or less, raced along it in the last years
of the coaching age, at all hours of the day and night.
How many would suffice for the needs of the travelling
public to-day ? and what chance would be left to the
tourist, afoot or awheel ?

XIX

Beyond its grand old church, Darlington has nothing
of great antiquity to show the stranger, save one
object of very high antiquity indeed, before whose
hoary age even Norman and Early English architec-
ture is comparatively a thing of yesterday. This is
the Bulmer Stone, a huge boulder of granite, brought
by glacial action in some far-away ice-age from the
heights of Shap Fell in distant Westmoreland to the
spot on which it has ever since rested. Darlington
has meanwhile risen out of the void and lonely
countryside ; history has passed by, from the remote
times of the blue-stained Britons, down to the present
era of the blue-habited police ; and that old stone
remains beside the road to the North. Modern pave-
ments encircle it, and gas-lamps shame with their

AYCLIFFE 127

modernity its inconceivable age, but not with too
illuminating a ray, and the stranger roaming Darling-
ton after nightfall barks his shins against the un-
expected bulk of the Buhner Stone, just as effectually
as countless generations before him have done.

The long rise of Harrowgate Hill conducts out of
Darlington and leads on to Coatham Mundeville, a
tiny hamlet on the crest of a hill, with an eighteenth-
century house, a row of cottages, and an inn,
making together an imposing figure against the
sky-line, although when reached they are common-
place enough. The village of Aycliffe lies beyond,
on its height, overlooking a scene of quarrying and
coal-mining ; an outlook which until Cromwell's time
was one of dense oak-woods. He it was who caused
those woods to be felled to mend the road on to
Durham and make it firm enough for his ordnance
to pass. Whether the name of Aycliffe derives (as
some would have it) from ' oak hill,' or whether it
was originally ' High Cliffe,' or obtains its name from
some forgotten haia, or enclosure on this eminence,
let us leave for others to fight over : it is an equally
unprofitable and insoluble discussion. As well might
one hope to obtain a verbatim report of one or other
of the two Synods held here in 782 and 789, of which
two battered Saxon crosses in the churchyard are
thought to be relics, as to determine this question.

For the rest, Aycliffe is quite unremarkable.
Leaving it, and 'coming downhill over an arched cross-
ing over a marsh, dignified by the name of Howden
Bridge, we reach Traveller's Eest and its two inns,
the ' Bay Horse ' and ' Gretna Green Wedding Inn/

128

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

An indescribable air of romance dignifies these two
solitary inns that confront one another across the
highway, and form all there is of Traveller's Eest.
The ' Wedding Inn/ the more modern of the two,
has for its sign the picture of a marriage ceremony
in that famous Border smithy. The ' Bay Horse ' is
the original Traveller's Rest. Dating back far into
the old coaching and posting times, its stables of
that era still remain ; but what renders the old

TRAVELLER S REST.

house particularly notable is its sign, the odd figure
of a horse within an oval, seen on its wall, with
the word ' Liberty ' in company with the name of
' Traveller's Eest ' and the less romantic than com-
mercial announcement of ' Spirituous Liquors.' Once,
perhaps, painted the correct tint of a 'bay' horse,
the elements have reduced it to an un'obtrusive brown
that bids fair to modestly fade into the obscurity of
a neutral tint unless the landlord presently fulfils
his intention, expressed to the present historian, of

RUSHYFORD BRIDGE 129

having it repainted, to render it ' more viewly ' ; which
appears to be the North-country phrase for making
a thing 'more presentable.' To this old sign belongs
the legend of a prisoner being escorted to Durham
Gaol and escaping through the horse ridden by his
mounted guard throwing its rider near here. Hence
the word ' Liberty.'

Wbodham, a mile distant down the road, bears a
name recalling the times when it was in fact a
hamlet in those oak-woods of which we spoke at
AyclifYe. It. is now just a group of two or three

RUSHYFORD BRIDGE.

cottages and a humble inn, the ' Stag,' in a dip of
the way. Beyond it comes Rushyford Bridge, a
pretty scene, where a little tributary of the Skerne
prattles over its stony bed and disappears under the
road beside that old-time posting-house and inn, the
* Wheatsheaf.' The old house still stands and faces
down the road ; but it has long since ceased to be
an inn, and, remodelled in recent taste, is now a
private residence. The old drive up to the house
is now converted into lawns and flower-beds. Groups
of that graceful tree, the Lombardy poplar, overhang

130 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

the scene and shade the little hamlet that straggles
down a lane to the left hand. The old ' Wheat-
sheaf has its memories. It was a favourite resort
of Lord Eldon's. Holt, the landlord, was a boon
companion of his. The great lawyer's vacations
were for many years spent here, and he established
a cellar of his own in the house, stocked chiefly
with ' Carbonell's Fine Old Military Port,' of which,
although they were decidedly not military, he and
his host used to drink seven bottles a day between
them, valiant topers that they were. On Saturdays
—we have it on the authority of Sydney Smith—
they drank eight bottles ; the extra one being to
fortify themselves against the Sunday morning's
service. Lord Eldon invariably attended church at
Kushyford, and compelled his unwilling host to go
with him. In London he rarely went, remarking
when reproached that he, a buttress of the Church,
should fail in his devotions, that he was 'only an
outside buttress.'

Lord Eldon was a mean man. It is a defect to be
noticed in many others who, like him, have acquired
wealth by great personal efforts; with him, how-
ever, it reached a height and quality not frequently
met. He was not merely ' stingy,' but mean in
the American sense of the word. Contemporary
with Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, and other valiant ' four-
bottle men' of a century ago, and with an almost
unlimited capacity for other persons' port, his brother,
Lord Stowell, aptly said of him that ' he would take
any given quantity/

With these memories to beguile the way, we come to

FERRYHILL 131

Ferry hill, a mining village crowning a ridge looking
over Spennymoor and the valley of the Wear. To
Ferryhill came in 1634 three soldiers — a captain, a
lieutenant, and an ensign — from Norwich on " a tour
and in search of adventure. These were early days
for tours ; days, too, when adventures were not
far to seek. However, risky though their trip may
have been, they returned in safety, as may be judged
from the lieutenant having afterwards published an
account of their wanderings through twenty-six
English counties. Clad in Lincoln green, like young
foresters, they sped the miles with jest and observa-
tions on the country they passed through. Of Ferry-
hill they remark that 'such as know it knows it
overtops and commands a great part of the country.'
On this Pisgah, then, they unpacked their travelling
plate and ' borrowed a cup of refreshing health from
a sweet and most pleasant spring ' ; by which it
seems that there were teetotallers in those days
also. Those were the days before coal-mines and
blast-furnaces cut up the country, and before
Spennymoor, away on the left, was converted from
a moorland into a township — a sufficiently startling-
change.

Seen from down the road looking southwards,
Ferryhill forms an impressive coronet to the long
ridge of hill on which it stands ; its rough, stone-
built cottages — merely commonplace to a nearer
view — taking an unwarranted importance from the
bold serrated outlines they present against the sky,
and looking like the bastioned outworks of some
Giant Blunderbore's ogreish stronghold. The traveller

132 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

from the south, passing through Ferryhill and looking
backwards from the depths of the valley road, is
cheated of a part of this romantic impression ; he
has explored the arid and commonplace village and
has lost all possibility of illusion. Let us, therefore,
envy the pilgrims from the north. It is, indeed,
a highly interesting view, looking back upon Ferry-
hill, and one touched with romance of both the
gentle and the terrifying sort. In the first place,
to that tall embankment seen in the accompanying
.drawing of the scene belongs a story. You perceive
that earthwork to be unfinished. It sets out from
the cutting seen in the distant hillside, and, cross-
ing the road which comes in a breakneck curve down-
hill, pursues a straight and level course for the
corresponding rise on the hither side, stopping, in-
complete, somewhat short of it. ' An abandoned
railway,' thinks the stranger, and so it looks to be ;
but it is, in fact, a derelict enterprise embarked
upon at the close of the coaching era by a local
Highway Board for the purpose of giving a flat and
straight road across the valley. It begins with a
long cutting on the southern side of the hill on
which the village stands, and, going behind the back
of the houses, emerges as seen in the picture. The
tolls authorised would have made the undertaking a
paying one, only road travel ceased before the work
was finished. Eailways came to put an end to the
project and to inflict upon the projectors a ruinous
loss.

A more darkling romance, however, broods upon
the scene. Away on the western sky-line stands

'ANDRE W MILLS' STOB ' 135

the conspicuous tower of Merrington church, and
near it the farmhouse where, on January 28, 1685,
Andrew Mills, a servant of the Brass family, who
then farmed the adjacent land, murdered the three
children in the absence of their parents. It is a
story of whose shuddering horror nothing is lost in
contemporary accounts, but we will leave it to the
imagination. It is sufficient to say that the assassin,
a lad of eighteen years of age, seems to have been
half-witted, speaking of having been instigated to
the deed by a demon who enjoined him to ' Kill-
kill.' To be more or less mad was no surety against
punishment in those times, and so Andrew Mills was
found guilty and hanged. Justice seems to have
been devilish then, for he was cut down and hanged
in chains, after the fashion of the time, beside the
road. The peculiar devilry of the deed appears in
the fact that he was not quite dead, and survived
in his iron cage on the gibbet for days. His sweet-
heart brought him food, but he could not eat, for
every movement of his jaw caused it to be pierced
with an iron spike. So she brought milk instead,
and so sustained the wretched creature for some time.
Legends still recount how he lingered here in agony,
his cries by day and night scaring the neighbouring
cottagers from their homes, until the shrieks and
groans at length ceased, and death came to put an
end to his sufferings. The site of the gibbet was
by the Thinford inn, near the head of the embank-
ment. The gibbet-post lasted long. Known as
' Andrew Mills' Stob,' its wood was reputed of mar-
vellous efficacy for toothache, rheumatism, heartburn,

136 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

and indeed as wide a range of ailments as are cured
by any one of the modern quack medicines that
fill the advertisement columns of our newspapers in
this enlightened age. It was a sad day for Ferryhill
and the neighbourhood when the last splinter of
Andrew Mills' gibbet was used up ; and what the
warty, scrofulous, ulcerous, and rheumaticky inhabi-
tants did then the imagination refuses to consider.

The surrounding districts anciently possessed a
prime horror (which has lost nothing in the accumu-
lated legends of centuries) in the ' Brawn of Brance-
peth.' This terror of the countryside, resolved into
plain matter of fact, seems to have been a wild boar.
Boars were ' brawns ' in those days, and the adjacent
'Brancepeth' is just 'brawn's path/ as Brandon is
supposed to have been ' brawn den.' This, to modern
ideas, not very terrible wild animal, seems to have
thoroughly alarmed half a county :—

' He feared not ye loute with hys staffe,

Nor yet for ye knyghte in hys mayle,
He cared no more for ye monke with hys boke,
Than the fyendis in depe Croix Dale.'

It will be seen by the last line in this verse that the
author was evidently prepared to back the devil and
all his works against anything the Church could do.
But that is a detail. The wild boar was eventually

CROXDALE TERRORS 137

slain by Hodge of the Ferry, who ended him by the
not very heroic process of digging a deep pit in the
course of his usual path, and when the animal fell
in, cutting his head off, doubtless from a safe point
of vantage above. Divested of legendary trappings,
we can readily picture the facts : the redoubtable
Hodge hiding in the nearest and tallest tree until
the wild boar came along and fell into the hole,
when the champion descended and despatched him
in safety. The traditional scene of this exploit is
half a mile to the east of Ferryhill, at a farmstead
called Cleve's Cross.

Croixdale, or, as modern times have vulgarised its
name, Croxdale, lies on our way to Durham, past the
hills of High and Low Butcher Eace. Now a shabby
roadside village, with a railway station of that name
on the main line of the North-Eastern Railway, this
neighbourhood has also had its romance. The road
descends steeply to the river Wear, and in the vicinity
is the dark hollow which medieval superstition peopled
with evil spirits, the ' fyendis ' who, as the ballad says,
cared nothing for the monk with his book. To evict
these hardy sprites a cross was erected, hence ' Croix-
dale ' ; but with what result is not stated.

The cross-roads here, too, have their story, for
Andrew Tate, a highwayman, convicted of murdering
and robbing seven persons near Sunderland Bridge,
was hanged where they branch off, in 1602, and
afterwards buried beneath the gallows. Now that
no devils or highwaymen haunt the lovely woodland
borders of the Wear at this spot, it is safe to linger
by Sunderland Bridge, just below Croxdale, where

138 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

the exceedingly picturesque old stone bridge of four
arches carries the road over the river. Perhaps the
distant railway viaduct may spoil the sylvan solitude
of the place, but, on the other hand, it may help to
emphasise it. Across that viaduct rush and roar
the expresses to and from London and the North ;
while the fisherman plies his contemplative craft
from the sandy beaches below the bridge. Many
a wearied coach passenger, passing this spot in the

ROAD, RAIL, AND RIVER: SUNDERLAND BRIDGE.

old days on summer evenings, must have longingly
drunk in the beauty of the scene. Other passengers
by coach had a terrible experience here in 1822,
when the mail was overturned on the bridge and
two passengers killed.

Thoresby, in his Diary, under date of May 1703,
describes one of his journeys with his usual in-
accuracy as to the incidence of places, and mentions
Sunderland Bridge, together with another, close by.

' SOCKELD'S LEAP ' 1 39

This would be Browney Bridge, to which we come
in a quarter of a mile nearer Durham ; only Thoresby
places it the other way, where, on the hillside, such
a bridge would be impossible. He mentions seeing
the legend, ' Sockeld's Leap, 1692,' inscribed on one
of the coping-stones, and tells how two horsemen,
racing on this road, jumped on the bridge together
with such force that one of them, breaking down
the battlements of the bridge, fell into the stream
below, neither he nor his horse having any injury.

Ascending the steep rise beyond Browney Bridge,
Farewell Hall on the left is passed, the place taking
its name, according to the commonly received story,
from the Earl of Derwentwater bidding farewell to
his friends here when on his way, a captured rebel,
to London and the scaffold, in 1715. Climbing one
more ridge, the first view of Durham Cathedral is
gained on coming down the corresponding descent,
a long straight run into the outskirts of the city.
Durham Cathedral appears, majestic against the sky,
long before any sign of the city itself is noted ; a
huge bulk dominating the scene and dwarfing the
church of St. Oswald at the foot of the hill, itself no
inconsiderable building. To the right hand rises
Nine Tree Hill, with the nine trees that stand sponsors
to it still weirdly conspicuous on its crest ; and down
beneath it spread the grimy and unkempt works of
the Old Elvet Colliery.

i4o THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

XXI

The traveller pursuing his northward way comes
into Durham by the back door, as it were, for the
suburb of Old Elvet through which the Great North
Road conducts to the ancient city is one of the least
prepossessing of entrances, and, besides being dirty
and shabby, is endowed with a cobble-stoned road
which, as if its native unevenness were not sufficient,
may generally be found strewed with fragments of
hoop-iron, clinkers, and other puncturing substances
calculated to give tragical pauses to the exploring
cyclist who essays to follow the route whose story is
set forth in these pages. Old Elvet is in no sense
a prepossessing suburb of Durham, but its steep and
stony street is a true exemplar of the city's other
highways and by-ways, which are nothing if not
breakneck and badly paved, as well as being badly
kept. -But facing Old Elvet's long street is still to
be found the ' Three Tuns,' where coach passengers in
the closing years of that era delighted to stay, and
where, although the well-remembered hostess of the
inn has been gathered to Abraham's bosom, the guest
on entering is still served in his bedroom with the
welcoming glass of cherry-brandy which it has for
the best part of a century been the pleasing custom
of the house to present. No other such ambrosial
cup as this, rare in itself and hallowed by old
memories, greets the wayfarer along the roads now-
adays.

DURHAM 143

From here, or other headquarters, let us set forth
to explore the city, planted on a craggy .site looking
down upon the encompassing Wear that flows deep
down between rocky banks clothed thickly with
woods. To enter the city proper from Old Elvet,
one must needs cross Elvet Bridge, still narrow,
although the subject of a widening by which its
width was doubled in 1805. How the. earlier coaches
crossed it is therefore something of a problem.

It has often been claimed for Durham that it is
' the most picturesque city in England ' ; and if by
that contention we are to understand the site of it
to be meant, the claim must be allowed. Cities
are -not so many that there is much difficulty in
estimating their comparative charms ; and were it
even a question of towns, few might be found to
have footholds of such beauty.

The Wear and that rocky bluff which it renders
all but an island, seemed to the distracted monks of
Lindisfarne, worn out with a century's wandering
over the north of England in search of safety from
the marauding heathen Danes who had laid waste
the coast and their island cathedral, an ideal spot ;
and so to the harsh necessities of over nine hundred
years ago we owe both this selection of a site and
the building upon it of a cathedral which should
be an outpost for the Lord in the turbulent North
and a castle for the protection of his servants. It
was in the year 995 that, after a hundred and twenty
years of constant wandering, the successors of those
monks who had fled from Lindisfarne with the body
of their revered bishop, the famous Saint Cuthbert,

144 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

came here, still bearing his hallowed remains. Their
last journey had been from Bipon. Coming near this
spot, the Saint, who though by this time dead for
over three hundred years, was as masterful as he
had been in life, manifested his approval of the
neighbourhood by refusing to be carried any further.
When the peripatetic bishop and monks found that his
coffin remained immovable they fasted and prayed
for three days, after which disciplinary exercise one
of their number had a vision wherein it was revealed
to him that the Saint should be carried to Dunholme,
where he was to be received into a place of rest.
So, setting forth again, distressed in mind by not
knowing where Dunholme lay, but hoping for a
supernatural guidance, they came presently to ' a
place surrounded with rocks, where there was a river
of rapid waves and fishes of various kinds mingling
with the floods. Great forests grew there, and in
deep valleys were wild animals of many sorts, and
deer innumerable.' It was when they were come
to this romantic place that they heard a milkmaid
calling to her companion, and asking where her cow
was. The answer, that ' she was in Dunholme,' was
' an happy and heavenly sound to the distressed
monks, who thereby had intelligence that their
journey's end was at hand, and the Saint's body
near its resting-place.' Pressing onward, they found
the cow in Dunholme, and here, on the site of the
present Cathedral, they raised their first ' little
Church of Wands and Branches.' The Cathedral
and the Castle that they and their immediate suc-
cessors raised have long since been replaced ; but

CASTLE AND CATHEDRAL 147

the great Norman piles of rugged fane and stern
. battlemented and loopholed fortress crowning the
same rocky heights prove that those who kept the
Church anchored here had need to watch as well as
pray, to fight secular battles as well as wage war
against the devil and all his works. It was this

double necessity that made the Bishops of Durham
until our own time bishops-palatine — princes of the
State as well as of the Church, and in the old days
men of the sword as well as of the pastoral staff ; and
their cathedral shadows forth these conditions of
their being in no uncertain way. There is no finer
pile of Norman masonry in this country than this
great edifice, whose central tower and east end are

O '

practically the only portions not in that style, and
of these that grand and massive tower, although
of the Perpendicular period, is akin to the earlier
parts in feeling ; nor is there another quite so
impressive tower in England as this, either for
itself 'or in its situation, with the sole exception of
' Boston Stump,' that beacon raised against the sky
for many miles across the Lincolnshire levels.

Woods and river still surround the Cathedral, as
Turner shows in his exquisite view from the Prebend's
Bridge, one among many other glorious and unex-
pected glimpses which the rugged nature of Durham's
site provides from all points, but incomparably the
best of all. It is here that, most appropriately, there
has been placed a decorative tablet, carved in oak,
and bearing the quotation from Sir Walter Scott
beginning —

' Half House of God, half Castle 'gainst the Scot ' ;

1 48 THE GREA T NOR TH ROAD

a quotation that gains additional point from the
circumstance of the battle of Neville's Cross having
been fought against the invading Scots in 1346, within
sight from the Cathedral roofs. This view is one of
Turner's infrequent topographically accurate works.
Perhaps even he felt the impossibility of improving
upon the beauty of the scene.

If you would see how Castle and Cathedral are
situated with regard to the busy modern city, there
is no such place as the railway station, whence they
are seen dominating the mass of houses, among the
smoke-wreaths of commerce, like the martyrs of old
steadfast amidst their burning fagots. If again,
reversing the order of precedence as seen in the view
from Prebend's Bridge, you would have the Castle
in the forefront and the Cathedral behind, it is from
the Framwellgate Bridge, carrying the Great North
Road over the Wear, that another lovely glimpse is
seen, ranging to Prebend's Bridge itself.

XXII

But time grows short, and we have not long to
linger at Durham. Much else might be said of the
Cathedral ; of Saint Cuthbert's Shrine, and of the
vandal Wyatt, who 'restored' the Cathedral in 1775,
cutting away, in the process, a depth of four inches
from the stonework of much of the exterior. The
work cost £30,000, and resulted in eleven hundred
tons' weight of stone chippings being removed from

SANCTUARY 151

the building. If that ' restorer ' had had his way, he
would have destroyed the beautiful Galilee Chapel
that projects from the west front, and forms so
uniquely interesting a feature of Late Norman work.
His idea was to drive a carriage-road round this
way. The work of destruction had, indeed, already
been begun, when it was stopped by more reverent
men.

A curious relic still remains upon the door of the
Cathedral's north porch, in the form of a huge
knocker, dating back to Norman times. Cast in the
shape of a grinning monster's head, a ring hanging
from its jaws, it is the identical sanctuary knocker
of Saint Cuthbert's Sanctuary, which was in use from
the foundation of the Cathedral until 1524. All
fugitives, whatever their crimes, who succeeded in
escaping to Durham, and reaching the bounds of
' Saint Cuthbert's Peace,' were safe from molestation
during thirty-seven days. A criminal grasping the
ring of this knocker could not be torn from it by his
pursuers, under pain of their being subjected to
excommunication ; and lest there should be bold
spirits whom even this could not affright, there were
always two monks stationed, day and night, in a
room above the porch, to watch for fugitives. When
admitted, the criminal confessed his crime, with
every circumstance attending it, his confession being
taken down in writing, in the presence of witnesses ;
a bell ringing in the Galilee tower all the while,
giving notice that some one had fled to the protec-
tion of Saint Cuthbert. After these formalities, the
fugitive was clothed with a black gown, bearing a

152 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

yellow cross on the left shoulder : the badge of the
Saint whose protection he had secured. After the
days of grace had expired, and in the event of no
pardon being obtained, ceremonies were gone through
before the Shrine, in which the malefactor solemnly
forswore his native land for ever. Then, safeguarded
to the coast, he was shipped out of the kingdom by
the first vessel sailing after his arrival.

There must have been many an exciting chase
along the roads in those times, and many a criminal
who richly deserved punishment must have escaped it
by the very skin of his teeth. Many another, no doubt,
was seized and handed over to justice, or slain, on
the threshold of safety. Other fugitives still — and
here Saint Cuthbert appears in better guise — victims
of hatred and oppression, private or political, claimed
the saintly oegis, and so escaped the vengeance of their
enemies. So, looking upon the ferociously grinning
mask of the knocker, glaring with eyeless sockets
upon Palace Green, we can reconstruct the olden
times when, at his last gasp, the flying wretch seized
the ring and so came into safety. By night, the
scene was more impressive still, for there were
crystals in those sockets then, and a lamp burning
behind, so that the fugitive could see his haven from
afar, and make for it.

To-day, Saint Cuthbert avails no man, as the
county gaol and the assize-courts sufficiently prove,
and Durham city is essentially modern, from the
coal-grit that powders its dirty streets to the awfully
grotesque effigy of a Marquis of Londonderry that
lends so diabolical an air to the Market-place, where

THE COAL COUNTRY 153

the Statute Fair is held, and where he sits, a coal-
black effigy across his coal-black horse, towering over
the steam merry-go-rounds, like Satan amid the
revelries of a Walpurgis Night. This bronze effigy is
probably the most grotesque statue in the British
isles, and loses nothing of that quality in the noble
Marquis being represented in a hussar uniform with
flying dolman over his shoulders, and a busby, many
sizes too large for him, on his head, in an attitude
as though ferociously inviting the houses on the other
side of the street to ' come on.'

XXIII

And now to take the open road again. The chief
features of the road between Durham and Newcastle
are coal-pits, dismal pit villages, and coal-dust. Not
at once, however, is the traveller introduced to these,
and the ascent out of Durham, through the wooded
banks of Dry burn, is very pretty. It is at Fram-
wellgate Moor, a mile and a-half from the city, that
the presence of coal begins to make itself felt, in the
rows of unlovely cottages, and in the odd figures of
the pitmen, who may be seen returning from their
work, with grimy faces and characteristic miner's
dress. Adjoining this village, and undistinguishable
from it by the stranger, is the roadside collection
of cottages known as ' Pity Me,' taking its name
from the hunted fox in the sign of the 'Lambton
Hounds' inn.

154 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Framwellgate is scarce left behind before there
rises up in the far distance, on the summit of one of
the many hills to the north-east, a hill-top temple
resembling the Athenian Acropolis, and as you go
northward it is the constant companion of your
journey for some seven or eight miles. This is
' Penshaw Monument/ erected on that windy height
in 1844, four years after his death, to the memory of
John George Lambton, first Earl of Durham. It cost
£6000, and commemorates the championship of the
Reform movement in its earlier and precarious days

PENSHAW MONUMENT.

by that statesman. Like many another monument,
impressive at a distance, a near approach to it leads
to disillusion, for its classic outlines are allied to
coarse workmanship, and its eighteen great columns
are hollow. Penshaw, deriving its name from Celtic
words signifying a wooded height, still has its wood-
lands to justify the name given nearly a thousand
years ago.

The little town of Chester-le-Street lies three miles
ahead, past the few cottages of Plawsworth, once the
site of a turnpike-gate, and by Chester Moor and the

THE ' LA MB 'TON WORM' 155

pretty wooded hollow of Chester Dene, where the
Con Burn goes rippling through the undergrowth to
join the river Wear, and a bridge carries the high-
way across the gap. Approaching Chester-le- Street,
the bright yellow sandstone mass of Lumley Castle,
the ancient seat of the Earl of Scarborough, is pro-
minent in the valley to the right, while beyond it
rise the woods of Lambton Castle, the Earl of
Durham's domain. The neighbourhood of Chester-le-
Street yet preserves the weird legend of the ' Lambton
Worm,' and Worm Hill is still pointed out as the
home of that fabulous monster who laid the country
under contribution for the satisfying of his voracious
appetite, and was kept in good humour by being
provided with the milk of nine cows daily. Many
had essayed to slay the serpent and had fallen victims
instead, until the heir of Lambton, returned from the
red fields and hair's-breadth escapes of foreign wars,
set forth to free the countryside from the terror. But
before he started, he was warned (so the legend runs),
that unless he vowed, being successful in his enter-
prise, to slay the first living thing he met on his
return, the lords of Lambton would never, for nine
generations to come, die in their beds. He took that
vow, and, armed with his trusty sword and a suit
of armour made of razor-blades, met and slew the
Worm, who coiled himself round the knight in order
to crush him as he had the others, and so was cut
in pieces against the keen edges. But the victor on
returning was met by his father, instead of by the
favourite dog who had been destined for the sacrifice.
The sword dropped from his nerveless hand, and he

156 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

broke the vow. What mattered it where the future
generations died ? in their beds, or, as warriors might
wish, in their boots !

As a matter of fact, the next nine heirs of Lambton
did die more or less violent deaths ; a circumstance
which is pointed to in proof of the legend's truth.
If other proof be wanting, one has only to visit
Lambton Castle, where the identical trough from
which the Worm drank his daily allowance of milk
is still shown the curious tourist !

Chester-le- Street bears little in its appearance to
hint at its great age and interesting history. A very
up-to-date little town, whose prosperity derives from
its position as a marketing centre for the surround-
ing pitmen, it supports excellent shops and rejoices in
the possession of Co-operative Societies, whose objects
are to provide their subscribers with whatever they
want at cost price, and to starve out of existence
the trader who trades for profit. That shops and
societies exist side by side, and that both look
prosperous, seems remarkable, not to say miraculous.
Let the explanation of these things be left to other
hands.

The name of Chester-le-Street doubly reveals the
Roman origin of the place from the castle on the road
which existed here in those distant times, and has
easily survived the name of Cunecaster, which the
Saxons gave it. At Cunecaster the ancient bishopric
of Bernicia, forerunner of the present see of Durham,
had its cathedral for a hundred and thirteen years,
from A. D. 882 to 995 ; having been removed from the
Fame Islands on the approach of the heathen Danes,

CHESTER-LE-STREET 157

the monks carrying the coffin of their sainted bishop,
Saint Cuthbert, with them on their wanderings. The
dedication of the present church to Saints Mary and
Cuthbert is a relic of that time, but the building
itself is not older than the thirteenth century. It
preserves an ancient anchorite's cell, and contains
fourteen monumental effigies ascribed, without much
truth in the ascription, to the Lumleys. John, Lord
Lumley, collected them from ruined abbeys and
monasteries in the neighbourhood some three hundred
years ago, and called them ancestors. He was
technically right, for we all descend from Adam ; but
not quite so right when, finding he could not steal
a sufficient number of these ''ancestors,' he commis-
sioned the local masons to rough-hew him out a few
more. They are here to this day, and an ill-favoured
gang they look, too.

The town of Chest er-le- Street found little favour
with De Foe, who, passing through it, found the place
' an old dirty thoroughfare town.' The modern
traveller cannot say the same, but it is possible that,
if he happened to pass through on Shrove Tuesday,
he would describe the inhabitants as savages ; for on
that day the place is given up to a game of football
played in the streets, the town taking sides, and,
when the ball is not within reach, kicking one
another. With a proper respect for their shop fronts,
the tradesfolk all close on this day.

The three miles between Chester-le-Street and
Birtley afford a wide -spreading panorama of the
Durham coalfield. Pretty country before its
mineral wealth began to be developed, its hills and

i58 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

dales reveal chimney- shafts and hoisting-gear in every
direction, and smoke-wreaths, blown across country
by the ra.ging winds of the north, blacken everything.
Birtley is a typical pit village, and its approaches
are characteristic of the coal country. The paths are
black, the hedges and trees ragged and sooty, and
tramways from the collieries cross the road itself,
unfenced, the trucks dropping coal in the highway.
One coal village is as like another as are two peas.
They are all frankly unornamental ; all face the road
on either side, each cottage the exact replica of its
unlovely neighbour, and the footpaths are almost
invariably unpaved. But ' Geordie,' the typical
pitman, is not a bad fellow by any means. If any
man works, literally, by the sweat of his brow, it is
he, in his eight hours' shifts down in the stifling
tunnels of the coal-mine. He earns a high wage
and deserves a higher ; for he carries his life in his
hand, and any day that witnesses his descent half
a mile or so into the black depths of the pit may also
witness an accident which, by the fall of a roof of
coal, by fire or flood, explosion, or the unseen but
deadly choke-damp, may end his existence, and that
of hundreds like him. The midday aspect of a coal
village is singularly quiet and empty. Scarce a man
or boy is to be seen. Half of them are at work down
below, in the first day-shift, to which they went at an
early hour of the morning : and those of the night,
who came up when the others descended, are enjoying
a well-earned repose. 'Geordie/ just come to bank
from his coal-hewing, looks anything but the respect-
able fellow he generally is, nowadays. With his

THE PITMAN'S HOME 161

peaked leathern cap, thick short coat, woollen muffler,
limp knickerbockers, blue worsted stockings, heavy
lace-up boots and dirty face, he looks like a half-
bleached nigger football-player. When washed, his
is a pallid countenance which the stranger, unused to
the colourless faces of those who work underground,
might be excused for thinking that of one recovering
from an illness. And washing is a serious business
with ' Geordie/ Every pitman's cottage has its tub
wherein he ' cleans ' himself, as he expresses it, while
the women-folk crowd the street. What the cottages
lack in accommodation they make up for in cleanli-
ness and display. The pitman's wife wages an heroic
and never-ending war against dirt and grime, and
both have an astonishing love of finery and bright
colours which reveals itself even down to the door-
step, coloured a brilliant red, yellow, or blue, accord-
ing to individual taste. Nowadays football claims
' Geordie's ' affections before anything else. That
rowdy game, more than any other, serves to work off
any superfluous energy, and there are stories, more
or less true, which tell of pitmen, tired of waiting
for ' t' ball,' starting ' t' gaame ' by kicking one another
instead ! Coursing, dog-fancying, and the breeding
of canaries are other favourite pitmen's pastimes, and
they dearly love a garden. Where an outdoor garden
is impossible, a window garden is a favourite resource,
and even the ugliest cottages take on a certain smart-
ness when to the yellow doorstep are added bright
green window-shutters and a window full of scarlet
geraniums. Very many pitmen are musical. We
do not in this connection refer to the inevitable

1 62 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

American organ whose doleful wails wring your very
heart-strings as you pass the open cottage doors on
Sunday afternoons, but to the really expert violinists
often found in the pit villages.

XXIV

At Harlowgreen Lane, where a little wayside inn,
the ' Coach and Horses/ stands beside a wooded
dingle, we have the only pleasant spot before reaching
Gateshead. Prettily rural, with an old-world air
which no doubt gains an additional beauty after the
ugliness of Birtley, it looks like one of those roadside
scenes pencilled so deftly by Rowlandson, and might
well have been one of the roadside stopping-places
mentioned in that book so eloquent of the Great
North Road, Smollett's Roderick Random. No other
work gives us so fine a description of old road travel,
partly founded, no doubt, upon the author's own ob-
servation of the wayfaring life of his time. Smollett
himself travelled from Glasgow to Edinburgh and
London in 1739, and in the character of Roderick he
narrates some of his own adventures. For a good
part of the way Roderick found neither coach,
cart, nor wagon on the road, and so journeyed
with a train of pack-carriers so far as Newcastle,
sitting on one of the horses' pack-saddles. At
Newcastle he met Strap, the barber's assistant, and
they journeyed to London together, sometimes afoot ;
at other times by stage-wagon, a method of travelling

ROAD WAGONS

163

which, practised by those of small means, was a
commonplace of the period at which Smollett wrote.
It was a method which had not changed in the least
since the days of James the First, and was to con-
tinue even into the first years of the nineteenth
century. Fynes Moryson, who wrote an Itinerary
— and an appallingly dull work it is — in the reign
of the British Solomon, talks of them as ' long covered
wagons, carrying passengers from place to place ; but

A WAYSIDE HALT.

(After Kowhmdson.)

this kind of journeying is so tedious, by reason they
must take wagon very early and come very late to
their innes, that none but women and people of
inferior condition travel in this sort.' Hogarth pic-
tured these lumbering conveyances, which at their
best performed fifteen miles a day, and Rowlandson
and many other artists have employed their pencils
upon them.

Smollett is an eighteenth -century robust humorist,

164 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

whose works are somewhat strong meat for our times;
but he is a classic, and his works (unlike the usual
run of 'classics/ which are aptly said to be books
which no one ever reads) have, each one, enough
humour to furnish half a dozen modern authors, and
are proof against age and change of taste. To the
student of bygone times and manners, Roderick
Random affords (oh ! rare conjunction) both instruc-
tion and amusement. It is, of course, a work of
fiction, but fiction based on personal experience, and
palpitating with the life of the times in which it
was written. It thus affords a splendid view of this
great road about 1739, and of the way in which
the thrifty Scots youths then commonly came up to
town.

Their first night's halt was at a hedgerow alehouse,
half a mile from the road, to which came also a
pedlar. The pedlar, for safety's sake, screwed up
the door of the bedroom in which they all slept.
' I slept very sound/ says Roderick, ' until midnight,
when I was disturbed by a violent motion of the
bed, which shook under me with a continual tremor.
Alarmed at this phenomenon, I jogged my com-
panion, whom, to my amazement, I found drenched
in sweat, and quaking through every limb ; he told
me, with a low, faltering voice, that we were undone,
for there was a bloody highwayman with loaded
pistols in the next room; then, bidding me make
as little noise as possible, he directed me to a small
chink in the board partition, through which I could
see a thick-set, brawny fellow, with a fierce counten-
ance, sitting at a table with our young landlady,

A NIGHT OF ALARMS 165

having a bottle of ale and a brace of pistols before
him.' The highwayman was cursing his luck because
a confederate, a coachman, had given intelligence of
a rich coach-load to some other plunderer, who had
gone off with £400 in cash, together with jewels and
money.

'But did you find nothing worth taking which
escaped the other gentleman of the road ? ' asked
the landlady.

' Not much/ he replied. ' I gleaned a few things,
such as a pair of pops, silver-mounted (here they
are) ; I took them, loaded, from the charge of the
captain who had charge of the money the other fellow
had taken, together with a gold watch which he
had concealed in his breeches. I likewise found ten
Portugal pieces in the shoes of a Quaker, whom the
spirit moved to revile me, with great bitterness and
devotion ; but what I value myself mostly for is
this here purchase, a gold snuff-box, my girl, with
a picture on the inside of the lid, which I untied
out of the tail of a pretty lady's smock/

Here the pedlar began to snore so loudly that
the highwayman heard him through the partition.
Alarmed, he asked the landlady who was there, and
when she told him, travellers, replied, ' Spies ! you
jade ! But no matter, I '11 send them all to hell in
an instant.'

The landlady pacified him by saying that they
were only three poor Scotchmen ; but Strap by this
time was under the bed.

The night was one of alarms. Roderick and Strap
awakened the pedlar, who, thinking the best course

166 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

was not to wait for the doubtful chance of being
alive to see the morning dawn, vanished with his
pack through the window.

After having paid their score in the morning, the
two set out again. They had not gone more than
five miles before a man on horseback overtook them,
whom they recognised as Mr. Rifle, the highwayman
of the night before. He asked them if they knew
who he was. Strap fell on his knees in the road.
' For heaven's sake, Mr. Rifle/ said he, ' have mercy
on us, we know you very well.'

'Oho!' cried the thief, 'you do! But you shall
never be evidence against me in this world, you
dog ! ' and so saying, he drew a pistol and fired at
the unfortunate shaver, who fell flat on the ground,
without a word. He then turned upon Roderick,
but the sound of horses' hoofs was heard, and a party
of travellers galloped up, leaving the highwayman
barely time to ride off. One of them was the captain
who had been robbed the day before. He was not,
as may already have been gathered, a valiant man.
He turned pale at the sight of Strap. ' Gentlemen/
said he, ' here 's murder committed ; let us alight.'
The others were for pursuing the highwayman, and
the captain only escaped accompanying them by
making his horse rear and snort, and pretending
the animal was frightened. Fortunately, Strap 'had
received no other wound than what his fear had
inflicted ' ; and after having been bled at an inn half
a mile away, they were about to resume their journey,
when a shouting crowd came down the road, with
the highwayman in the midst, riding horseback with

A LEARNED LANDLORD 167

his hands tied behind him. He was being escorted
to the nearest Justice of the Peace. Halting a while
for refreshment, they dismounted Mr. Eifle and
mounted guard, a circle of peasants armed with pitch-
forks round him. When they at length reached the
magistrate's house, they found he was away for the
night, and so locked their prisoner in a garret, from
which, of course, he escaped.

Roderick and Strap were now free from being
detained as evidence. For two days they walked
on, staying on the second night in a public-house
of a very sorry appearance in a small village.
At their entrance, the landlord, who seemed a
venerable old man, with long grey hair, rose from
a table placed by a large fire in a neat paved
kitchen, and, with a cheerful countenance, accosted
them with the words : ' Salvete, pueri ; ingredi-
mini.' It was astonishing to hear a rustic land-
lord talking Latin, but Roderick, concealing his
amazement, replied, 'Dissolve frigus, ligna super
foco large reponens.' He had no sooner pronounced
the words than the innkeeper, running towards
him, shook him by the hands, crying, ' Fill mi
dilectissime ! unde venis? — a superis, ni fallor.'
In short, finding them both read in the classics, he
did not know how to testify his regard sufficiently ;
but ordered his daughter, a jolly, rosy- cheeked
damsel, who was his sole domestic, to bring a
bottle of his quadrimum ; repeating at the same
time from Horace, ' Deprome quadrimum Sabind,
0 Thaliarche, merum diota.' This was excellent
ale of his own brewing, of which he told them

1 68 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

he had always an amphora, four years old, for the
use of himself and friends.

The innkeeper proved to be a schoolmaster who
was obliged, by his income being so small, to supple-
ment it by turning licensed victualler. He was
very inquisitive about their affairs, and, while dinner
was preparing, his talk abounded both with Latin
tags and with good advice to the inexperienced
against the deceits and wickedness of the world.
They fared sumptuously on roast fowl and several
bottles of quadrimum, going to bed congratulating
themselves on the landlord's good-humour. Strap
was of opinion that they would be charged nothing
for their lodging and entertainment. ' Don't you
observe/ said he, ' that he has conceived a particular
affection for us ; nay, even treated us with extra-
ordinary fare, which, to be sure, we should not of
ourselves have called for ? '

Eoderick was not so sanguine. Rising early in the
morning, and having breakfasted with their host and
his daughter on hasty-pudding and ale, they desired
to know what there was to pay.

'Biddy will let you know, gentlemen,' said the
old rascal of a tapster, 'for I never mind these
matters. Money-matters are beneath the concern of
one who lives on the Horatian plan : Crescentem
sequitur cura pecuniam.'

Meanwhile, Biddy, having consulted a slate that
hung in a corner, gave the reckoning as eight shillings
and sevenpence.

' Eight shillings and sevenpence ! ' cried Strap ; ' 'tis
impossible ! You must be mistaken, young woman.'

THE RECKONING 169

'Reckon again, child,' said the father very deliber-
ately ; ' perhaps you have miscounted/

' No, indeed, father,' replied she. ' I know my
business better.'

Eoderick demanded to know the particulars, on
which the old man got up, muttering, 'Ay, ay, let
us see the particulars : that 's but reasonable ' ; and,
taking pen, ink, and paper, wrote :

8. d.

To bread and beer, . . . . .06
To a fowl and sausages, . . . ,26
To four bottles of quadrim, . . .20
To fire and tobacco, . . . . .07

To lodging, 20

To breakfast, 1 0

8 7

As he had not the appearance of a common
publican, Eoderick could not upbraid him as he de-
served, simply remarking that he was sure he had not
learned from Horace to be an extortioner. To which
the landlord replied that his only aim was to live
contentus parvo, and keep off importuna pauperies.

Strap was indignant. He swore their host should
either take one-third or go without ; but Roderick,
seeing the daughter go out and return with two stout
fellows, with whom to frighten them, thought it
politic to pay what was asked.

It was a doleful walk they had that day. In the
evening they overtook the wagon, and it is here,
and in the following scenes, that we get an excellent
description of the cheap road travel of that era.

Strap mounted first into the wagon, but retired,

170 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

dismayed, at a tremendous voice which issued from
its depths, with the words, ' Fire and fury ! there
shall no passengers come here.' These words came
from Captain "Weazel, one of the most singular
characters to lie found in Smollett's pages.

Joey, the wagoner, was not afraid of the captain,
and called out, with a sneer : ' Waunds, coptain,
whay woan't you soofer the poor wagoneer to nieake a
penny ? Coom, coom, young man, get oop, get oop ;
never moincl the coptain/

' Blood and thunder ! where 's my sword 1 ' ex-
claimed the man of war, when the two eventually
fell, rather than climbed, into the wagon's dark
recesses, and incidentally on. to his stomach.

' What 's the matter, my dear ? ' asked a female
voice.

' The matter "? ' replied the captain ; ' my guts
are squeezed into a pancake by that Scotchman's
hump.' The 'hump,' by the way, was poor Strap's
knapsack.

' It is our own fault,' resumed the feminine voice *
' we may thank ourselves fo* all the inconveniences
we meet with. I thank God I never travelled so
before. I am sure, if my lady or Sir John were to
know where we are, they would not sleep this night
for vexation. I wish to God we had written for
the chariot ; I know we shall never be forgiven.'

'Come, come, my dear,' replied the captain, 'it
don't signify fretting now ; we shall laugh it over
as a frolic ; I hope you will not suffer in your health.
I shall make my lord very merry with our adventures
in the diligence.'

OCCUPANTS OF THE WAGON 171

The unsophisticated lads were greatly impressed
by this talk. Not so the others. ' Some people,'
broke in another woman's voice, ' give themselves
a great many needless airs; better folks than any
here have travelled in wagons before now. Some
of us have rode in coaches and chariots, with three
footmen behind them, without making so much fuss
about it. What then ! we are now all on a footing ;

TRAVELLERS ARRIVING AT AN INN.
(After Rowlandson.)

therefore let us be sociable and merry. What do
you say, Isaac ? Is not this a good motion, you
doting rogue ? Speak, old Cent, per cent. ! What
desperate debt are you thinking of ? What mort-
gage are you planning ? Well, Isaac, positively you
shall never gain my favour till you turn over a new
leaf, grow honest, and live like a gentleman. In
the meantime, give me a kiss, you old fool.'

172 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

The words, accompanied by a hearty smack, en-
livened the person to whom they were addressed to
such a degree, that he cried, in a transport, though
with a faltering voice : * Ah ! you baggage ! on my
credit you are a waggish girl — he, he, he ! ' This
laugh introduced a fit of coughing which almost
suffocated the poor usurer — for such they afterwards
found was the profession of their fellow- traveller.

At their stopping-place for the night they had
their first opportunity of viewing these passengers.
First came a brisk, airy girl, about twenty years of
age, with a silver-laced hat on her head instead of
a cap, a blue stuff riding-suit, trimmed with silver,
very much tarnished, and a whip in her hand. After
her came, limping, an old man, with a worsted night-
cap buttoned under his chin and a broad-brimmed
hat slouched over it, an old rusty blue cloak tied
about his neck, under which appeared a brown sur-
tout that covered a threadbare coat and waistcoat,
and a dirty flannel jacket. His eyes were hollow,
bleared, and gummy ; his face shrivelled into a
thousand wrinkles, his gums destitute of teeth, his
nose sharp and drooping, his chin peaked and pro-
minent, so that when he mumped or spoke they
approached one another like a pair of nut-crackers ;
he supported himself on an ivory-headed cane, and
his whole figure was a just emblem of winter, famine,
and avarice.

The captain was disclosed as a little thin creature,
about the age of forty, with a long, withered visage
very much resembling that of a baboon. He wore
his own hair in a queue that reached to his rump,

THE INN KITCHEN 173

and on it a hat the size and cock of Antient Pistol's.
He was about five feet and three inches in height,
sixteen inches of which went to his face and long
scraggy neck ; his thighs were about six inches in
length ; his legs, resembling two spindles or drum-
sticks, two feet and a-half ; and his body the remain-
der: so that, on the whole, he appeared like a spider
or grasshopper erect. His dress consisted of a frock
of bear-skin, the skirts about half a foot long, a
hussar waistcoat, scarlet breeches reaching half-way
down his thighs, worsted stockings rolled up almost
to his groin, and shoes with wooden heels at least
two inches high ; he carried a sword very nearly
as long as himself in one hand, and with the other
conducted his lady, who seemed to be a woman of
his own age, still retaining some remains of good
looks, but so ridiculously affected that any one who
was not a novice in the world would easily have
perceived in her deplorable vanity the second-hand
airs of a lady's woman.

This ridiculous couple were Captain and Mrs.
Weazel. The travellers all assembled in the kitchen
of the irin, where, according to the custom of the time,
such impecunious wayfarers were entertained ; but
the captain desired a room for himself and his wife,
so that they might sup by themselves, instead of in
that communal fashion. The innkeeper, however,
did not much relish this, but would have given way
to the demand, providing the other passengers made
no objection. Unhappily for the captain's absurd
dignity, the others did object ; Miss Jenny, the
lady with the silver - trimmed hat, in particular,

174 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

observing that ' if Captain Weazel and his lady had
a mind to sup by themselves, they might wait until
the others should have done.' At this hint the cap-
tain put on a martial frown and looked very big,
without speaking ; while his yoke-fellow, with a
disdainful toss of her nose, muttered something about
' creature ! ' which Miss Jenny overhearing, stepped
up to her, saying, 'None of your names, good Mrs.
Abigail. Creature ! quotha — I '11 assure you — no
such creature as you, neither — no quality-coupler.'
Here the captain interposed, with a ' D — n me,
madam, what do you mean by that ? '

' Sir, who are you \ ' replied Miss Jenny ; ' who
made you a captain, you pitiful, trencher-scraping,
pimping curler? The army is come to a fine pass
when such fellows as you get commissions. What,
I suppose you think I don't know you ? You and
your helpmate are well met : a cast-off mistress and
a bald valet-de-chambre are well yoked together.'

' Blood and wounds ! ' cried Weazel ; ' d' ye question
the honour of my wife, madam ? No man in England
durst say so much — I would flay him, carbonado
him ! Fury and destruction ! I would have his liver
for my supper ! ' So saying, he drew his sword
and flourished it, to the great terror of Strap ; while
Miss Jenny, snapping her fingers, told him she did
not value his resentment that !

We will pass over the Rabelaisian adventures of
the night, which, amusing enough, are too robust
for these pages ; and will proceed to the next day's
journey. Before they started, Weazel had proved
himself the arrant coward and braggart which the

TRA YELLERS OF SOR TS 175

reader has already perceived him to be ; but, not-
withstanding this exposure, he entertained the com-
pany in the wagon with accounts of his valour :
how he had once knocked down a soldier who had
made game of him ; had tweaked a drawer by the
nose who had found fault with his picking his teeth
with a fork ; and had, moreover, challenged a cheese-
monger who had had the presumption to be his rival.

For five days they travelled in this manner. On
the sixth day, when they were about to sit down to
dinner, the innkeeper came and told them that three
gentlemen, just arrived, had ordered the meal to be
sent to their apartment, although told that it had
been bespoken by the passengers in the wagon, — to
which information they had replied : ' The passengers
in the wagon might be d — d ; their betters must be
served before them ; they supposed it would be no
hardship on such travellers to dine on bread and
cheese for one day.'

This was a great disappointment to them all, and
they laid their heads together to remedy it. Miss
Jenny observing that Captain Weazel, being a soldier
by profession, ought to protect them. The captain
adroitly excused himself by saying that he would
not, for all the world, be known to have travelled in
a wagon ; swearing, at the same time, that, could he
appear with honour, they should eat his sword sooner
than his provision. On this declaration, Miss Jenny,
snatching his weapon, drew it and ran immediately
into the kitchen, where she threatened to put the
cook to death if he did not immediately send the
victuals into their room. The noise she made

1 76 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

brought the three strangers down, one of whom no
sooner perceived her than he cried, ' Ha ! Jenny
Ramper ! what brought thee hither ? '

1 My dear Jack Rattle/ she replied, running into
his arms, ' is it you ? Then Weazel may go whistle
for a dinner — I shall dine with you.'

They consented with joy to this proposal ; and the
others were on the point of being reduced to a very
uncomfortable meal, when Joey, the wagoner, under-
standing the whole affair, entered the kitchen with a
pitchfork in his hand, and swore he would be the
death of any man who should pretend to seize the
victuals prepared for the wagon. On this, the three
strangers drew their swords, and, being joined by
their servants, bloodshed seemed imminent ; when
the landlord, interposing, offered to part with his
own dinner, for the sake of peace ; which proposal
was accepted and all ended happily.

When the journey was resumed in the afternoon,
Roderick chose to walk some distance beside the
wagoner, a merry, good-natured fellow, who informed
him that Miss Jenny was a common girl of the town,
who, falling in company with a recruiting officer who
had carried her down in the stage-coach from London
to Newcastle, was obliged to return, as her companion
was now in prison for debt. Weazel had been a
valet-de-chambre to my Lord Fizzle while he lived
separate from his lady ; but on their reconciliation
she insisted on Weazel's being turned off, as well as
the woman who had lived with him : when his lord-
ship, to get rid of them both with a good grace,
proposed that Weazel should marry his mistress,

A FALSE ALARM 177

when he would procure a commission in the army
for him.

Koderick and the wagoner both had a profound
contempt for Weazel, and resolved to put his courage
to the test by alarming the passengers with the cry
of * a highwayman ' as soon as a horseman should
appear. It was dusk when a man on horseback
approached them. Joey gave the alarm, and a
general consternation arose ; Strap leaping out of
the wagon and hiding himself behind a hedge ; the
usurer exclaiming dolefully and rustling about in the
straw, as though hiding something; Mrs. Weazel
wringing her hands and crying ; and the captain
pretending to snore.

This latter artifice did not succeed with Miss
Jenny, who shook him by the shoulder and bawled
out : ' 'Sdeath ! captain, is this a time to snore when
we are going to be robbed ? Get up, for shame, and
behave like a soldier and man of honour.'

Weazel pretended to be in a great passion for
being disturbed, and swore he would have his nap
out if all the highwaymen in England surrounded
him. * What are you afraid of ? ' continued he ; at
the same time trembling with such agitation that the
whole vehicle shook.

' Plague on your pitiful soul ! ' exclaimed Miss
Jenny ; ' you are as arrant a poltroon as was ever
drummed out of a regiment. Stop the wagon, Joey,
and if I have rhetoric enough, the thief shall not
only take your purse, but your skin also.'

By this time the horseman had come up with them,
and proved to be a gentleman's servant, well known

1 7 8 THE GREA T NOR TH R OAD

to Joey, who told him the plot, and desired him
to carry it on a little further, by going up to the
wagon and questioning those within. Accordingly
he approached, and in a terrible voice demanded,
' Who have we got here \ ' Isaac replied, in a
lamentable voice, ' Here 's a poor, miserable sinner,
who has got a small family to maintain, and nothing
in the world but these fifteen shillings, which, if you
rob me of, we must all starve together.'

' Who 's that sobbing in the corner \ ' continued the
supposed highwayman.

'A poor, unfortunate woman,' answered Mrs.
Weazel, 'on whom, I beg you, for Christ's sake, to
have compassion.'

' Are you maid or wife I ' said he.

' Wife, to my sorrow,' said she.

' Who, or what is your husband ? ' continued he.

' My husband,' continued Mrs. Weazel, ' is an
officer in the army, and was left sick at the last inn
where we dined.'

' You must be mistaken, madam,' said he, ' for I
myself saw him get into the wagon this afternoon.'
Here he laid hold of one of Weazel's legs, and pulled
him out from under his wife's petticoats, where he had
concealed himself. The trembling captain, detected
in this inglorious situation, rubbed his eyes, and affect-
ing to wake out of sleep, cried, ' What 's the matter ? '

' What 's the matter ? The matter is not much,'
answered the horseman ; ' I only called in to inquire
after your health, and so adieu, most noble captain.'
So saying, he clapped spurs to his horse, and was out
of sight in a moment.

DISCOMFITURE OF THE CAPTAIN I79

It was some time before Weazel could recollect
himself; but at length, reassuming his big look, he
said, ' 'Sdeath ! why did he ride away before I had
time to ask him how his lord and his lady do ? Don't
you remember Tom, my dear ? ' addressing his wife.

' Yes,' replied she ; 'I think I do remember some-
thing of the fellow ; but you know I seldom converse
with people of his station/

'Hey-day !' cried Joey; 'do you know the young
man, coptain ? '

' Know him ? ' cried Weazel ; < many a time has he
filled a glass of Burgundy for me at my Lord
Trippett's table/

'And what may his neame be, coptain?' said
Joey.

'His name!— his name/ replied Weazel, 'is Tom
Rinser.'

'Waunds!' cried Joey, 'a has changed his own
neame then ! for I 'se lay any wager he was christened
John Trotter.'

This raised a laugh against the captain, who
seemed very much disconcerted ; when Isaac broke
silence and said, ' It was no matter who or what he
was, as he had not proved the robber they suspected.
They ought to bless God for their narrow escape.'

'Bless God!' said Weazel, 'for what? Had he
been a highwayman I should have eaten his blood
and body before he had robbed me or any one in this
diligence/

'Ha, ha, ha!' cried Miss Jenny; 'I believe you
will eat all you kill, indeed, captain/

The usurer was so well pleased at the end of this

i'8o THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

adventure that he could not refrain from being severe,
and took notice that Captain Weazel seemed to be a
good Christian, for he had armed himself with patience
and resignation, instead of carnal weapons, and

worked out his salvation with fear and trembling ;

• ° '

whereupon, amidst much laughter, Weazel threatened
to cut the Jew's throat. The usurer, taking hold of
this menace, said : — ' Gentlemen and ladies, I take
you all to witness, that my life is in danger from this
bloody-minded officer : I '11 have him bound over -to
the peace.' This second sneer procured another laugh
against the captain, who remained crestfallen for the
rest of the journey.

XXV

The remaining miles to Gateshead are made up of
the shabby village of Low Fell, where the road begins
to rise, and the uninteresting way over the ridge of
the Fell itself. By the word ' Fell,' North of England
people describe what Southerners call a hill.

Many were the gibbets erected in the old days on
Gateshead Fell. The last was that on. which swung
the body of Robert Hazlett, who on this spot, one
evening in 1770, robbed a young lady who was
returning to Newcastle in a post-chaise from Durham.
On the same night a postboy was relieved of his bags
at the same place. Hazlett was hanged at Durham,
and his body gibbeted here, twenty-five feet high.
For some time afterwards, every day for an hour, an

GATESHEAD 183

old man was seen to kneel and pray at the foot of the
gibbet. It was the wretched man's father !

The present-day aspect of the road does not hint at
anything so tragical, and is merely commonplace, the
last touch of vulgarity added by the hideous rattling
and smoke-belching steam-tram that plies along it
from Gateshead.

Gateshead is to Newcastle what Southwark is to
London, and the Tyne which runs between may be
likened in the same way to the Thames. Comparison
from any other point of view is impossible. Gates-
head is nowadays a great deal worse than it was when
Doctor Johnson called it 'a dirty lane leading to
Newcastle.' It may be ranked among the half-dozen
dirtiest places on earth, and the lane which the
Doctor saw has sent forth miles of streets as bad as
itself, so that the geographical distribution of filth
and squalor has in modern times become very wide.
There are two ways of entering Newcastle since the
High Level Bridge across the Tyne has supplemented
what used to be the old Tyne Bridge, once, and until
fifty years ago, the only way of crossing the river
except by boat. When Stephenson flung his High
Level Bridge across that stream, as yellow, if not as
historic, as the Tiber, he provided a roadway for
general traffic beneath the railway, and the old bridge
lost its favour, simply for the reason that to cross it
the steeply descending West Street and Bottle Lane
had to be taken and the just as steeply ascending
bank of the river on the Newcastle side to be climbed ;
while by the High Level a flat road was provided.
It is true that all traffic, pedestrian and wheeled, pays

184 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

a small toll for the privilege, but it is the lesser of the
two evils.

Let those who have no concern with old times take
their easeful way through the gloomy portals of the
High Level Bridge, eighty-five feet above high- water
mark. For o'urselves, who travel the Great North
Road, there is no way possible save down the steep
and smelly street, paved with vile granite setts and
strewn with refuse, which conducts to the Tyne
Bridge, or the Swing Bridge as it is nowadays, since
the old structure was removed, the channel of the
river deepened, and the wonderful swinging portion
of the remodelled bridge, 281 feet in length, and
swung open or closed by hydraulic power, constructed
in 1876. With that work went the last fragments of
the Roman bridge built by Hadrian, more than a
thousand years before ; a bridge which, indeed, gave
the Roman camp its name of Pons Mlii. This way
came the coaches, climbing into Newcastle up Sand-
hill and the Side, whose steep and curving roadway
remains to prove how difficult were the ways of
travellers as well as transgressors in the old times.
Old and new jostle here. The Swing Bridge turns
silently on its pivot to the touch of a lever in its
signal tower, and a force our grandfathers never knew
performs the evolution ; but side by side with this
miracle still stand the darkling lanes and steep water-
side alleys of Gateshead and Newcastle that were
standing before science and commerce, mother and
daughter, came down upon the Tyne and transformed
it. High over head goes the High Level, and the
smoke and rumble of its trains mingle with the clash

NEWCASTLE 185

of Newcastle's thousand anvils and the reek of her
million chimneys ; but there still stands against the
sky-line — most fittingly seen from the Gateshead
bank at eventide, when petty details are lost and only
broad effects remain — the coroneted steeple of St.
Nicholas and the great black form of the Norman keep,
reminding the contemplative that Monkchester was
the name of the city before the Conqueror came and
built that fortress whose fame as the ' New Castle '
has remained to this day to give a title to the place,
just as the 'new work' at Newark has ever since
stood sponsor for that town. Again, no sooner have
you crossed the Swing Bridge and come to Quayside
than other vestiges of old Newcastle are encountered,
in the remains of the Castle wall and the steps that
lead upwards to Castle Garth, where shoemakers and
cobblers of footgear of the most waterside and un-
fashionable character still blink and cobble in their
half-underground dens, the descendants, probably, of
those whom a French traveller remarked here in the
time of Charles the Second. If, instead of climbing
these stairs, the traveller elects to follow the track
of the coaches, he will traverse Sandhill, which in
very early days was an open space by the river, but
has for centuries past been a street. It was at Sand-
gate close by, according to the ballad, that the lassie
was heard to sing the well-known refrain of ' Weel
may the keel row, the boat that my love 's in ' ; and
indeed it is a district that breathes romance, common-
place though its modern offices may look. Does not
the Moot Hall look down upon Sandhill? 'Many
a heart has broken inside those walls,' said a passer-

1 86 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

by, with unwonted picturesqueness, to the present
writer, gazing at that hall of justice.

There is a pretty flavour of romance — compact, it
is true, of the most unpromising materials, like the
voluptuous scents which modern science extracts
from coal-tar — still clinging to Sandhill. Just where
a group of curious old houses, very old, very tall,
and nearly all windows, remains, the explorer will
perceive a memorial tablet let into one of the front-
ages, setting forth that 'From one of the windows
of this house, now marked with a blue pane of glass,
Bessie Surtees eloped with John Scott, afterwards
Lord Chancellor Eldon, November 18th, 1772.' John
Scott was twenty-one years of age at the time, and
was at home on vacation from Oxford. His father,
a successful coal-fitter, had sent him, as he had
already done his elder brother William, afterwards
Lord Stowell, to the University. He had already
gained a fellowship there, which he forfeited on his
elopement with, and marriage to, his Bessie. She
descended from her casement by the aid of a ladder
hidden by an accomplice in the shop below, and they
were over the Border and wedded by the blacksmith
at Blackshields before any one could pursue. Bessie's
relatives were bitterly opposed to the match, and so,
nearly without resources, the pair had to resort to
London and live frugally in Cursitor Street while
he studied hard at law, instead of, as originally in-
tended, for the Church. His first year's earnings
scarce amounted to enough to live on. 'Many a
time/ said he in after years, ' have I run down from
Cursitor Street to Fleet Market, to buy sixpenny-

LORD ELDON 189

worth of sprats for our supper/ The turning-point
in his career occurred in a case in which he insisted
on a legal point against the wishes of his clients.
The case was decided against him, but was reversed
on appeal on the point he had contested. From that
time continued success awaited him, and he eventu-
ally became Lord Chancellor. The dashing Romeo
of an earlier day became, however, a very different
person in after years. Much poring over parchments
and long-continued professional strife took all the
generous enthusiasm out of him, and by ways not
the most scrupulous he amassed one of the greatest
fortunes ever scraped together by a successful lawyer.
Bessie, meanwhile, had become quite as much of a
handful as she had been an armful, and latterly my
Lord Chancellor found refuge from her in the port
he loved so well — ' Military Port,' rough and strong
as his own speech.

From Sandhill the coaches journeyed along the
Side, which remains as steep and almost as pictur-
esque as ever, even if not rendered additionally
curious by the gigantic railway arch that spans it
and clears the roofs of its tallest houses. The last
mail-coach left Newcastle for Berwick and Edin-
burgh, with the Union Jack flying at half-mast,
on July 5, 1847, and those days are so thoroughly
done with that none of Newcastle's coaching inns
is left. Indeed, the whole character of the place
has changed since little over a century and a-half
ago, when John Wesley entered the opinion in his
diary that it was a ' lovely place and lovely com-
pany,' and, furthermore, said that ' if he were not

190

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

journeying in hope of a better world, here he would
be content to live and die.' Coal had even then
been shipped for centuries from Newcastle, but miles
of manufactories had not yet arisen upon the banks
of ' coaly Tyne/ and so unprogressive was the town
that it was still, with gardens and orchards, easily
comprised within its mediaeval walls ; those walls
which had many a time withstood the Scots, and even
when Wesley was here in 1745 were
being prepared to resist the Pretender.
Newcastle — difficult as it may now
be to realise the fact — was then a
very small town, and was governed
accordingly. Primitive punishments
as well as primitive government sur-
vived until a hundred and fifty years
ago, when scolds still wore bridles or
were ducked, and when local tipplers
yet perambulated the streets in the
drunkard's cloak, an ingenious instru-
ment of little ease which now reposes
in the Museum.

Far beyond the ancient walls now extend the
streets of the modern city ; Grey Street chief among
them, classically gloomy and extra-classically grimed
to the blackness of Erebus ; a heavy Ionic pillar at
its northern end bearing aloft the statue of Earl
Grey, the Prime Minister who secured the passing
of the first Eeform Bill in 1832.

Away from the chief business streets, many of the
curious old thoroughfares may be sought, but they
are nowadays the receptacles of inconceivable dirt,

THE 'DRUNKARD'S
CLOAK.'

PRACTICAL NEWCASTLE 191

and anything but desirable. The narrow streets
called ' chares ' answer to the ' wynds ' of Edinburgh
and the ' rows ' of Yarmouth. Their name has been
the subject of jokes innumerable, and misunder-
standings not a few ; as when a judge, previously
unacquainted with Newcastle, holding an assize here,
heard a witness say that he saw 'three men come
out of the foot of a chare,' and ordered him out of
the witness-box, thinking him insane, until the jury
of Newcastle men explained matters.

Despite its smoke and untidiness, the folks of this
grimy Tyneside city have a good conceit of it. To
them it is ' canny Newcastle/ an epithet whose mean-
ing differs from the Scots, and here means 'fine,'
or ' neat/ The stranger who fails to find those
qualities, who perceives instead the defects of dirt
and a pall of smoke that blackens everything to an
inky hue, and accordingly thanks Providence that
his home is elsewhere, is to the Tynesiders a Goth.

For Newcastle is practical. It has its great news-
papers, and has produced literary men of note ; but
the forging of iron and steel, the shrinking of steel
jackets upon big guns, the making of ships and all
kinds of munitions of war, appeal principally to the
Novocastrian who may by chance have no especial
love of that coaling trade which is pre-eminently and
historically his. It is therefore quite characteristic
of Newcastle folks that, in the mid-century, a literary
man, since become famous, was as a boy solemnly
warned by 'u townsman against such a career as he
was contemplating. ' Ah 'm sorry/ said he, ' to hear
that ye want to go to London, and to take to this

i92 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

writing in the papers. It'll bring ye to no good,
my boy. I mind there was a very decent friend of
mine, auld Mr. Forster, the butcher in the Side.
He had a laddie just like you ; and nothing would
sarve him but he must go away to London to get
eddicated, as he called it ; and when he had got
eddicated, he wouldn't come back to his father's shop,
though it was a first-class business. He would do
nothing but write, and write, and write ; and at
last he went back again to London, and left his poor
old father all alone ; and ah Ve never heard tell of
that laddie since ! '

Of course he had not. What rumours of literary
life in London could then have penetrated to the
shores of the ' coaly Tyne ' ? That laddie, however,
was John Forster, the biographer of Dickens.

These practical men of Newcastle have achieved
the most wonderful things. The home of the
Stephensons was at Wylam, only nine miles away,
and so the town can fairly claim the inventor of
railways arnqng its natives. We need not linger
to discuss the wonders of the locomotive ; they are
sufficiently evident. Newcastle men have even
changed the character of their river. There are
still those who can recollect the Tyne as a shallow
stream in which the laden 'keels,' heaped up with
coal, not infrequently grounded. Nowadays the
largest war- vessels are built up-stream, at Elswick,
and take their stately way to the sea with their
heavy armaments, and no mishap occurs. Clanging
arsenals and factories line the banks for many more
miles than the historian, anxious for his reputation,

'PUFFING BILLY' 193

dare mention. The Armstrong works alone are over
a mile long, and employ some sixteen thousand
hands. Lord Armstrong himself was the inventor
of hydraulic machinery ; and the Swan incandescent
electric lamp, which bears the name of its inventor,
was the work of a Newcastle man. Others of whom
England is proud were born here, notably Admiral
Lord Collingwood. To their practicality these men

'PUFFING BILLY.'

of Newcastle add sentiment, for they have carefully
placed tablets on the houses where their celebrated
men were born ; and they have not only erected a
monument to Stephenson, but have also placed one
of his first engines — ' Puffing Billy ' — on a pedestal
beside the High Level Bridge, where the huge
modern expresses roar past the quaint relic, day
and night, in startling contrast. Also, they one and

1 94 THE GREA T NOR TH R OAD

all have the most astonishingly keen affection for
their old parish church of St. Nicholas, in these latter
days become a cathedral.

If you would touch a Novocastrian on his most
sensitive spot, praise or criticise the cathedral church
of St. Nicholas, and he will plume himself or lose his
temper, as the case may be. That building, and
especially its tower, with the wonderful stone crown
supported on ribbed arches and set about with its
cluster of thirteen pinnacles, is the apple of New-
castle's eye. It figures as a stock decorative heading
in the Newcastle papers, and does duty in a hundred
other ways. Built toward the close of the sixteenth
century, that fairy-like corona has had its escapes,
as when, during the stubborn defence in 1644, under
the Royalist Sir John Marley, the Scottish general,
Alexander Leslie, Lord Leven, commanding the
besieging forces, threatened to batter it down with
his cannon if the town were not at once surrendered.
To this Sir John Marley made the very practical
reply of causing all his Scottish prisoners to be
placed in the tower, and sent word to the besiegers
that they might, if they would, destroy it, but that
their friends should perish at the same time. The
' Thief and Reiver ' bell, a relic of old times when
the outlaws of Northumberland were given short
shrift wherever and whenever found, is still rung
before the opening of the annual fair, and recalls the
old custom of giving those gentry immunity from
arrest during fair-time ; but it would probably not be
safe for any one ' wanted ' by the police to rely upon
this sentimental survival.

BLAG DON PARK 195

XXVI

For full}7 a mile and a-half on leaving Newcastle
the road runs over the Town Moor, a once wild
waste of common, and even now a bleak and for-
bidding open space whose horizon on every side
commands the gaunt Northumbrian hills, or is hidden
with the reek of Newcastle town arid the collieries
that render the way sordid and ugly. Newcastle's
lovely pleasance, Jesmond Dene, is hidden away to
the right from the traveller along the road, who
progresses through Bulman's Village (now dignified
with the new name of Gosforth), Salter's Lane, Wide
Open, and Seaton Burn with sinking heart, appalled
at the increasing wretchedness and desolation brought
by the coal-mining industry upon the scene. Off
to the right lies Killingworth, among the collieries,
where George Stephenson began his career in humble
fashion. His cottage stands there to this day. At
the gates of Blagdon Park, eight miles from New-
castle, where the white bulls of the Bidleys guard
the entrance in somewhat spectral fashion, the
surroundings improve. Here the Eidleys have been
seated for centuries, and from their wooded domain
have watched the belching smoke of the pits they
own, which year by year and generation by generation
have added to their wealth. Sir Matthew White
Ridley, M.P., is now the representative of these
owners of mineral wealth, and lord of Blao-don.

* O

Midway of the long park wall that borders the
road on the way to Morpeth stand the modern lodge

196

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

and gates, erected in 1887 ; with that relic of old
Newcastle, the Kale Cross, just within the grounds
and easily seen from the highway. The building is
not so much a cross as a market-house, and is just a
classical pavilion in the Doric style, open on all sides
to the weather. It stood, until the middle of the
eighteenth century, upon the Side at Newcastle, and
marked the centre of the market then held there.
The townfolk presented it to the Matthew White

THE GATES OP BLAGDON PARK.

Ridley of the period, and here, in lovelier surround-
ings than it knew originally, it stands, the wreathed
urns and couchant lion on its roof contrasting finely
with a dense background of foliage.

Beyond the park, the road crosses the Black Dene,
whence Blagdon derives its name ; one of those
ravines that now begin to be a feature of the way.
This expands on the right hand into Hartford Dene,
to which Newcastle picnic-parties come in summer-
time for brief respite from the smoke and clangour

MORPETH'S VANDALS 197

of their unlovely town. Thence, through Stanning-
ton, Clifton, and Catchburn, and to the long and
tortuous descent into Morpeth, lying secluded in the
gorge of the Wansbeck.

Morpeth is little changed since coaching times, but
the one very noticeable alteration shows by what
utter barbarians the town was inhabited towards the
close of that era. Entering it, the turbulent Wans-
beck is crossed by a stone bridge, built in 1830 to
provide better accommodation for the increased traffic
than the ancient one, a few yards up stream, afforded.
For some five years longer the old building was
suffered to remain, and then, with the exception of its
piers, it was demolished. No one benefited by its
destruction, it stood in no one's way, and its utility
was such that a footbridge, a graceless thing of iron
and scantling, has been erected across those ancient
piers, to continue the access still required at this point
from one bank to the other. It was to our old
friends the monks that travellers were beholden for
that ancient Gothic bridge, and their old toll-house
still remains, after having passed through a varied
career as a chapel, a school, and a fire-engine house.
Turner's view shows the road over the bridge, looking
south ; with the castle gate-house on the hill-top, a
great deal nearer than it actually is. This, the sole
relic of that old stronghold, has in later years been
restored until it looks almost as new as the would-be
Gothic of the gaol, which stands beside the modern
bridge on entering the town and deludes the more
ignorant into a belief of its genuine antiquity. At
Morpeth, until the assizes were removed to Newcastle,

198 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

justice was dispensed in this sham mediaeval castle,
built in 1821, and now, all too vast for present needs,
used as a police-station. The old town gaol, at the
other end of the town, facing the market-place, is
much more interesting. Built in the likeness of a
church tower, curfew is still rung from its belfry,
beneath the queer little figures on the roof. Market-
day brings crowds of drovers and endless droves of
sheep and cattle to this spot, to say nothing of the
pigs, singularly plentiful in these parts. ' He 's
driving his swine to Morpeth market/ is an expression
still used of a snoring man in this neighbourhood.
Always excepting market-day, Morpeth is now a
curiously quiet and dreamy town. The stress of
ancient times has left its few relics in the mouldering
remains of strong and defensible walls, and in certain
proverbs and sayings reflecting discreditably upon the
Scottish people ; but the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries are more evident in its streets than previous
eras. To those centuries belong the many old inns
with signs for the most part redolent of the coaching
age : the ' Nag's Head,' the ' Grey Nag's Head/ the
' Queen's Head/ ' Turk's Head/ and ' Black Bull ' : this
last with an odd semi-circular front and a beautiful
coach-entrance displaying some fine Adams decoration.
That Morpeth folk still cherish old anti- Scottish
sayings is not at all remarkable: for old manners,
old sayings, and ancient hatreds die slowly in such
places as this, and, moreover, the Morpeth of old
suffered terribly from Scottish raiders. Later times
saw a more peaceful irruption, when Scottish youths
came afoot down the great road in quest of fame

ANTI- SCOTS 201

and fortune in the south. People looked askance
upon them as Scots, while innkeepers hated them for
their poverty and their canniness. Those licensed
victuallers thought, with Dr. Johnson, who did not
greatly like them either, that ' the finest prospect
for a Scotchman was the high road that led him into
England.' This bitter satire, by the way, was in reply
to a Mr. Ogilvie, who had been contending on behalf
of the 'great many noble wild prospects' which
Scotland contained. Smollett, in his Humphry
Clinker, shows how greatly the Scots were misliked
along this route about 1766. He says that, from
Doncaster northwards, all the windows of all the
inns were scrawled with doggerel rhymes in abuse of
the Scottish nation. This fact was pointed out to that
fine Scottish character, Lismahago, and with it a par-
ticularly scurrilous epigram. He read it with some
difficulty, the glass being dirty, and with the most
starched composure.

' Vara terse and vara poignant,' said he ; ' but with
the help of a wat dishclout it might be rendered more
clear and parspicuous.'

The country between Morpeth and Alnwick is
dotted with peel-towers and their ruins, built in the
wild old times when the ancestors of these peaceful
Scots came in quest of spoil, laying waste the Borders
far and wide. One has but to turn aside from the
road at Warrener's House, two miles beyond Morpeth,
and thence proceed eastward for a further two, for
ten castles to be seen at once from the vantage-point
of Cockle Park Tower, itself a fine relic of a fortress
belonging in the fifteenth century to the Ogles,

202 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

situated now on a farm called by the hideous name
of Blubberymires.

The peculiar appropriateness of Morpeth's name,
meaning as it does 'moor-path,' is fully realised
when coming up the road, up the well-named High
Highlaws to where the road to Cockle Park Tower
branches off, and where an old toll -house stands, with
' Warrener's House/ a deserted red- brick mansion,
opposite. It is quite worth while to ask any passing
countryman the name of that house, for then the
' Northumbrian burr ' will be heard in all its richness.
As De Foe remarked, two hundred years ago, North-
umbrians have ' a Shibboleth upon their Tongues,
namely, a difficulty in pronouncing the letter E,/ and
in their mouths, consequently, the name becomes,
grotesquely enough, 'Waw\vener.'

Causey Park Bridge, over a little rivulet, a ruined
windmill, and the remains of Causey Park Tower are
the next features of the way before reaching a rise
where an old road goes scaling a hillside to the right
hand, surmounted by a farm picturesquely named
' Helm-on- the-Hill.' Thence downhill on to Bocken-
field Moor, and then precipitously down again through
West Thirston and across the picturesque bridge that
spans the lovely Coquet, into Felton : villages border-
ing either bank of the river, where the angler finds
excellent sport, and where the rash cyclist, regardless
of the danger-boards erected for his guidance on the
hill-tops, tries involuntary conclusions with the afore-
said bridge at the bottom. A mile onward, up the
rising road, is the park of Swarlarid Hall, with
' Nelson's Monument,' a time-stained obelisk, seen

NELSON'S MONUMENT

205

amid the trees within the park fence, and showing
against the sky-line as the traveller approaches the
moorland height of Rushy Cap. Alexander Davison,
squire of Swarland Hall and friend of the Admiral,
erected it, ' not to commemorate the public virtues
and heroic achievements of Nelson, which is the duty
of England, but to the memory of private friendship.'

FELTON BRIDGK.

Occupying so prominent a position by the roadside, it
was probably intended to edify the coach-passengers
of old. So to Newton-on-the-Moor — which might
more fitly be named Newton-on-the-Hill — with its
half-dozen cottages and its coal-pits, and thence by
a featureless but not unpleasing road into Alnwick.

It is something of a shock to the sentimental
pilgrim, northward -bound, that the entrance to

206 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

historic Alnwick should be by the gasworks, the
railway station, the Farmers' Folly (of which more
shall presently be said), and other unmistakable and
unromantic evidences of modernity that spread
beyond the ancient confines of the town to form the
suburb of Bondgate Without ; but man cannot live
•by medievalism alone. The town itself is gained at
that point where the heavy blackened mass of Bond-
gate itself spans the road, just beyond the elaborately
rebuilt ' Old Plough,' still exhibiting, however, the
curious tablet from the old house :—

' That which your Father old hath purchased and left
You to possess, do you dearly
Hold to show his worthiness. 1714.'

XXVII

Alnwick is a town with a great past and a somno-
lent present. There are yawns at every turn, echoes
with every footfall, and grass growing unbidden in
the streets. But there are forces of elemental power
at Alnwick, little though the stranger suspects them.
There have of late years been periods of storm and
stress in the columns of the Alnwick Gazette, for
instance, respecting the local water-supply, which
have drawn forth inappropriately fiery letters from
correspondents, together with many mixed metaphors.
How is this for impassioned writing ? — ' The retribu-
tive forces of well-balanced justice have, after a dead
ebb, returned with a swelling tide, and overtaken
the arrogative policy of the freeholders.' But this is

ALNWICK 207

nothing to the following striking figure of ' the arm
of scandalous jobbery steeped to the lips in perfidious
dishonour' — a delightful literary image unsurpassed in
Ireland itself; or 'another hydra of expense arising
phoenix-like from the ashes of misgovernmcnt.' Did
the word ' hydrant,' we wonder, suggest this last
period ? Is the dulness of Alnwiek due to the decay
following the corruption hinted at ? Perhaps ; for,
as this publicist next inquires, ' How could anything
symbolical of greatness, wrapped with ropes of sand,
ever and for aye, flourish like the green bay-tree ? '
Ah ! how ? It is a difficult question to answer, and
so we will leave the question at that.

Alnwiek, of course, derives its name from its
situation on the romantic Aln : the ' wick,' or village
on that river. The name is kin to that of many
other 'wicks,' 'weeks/ and 'wykes' in England,
and has its fellows in such places as High Wycombe ;
Wykeham (now spelt Wickham) in Hampshire,
whence came William of Wykeham ; the village of
Weeke, near Winchester ; and in the town named
simply Wick, in the north of Scotland. Alnwiek in
these times is a place of a certain grim and lowering
picturesqueness. Its grey stone houses are at one
with the greyness of the Northumbrian skies, and a
general air of barren stoniness impresses the traveller
as its chief feature. It is an effect of prisons and
gaolers which reaches its height in the open space
that fronts the barbican of the castle. You look,
instinctively, for Her Majesty's prison regulations on
the outer walls, and, approaching the gate, expect a
warder's figure at the wicket.

2o8 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

This is no uncongenial aspect of that old fortress.
It is rather in the Italian drawing-rooms, the picture-
galleries, and the Renaissance luxuries of the interior
of the castle that the jarring note is struck and all
association with feudal times forgotten. Many a Border
moss-trooper has unwillingly passed through this grim
barbican, and so left the world for ever ; and many
more of higher estate have found this old stronghold
of the Percies a place of lifelong durance, or have
in its dungeons met a secret end. For chivalry was
not inconsistent with midnight murder or treachery,
and the Percies, centred in their fortress like spiders
in their webs, had all the virtues and the vices of
chivalric times. Ambitious and powerful, they were
alike a bulwark against the Scots and a menace to
successive kings of England, and none in those olden
times could have approached their castle gate with
the equable pulsation of the modern tourist. In
those times, instead of finding a broad level open
space here, a deep ditch would have been seen and
a drawbrido;e must have been lowered before access

was possible. Then possibly the stone figures in
violent attitudes that line the battlements, and seem
to be casting missiles down upon the heads of visitors,
may have been alarming ; to-day we only wonder if
they could ever have tricked even the most bat-eyed
warrior into a belief that they were really living
men-at-arms.

The Percies, whose name attaches more than any
other to Alnwick, were, strictly speaking, never its
owners. The first of that name came over to Eng-
land with the Conqueror in the person of William

THE PERCIES 209

cle Percy, a younger son of the feudal lord of the
village of Percie in Normandy, which still exists to
point out to the curious tourist the spot whence this
historic family sprang. This William de Percy was
nicknamed ' Le Gernons,' or ' Whiskers/ whence
derives the name of Algernon, even now a favourite
one with the Smithsou-Percies. ' Whiskers ' was
present at the battle of Hastings, and for his aid
was granted manors in Hampshire, Lincolnshire, and
York, but none in Northumberland. He died in
1086, when with the Crusaders, near Jerusalem. The
Percies never became connected in any way with
Aluwick, for the family of this William de Percy
became extinct in 11G6, when Agnes, an only child
of his descendant, married Josceline de Lovaine ; and
it was not until 1309 that the descendant of this
Lovaine, who had assumed the Percy name, came
into wrongful possession of the vast estates. Alnwick
and sixty other baronies in Northumberland had
until then been in possession of the de Vescis, of
whom Yvo de Vesci was the original Norman owner.
His descendant, William de Vesci, who died in 1297,
was the last of his line, and appears to have been of a
peculiarly trusting disposition. He put a great (and
an unfounded) faith in t the honesty of churchmen,
leaving all his estates to Anthony Bek, Prince-Bishop
of Durham, in trust for an infant illegitimate son,
until he should come of age. But Bek picked a
quarrel with his ward, and in 1309 sold the lands to
Henry Percy, who thus became the first Baron Percy
of Alnwick.

But let us not do an injustice to the Church. Prince-

210 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Bishops were kittle cattle, an amorphous kind of
creature. Perhaps his lay half impelled Bek to this
knavery, and, following the Scriptural injunction not
to let the right hand know what is done by the left,
his clerical moiety remained in ignorance of the
crime. Heaven be praised, there are no longer any
of these Jekyll and Hyde creatures, for the Bishops-
Palatine of Durham were abolished two generations
or more since.

There were, in the fulness of time, three Barons
Percy of Alnwick, and then the Barony was erected
into the Earldom of Northumberland. The axe and
the sword took heavy toll of this new line, for the
Earls of Northumberland seldom died in their beds,
and father and son often followed one another in a
bloody death, until at length they became extinct
with the death of the eleventh and last Earl of
Northumberland. Of these eleven, only seven died a
natural death. There were Percies who fell in battle ;
others who, rightly or wrongly, met the death of
traitors ; one was torn to pieces by a mob ; and
another was obscurely done to death in prison. Nor
did only the heads of the family end violently : their
sons and other relations led lives as turbulent, and
finished as suddenly.

When the only child, a daughter, of the eleventh
Earl married the sixth Duke of Somerset, she brought
all these vast estates into "the Seymour family. They
did not, however, remain there long, for, curiously
enough, the only child of the seventh duke was
also a daughter. She married ' the handsomest
man of his time/ a Smithson, in 1740, and thus

'SMITHSON' BECOMES ' PERCY' 211

the property came into the hands of the present
holders.

This most fortunate, as well as most handsome,
fellow was Sir Hugh Smithson, one of a family of
Yorkshire squires whose ancestor gained a knighthood
for his services to the Stuarts. In his youth, as a
younger son, he had been an apothecary, but he had
the aristocratic instinct, and, discarding his old name,
took that of Percy, to which, of course, he had no
sort of right.

The name of Percy is one to conjure with. The
Lovaines, who had assumed it, made it famous in
the annals of chivalry, with a thousand deeds of
derring-do in the debatable lands. Smithson, too, is
a good name. It at least tells of descent from an
honest craftsman, and Sir Hugh's knighted ancestor
had, obviously, done nothing to be ashamed of.
Unfortunately for Sir Hugh and his successors, this
unwarranted assumption of an historic name took
place so well within the historic period that it is
never likely to be forgotten. George the Third, who
also had the instinct of aristocracy, kept the fact well
in mind, and when, sorely against his will, he was
obliged to confer the Dukedom of Northumberland
upon this ex-apothecary, consoled himself by vowing
that he should never obtain the Order of the Garter.
The Duke personally solicited a blue ribbon from the
king, and observed that he was ' the first Percy
who has been refused the Garter.' ' You forget,'
replied his Majesty, * that you are the first Smithson
who has ever asked for it.'

The huge and historic stronghold of Alnwick had

2i2 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

by this time become ruinous, and the Smithson duke
was for a while uncertain whether to reside here
or at Wark worth. Alnwick, however, found favour
with him, and he set to work to render it a place
worthy of one of his quality. To this end he
wrought havoc with the feudal antiquities of the
castle, pulling down the ancient chapel and several
of the towers, filling up the moats, plastering the
walls and ceilings, enlarging arrow-slits into great
windows, and playing the very devil with the place.
The military history of the castle, as expressed in the
picturesque irregularity of successive alterations and
additions during many centuries, was swept away by
his zeal for uniformity, and the interior rooms were
remodelled in the taste of that age, to serve for a
residence, to such an extent that only the outer walls
retained even the appearance of a castle. When
Pennant wrote of it in 1767, he said : — ' You look in
vain for any marks of the grandeur of the feudal age ;
for trophies won by a family eminent in our annals
for military prowess and deeds of chivalry ; for halls
hung with helms and hauberks ' (good alliteration,
that ! but rash for Cockney repetition), ' or with the
spoils of the chase ; for extensive forests or for vener-
able oaks. The apartments are large, and lately
finished with a most incompatible elegance. The
gardens are equally inconsistent, trim in the highest
degree, and more adapted to a villa near London
than to the ancient seat of a great baron/ It was
to this criticism of ' trimness ' that Bishop Percy
objected. Discussing Pennant with Dr. Johnson, he
could not sit quietly and hear him praise a man who

• .

DUCAL FOLLY 215

had spoken so disrespectfully of Alnwick Castle and
the Duke's pleasure-grounds, and he eagerly opposed
the Doctor, evidently with some heat, for Johnson
said, ' He has done what he intended ; he has made
you very angry.' To which the Bishop replied, ' He
has said the garden is trim, which is representing it
like a citizen's parterre, when the truth is, there is a
very large extent of fine turf and gravel walks.'

'According to your own account, sir/ rejoined
Johnson, ' Pennant is right. It is trim. Here is
grass cut close and gravel rolled smooth. Is not
that trim ? The extent is nothing against that ; a
mile may be as trim as a square yard.' The Bishop
was vanquished.

All the sham Gothic alterations made at a huge
outlay by the first Duke (with the exception of one
room, which remains to show how atrocious his style
was) were swept away, by Algernon, the fourth Duke,
about 1855, and at a still greater cost replaced
internally with an interminable series of salons in
the Italian style. Externally the castle is a medi-
aeval fortress ; internally it is an Italian palace.
These works cost over £300,000, and serve to show
the measure of ducal folly. Make a man a duke
and give him an income commensurate, and he goes
mad and builds and rebuilds, burying himself in
masonry like a maggot in a cheese. But it is good
for trade ; and perhaps that is why Providence allows
a duke to be created now and then.

This magnificence for a long time created its own
Nemesis, and the Dukes of Northumberland, in their
gigantic castle, were worse off in one respect than a

2 1 6 THE GREA T NOR 7H R OAD

clerk in London suburbs in a six-roomed, nine-inch
walled, jerry-built ' villa ' at £30 a year. They could
never get a hot dinner ! The kitchen is large enough,
and the fireplace so huge that the fire cannot be
made up without shovelling on a ton of coals ; but
the dining-room is so far away, and the communica-
tion was so bad (involving going across courtyards
open to the sky) that everything was cold before it
reached table. This has been remedied, and my
lords dukes now have their food sent to them along
rails on trolleys — just as they feed the beasts at the
Zoo.

The Dukes of Northumberland are well titled.
They are autocrats in that county, owning as they
do 181,616 of its acres, and drawing a rental of
£161,874. Some of them have been insufferably
egotistical. The ' Brislee ' Tower, built on the neigh-
bouring height of Brislaw by the first Duke, is
evidence sufficient to prove that. It is a monument
by himself to his own doings, and invites the pilgrim,
in a long bombastical inscription, to ' Look around,
behold,' and marvel at the plantations with which he
caused the bare hillsides to be covered.

But the most prominent memorial in Alnwick is
the well-named 'Farmers' Folly/ erected to the second
Duke in 1816. Entering or leaving the town, it is a
most striking object : a pillar 85 feet in height, with
the Percy lion on its summit. What did the second
Duke do to deserve this ? Did he serve his country
in war ? Was he a statesman ? Was he benevolent
to the tenants who erected it ? Not at all. Here is
the story.

THE ' -FARMERS FOLL V 217

When the nineteenth century dawned we were at
war with France, and wheat and all kinds of produce
were at enormously enhanced prices. The farmers,
therefore, began to do very well. Their banking-
accounts swelled, and some of them were on the way
to realise small fortunes. The Duke saw this, and
sorrowed because they found it possible to do more
than exist ; and accordingly he added to their rents,
doubling them in almost every instance, and in many
others quadrupling them. But when the country
entered on the long peace that followed Waterloo,
and prices fell enormously, the unfortunate farmers
found it impossible to pay their way under these
added burdens. Mark the ducal generosity ! As
they could not pay, he reduced the rents by twenty-
five per cent. ! Like a draper at his annual sale, he
effected a 'great reduction,' an 'alarming sacrifice,'
by taking oft' a percentage of what he had already im-
posed. How noble ! Then the tenants, the grateful
fellows, subscribed to build the column, which is
inscribed : — ' To Hugh, Duke of Northumberland, by
a grateful and united tenantry.' Having done this,
they went into bankruptcy and the workhouse, or
emigrated, or just gave up their farms because they
could not carry on any longer. The money they
had subscribed did not suffice to complete this testi-
monial to Duke Hugh's benevolence, and so — a comic-
opera touch — he subscribed the rest, and finished it
himself. What humorists these Smithsons are !

2i8 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

XXVIII

The road, leaving Alnwick, plunges down from
the castle barbican to the black hollow in which the
Aln flows, overhung with interlacing and overarching
trees. The river is crossed here by that bridge
shown in Turner's picture, the ' Lion Bridge ' as it is
called, from the Percy lion, ' with tail stretched out
as straight as a broom-handle/ standing on the
parapet and looking with steadfast gaze to the
north. It is an addition since Turner's picture
was painted, and an effective one, too. Also, since
that time, the trees have encroached and enshrouded
the scene most completely ; so that the only satis-
factory view is that looking backwards when one
has emerged from the black dell. And a most
satisfactory view it is, with the i's and t's of
romance dotted and crossed so emphatically that it
looks like some theatrical scene, or the optically
realised home of the wicked hero of one of Grimm's
fairy tales. If this were not the beginning of the
twentieth century, one might well think twice before
venturing down into the inky depths of that over-
shaded road ; but these are matter-of-fact times, and
we know well that only the humdrum burgesses of
Alnwick, in their shops, are beyond ; with, instead
of a mediaeval duke in the castle, who would think
nothing of hanging a stray wayfarer or so from
his battlements, a very modern peer — not, with
his ' bowler ' hat and general appearance, unlike

DISTANT ALNWICK 221

one of the 'commercial gentlemen' who wait upon
the burgesses aforesaid.

The road onwards is a weariness and an infliction
to the cyclist, for it goes on in a heavy three
miles' continuous rise up to the summit of Heifer-
law Bank, whence there is a wide and windy view
of uncomfortable-looking moorlands to the north,
with the craggy Cheviots, perhaps covered with
snow, to the north-west. As a literary lady-
Mrs. Montagu — wrote in 1789, when on a northern
journey, ' These moors are not totally uninhabited,
but they look unblcst.' How true !

The proper antidote to this is the looking back
to where, deep down in the vale of Aln, lie town
and castle, perhaps lapt in infrequent sunshine,
more probably seen through rain, but, in any case,
presenting a picture of sheltered content, and seeming
to be protected from the rude buffets of the weather
by the hill on which we arc progressing and by
the wooded flanks of Brislaw on the other side.
' Seeming,' because those who know Alnwick well
could tell a different tale of wintry blasts and in-
clement seasons that belie the hint of this hillside
prospect for three whole quarters round the calendar
and a good proportion of the fourth. In this lies a
suggestion of why the Percies were so warlike. They
and their northern foes fought to keep themselves
warm ! Nowadays such courses would lead to the
police-court, and so football has become a highly
popular game in these latitudes. But the south-
ward glimpse of Alnwick and its surroundings from
the long rise of Heiferlaw Bank is, when sunshine

222

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

prevails, of a quite incommunicable charm. The
background of hills, covered with Duke Hugh's
woods and crowned with his tower, recalls in its
rich masses of verdure the landscapes of De Wint ;

and if in the Duke's
inscription on that
tower he seems to
rank himself in fel-
lowship with the
Creator, certainly,
now he has been
dead and gone these
hundred years, his
saplings, grown into
forest trees and cloth-
ing the formerly
barren hillsides, have
effected a wonderful
change.

Beside the road are
the few remaining
stones of St. Leonard's
Chapel, and, a short
distance beyond, on
the right, in a grove
of trees, Malcolm's
Cross, marking the spot where Malcolm Caenmore,
King of Scotland, was slain in 1 0 9 3. It replaces a more
ancient cross, and was erected by the first Duchess
of Northumberland in 1774. It was on his seventh
foray into Northumberland, besieging Alnwick
Castle, that Malcolm was killed, in an ambush care-

¥'

MALCOLM'S CROSS.

HEIFERLAW 223

fully prepared for him. The legend, which tells
how he was treacherously slain by a thrust of a
spear in the eye by one of the Percies, who was
pretending to deliver up the castle keys on the
spear's point, is untrue, as of course is the popular
derivation of the family name from 'pierce eye.'
Moreover, the Percies, as we have, seen, did not
own Alnwick until more than two hundred years
afterwards.

Heiferlaw, as befits so commanding a hill-top so
close to the Border, has its watch-tower, looking
across the marches, whence the outlying defenders
of Aluwick, ever watchful against Scottish raids,
could give timely warning to the garrison. It stands
to-day a picturesque ruin, in cultivated fields that in
those fierce old times, when men had no leisure for
peaceful arts and industries, formed a portion of the
wild moorland. ' Blaw-weary ' they call one of these
fields, and the title is as descriptive of this exposed
situation as anything in the whole range of nomen-
clature. Beyond this point the road descends to a
level stretch of country leading to North Charlton,
where a few farmsteads alone stand for a village,

O '

together with a prominent hillock covered with trees
and looking as though it had, or ought to have, a
story to it — a story which research fails to unearth.
Opposite, meadows called locally ' Comby Fields,'
presumably from a series of ridges seen in them,
seem to point to some forgotten history. Browny-
side, adjoining, is an expanse of moorland, covered
with bracken ; followed by Warenford, a pretty ham-
let in a hollow by a tiny stream, with Twizel Park

224 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

on the left. At Belford, a large wide-streeted village
with a nowadays all too roomy coaching inn, the
' Blue Bell/ and an old cross with gas-lamps fitted
to it by some vandal or other, the road draws near
the coast ; that storied Northumbrian sea-shore
where Bambrough Castle on its islanded rock, many
miles of yellow quicksands, and the Fame and Holy
Islands are threaded out in succession before the
gaze. Bambrough, the apex of its pyramidical form
just glimpsed above an intervening headland, looks
in the distance like another St. Michael's Mount ;
and Holy Island, ahead, is a miniature fellow to it.
The ruined cathedral of Holy Island, the ancient
Lindisfarne, the spot whence the missionary Aid an
from lona began the conversion of Northumbria in
634, and where he was succeeded by that most
famous of all northern bishops and saints, the woman-
hating Saint Cuthbert, is the mother-church of the
north, and became possessed in later times of great
areas of land through which the road now passes.
Buckton, Goswick, Swinhoe, Fenwick, Cheswick
were all ' possessions ' of the monastery ; and the
old ecclesiastical parish of Holy Island, once includ-
ing all these places on the mainland, and constituting
then an outlying wedge of Durham in the county of
Northumberland, although now a thing of the past,
still goes by the local name of Islandshire. Buckton,
now a few scattered cottages by the roadside, held
a place in the old rhyme which incidentally shows
that the monks of Lindisfarne adopted that comfort-
ing doctrine—

' Who lives a good life is sure to live well.'

HOLY ISLAND 225

Their farms and granges yielded them all that the
appreciative stomachs of these religious recluses could
desire, save indeed when the Scots swooped over the
Tweed and took their produce away. It is a rhyme
of good living : —

'From Goswick we've geese, from Cheswick we've cheese;

From Buckton we 've venison in store ;
From S \vinhoe we've bacon, but the Scots it have taken,
And the Prior is longing for more.'

The yellow sands that occupy the levels and reach
out at low tide to Holy Island are treacherous. With
the exquisite colouring of sea and sky on a summer
day blending with them, they look at this distance
like the shores of fairyland ; but the grim little
churchyard of Holy Island has many memorials
presenting another picture — a picture of winter storm
and shipwreck, for which this wild coast has ever
been memorable. Off Bambrough, where the Fame
Islands are scattered in the sea, the scene is still
recalled of the wreck of the Forfarshire and Grace
Darling's heroism ; and the monument of that famous
girl stands in Bambrough churchyard to render the
summer pilgrim mindful of the danger of this coast.
Dangerous not only to those on the \vaters, but also
to travellers who formerly took the short cut from
Berwick across the sands, instead of going by the
hilly road. The way, clearly marked in daylight
by a line of poles, has often been mistaken at night ;
sudden storms, arising when travellers have reached
midway, have swept them out to sea ; or fogs have
entangled the footsteps even of those who knew the
uncharted flats best. Whatever the cause, to be lost

226 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

here was death. The classic instance, still narrated,
is that of the postboy carrying the mails from Edin-
burgh on the 20th of November 1725. Neither he
nor the mail-bags were ever heard of again after
leaving Berwick, and it was naturally concluded that
he was lost on the quicksands in a sea-fog.

Away on the west of the road rise the Kyloe hills,
like ramparts, and on their tallest ridge the church-
tower of Kyloe, conspicuous for long distances, and
greatly appreciated by sailors as a landmark. The
village is not perhaps famous, but certainly notable,
for a former vicar, who apparently aspired to writing
a personal history of his parish as well as keeping
a merely formal set of registers. Scattered through
his official records are some very curious notes, among
them: '1696. Buried, Dec. 7, Henry, the son of
Henry Watson of Fenwick, who lived to the age
of 36 years, and was so great a fool that he could
never put on his own close, nor never went a \ mile
off ye house in all this space.'

The road at this point was the scene of Grizel
Cochrane's famous exploit, in 1685, when at night-
fall, disguised as a man, and mounted on horseback,
she waylaid the mail-rider, and, holding a pistol to
his head, robbed him of the warrant he was carrying
for the execution of her father, Sir John Cochrane,
taken in rebellion against James the Second. By
this means she obtained a fortnight's respite, a delay
which was used by his friends to secure his pardon.
Grizel Cochrane has, of course, been ever since the
heroine of Border song. A clump of trees on a
hillock, surrounded by a wall, to the right of the

HAGGERSTON 227

road, long bore the name of ' Grizzy's Clump,' but
it has recently been felled and so much of the land-
mark destroyed. The country folk, possessed of the
most invincible ignorance of the subject, know the
place only as 'Bambrough Hill,' a title they have
given it because from the summit an excellent view
of Bambrough Castle is gained.

The plantations of Haggerston Castle now begin
to cover the land sloping down toward the sea, and,
after passing a deserted building on the left, once a
coaching inn, the park surrounding the odd-looking
modern castellated residence is reached. Here, by
the entrance to the house, the road goes off at an
acute angle to the left, and, continuing thus for a
quarter of a mile, turns as sharply to the right. An
old manorial pigeon-house, still with a vane bearing
the initials C. L. H., stands by the wray, and bears
witness to the ownership of the estate in other times
by the old Haggerston family. It was to Sir
Carnaby Haggerston that those initials belonged, the
late eighteenth - century squire who destroyed the
old Border tower of Haggerston Castle, and built
a new mansion in its stead, just as so many of his
contemporaries did.

Sir Carnaby Haggerston does not appear — apart
from, this vandal act of his — to have been an especi-
ally Wicked Squire, although his devastating name
launched him upon the world ear-marked for com-
mission of all the crimes practised by the libertine
landowners who made so brave a show in a certain
class of literature arid melodrama once popular. His
name strikes the ear even more dramatically than

228 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

that of Sir Rupert Murgatroyd, the accursed Baronet
of Ruddigore in Mr. W. S. Gilbert's comic opera ;
but he never lived up to its possibilities. The only
things he seems to have had in common with the
typical squire of old seem to have been a love of
port and whist, and a passion for building houses
too large for his needs or means.

The Wicked Squire who unwillingly sat to the
novelists who used to write in the pages of Reynolds' s
Miscellany and journals of that stamp fifty years ago,
as the high-born villain of their gory romances, may be
regretted, because without him the pages of the penny
novelist are become extremely tame ; but his disap-
pearance need not be mourned for any othcT- reasons.

It is to him we owe the many supposedly ' classi-
cal ' mansions that, huge and shapeless, like so many
factories, reformatories, or workhouses, affront the
green sward, the beautiful gardens, and the noble
trees of many English parks. To build vast man-
sions of this ' palatial ' character, the squires often
pulled down middle-Tudor or Elizabethan, or even
earlier, manor-houses of exquisite beauty, vying with
one another in the size and extravagance of the new
buildings, whose original cost and subsequent main-
tenance have during the past hundred and fifty
years kept many county families in straitened circum-
stances, and do so still. There was a squire who
pulled down a whole series of mediaeval wayside
crosses in his district, and used the materials as
building-stones toward the great mansion he was
erecting for the purpose of outshining a neighbour.
Those transcendent squires, the noblemen of old, had

FLAUNTING SQUIRES 229

larger opportunities and made the worst use of them.
The Duke of Buckingham, for example, bought a
property, demolished the Elizabethan hall that stood
on it, and built Stowe there in its place ; a building
of vast range and classic elevation, with colonnades
and porticoes, and ' windows that exclude the light
and lead to nothing/ as some one has very happily
remarked. Sir Francis Dashwood, that hero of the
Hell Fire Club, pulled down West Wycombe church
and built the existing building, that looks like a
Lancashire cotton-mill ; and every one built houses a
great deal larger than were wanted or they could
afford, which, like the Earl of Leicester's seat at
Holkham, were so little like homes that they could
neither live in their stately apartments nor sleep in
their vast bedrooms. Like the Earl and Countess of
Leicester, who were compelled for comfort's sake to
sleep in one of the servants' bedrooms in the attics,
they lived as settlers in corners of their cavernous
and uncomfortable palaces.

Pity the poor descendant of the Squires ! He
cannot afford in these days to keep up his huge
house ; to pull it down would in itself cost a fortune ;
and its very size frightens the clients of the house-
agent in whose hands he has had it for letting, these
years past. All over England this is seen, and the
old Yorkshire tale would stand true of any other
county and of many other county magnates of that
time. The Marquis of Buckingham, according to
that story, built a mansion at Wentworth big enough
for the Prince of Wales ; Sir Rowland Winn built one
at Nostel Priory fit for the Marquis of Eockiiigham ;

230 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

and Mr. Wrightson of Cusworth built a house fit for
Sir Rowland Winn. No doubt the farmers carried
on the tale of extravagance down to their stratum of
society, and so ad infinitum.

But to return to Haggerston Castle, which now
belongs to the Leylands. Conspicuous for some
distance is the tower built of recent years to at one
and the same time resemble a mediaeval keep and to
serve a practical purpose as a water-tower, engine-
room, and look-out. The place, however, is remark-
able for quite other things than its mock castle, for
in the beautiful park are kept in pens, or roaming
about freely, herds of foreign animals which make of
it a miniature Zoological Gardens. It is, in a sense,
superior indeed to that well-known place ; for if the
collections do not cover so wide a range, the animals
are in a state of nature. Emus, Indian cattle,
kangaroos, and many varieties of wild buck roam
this 'paradise,' together with a thriving herd of
American bison. The bison is almost extinct, even
in his native country, but here he flourishes exceed-
ingly and perpetuates his kind. A bison bull is a
startling object, come upon unawares, and looks like
the production of a lunatic artist chosen to illustrate,
say, the Jabberwock in Alice in Wonderland. He is
all out of drawing, with huge shaggy forelegs, and
head and shoulders a size too large for the rest of his

body ; an eye like a live coal, tufted coat like a
wrorn-out door-mat, and uncomfortable-looking horns :
the kind of creature that inhabits Nightmare Country,
popularly supposed to be bred of indigestion and
lobster mayonnaise.

BERWICK 231

XXIX

Beyond Haggerston, and up along the rising road
that leads for six of the seven miles to Berwick, the
journey is unexpectedly commonplace. The road has
by this time turned away from the sea, and, when it
has led us through an entirely charming tunnel-like
avenue of dwarf oaks, ceases to be interesting.
Always upwards, it passes collieries, the ' Cat ' inn,
and the hamlet of Richardson's Stead or Scremerston,
whence, arrived at the summit of Scremerston Hill,
the way down into Tweedmouth and across the
Tweed into Berwick is clear.

Tweedmouth sits upon the hither shore of Tweed,
clad in grime and clinkers. Like a mudlark dabbling
in the water but not cleansing himself in it, Tweed-
mouth seems to acquire no inconsiderable portion of
its dirt from its foreshore. Engineering works and
coal-shoots are responsible for the rest. Little or
nothing of antiquity enlivens its mean street that leads
down to the old bridge and so across the Tweed into
Scotland. The roofs of Berwick, clustered close
together and scaling one over the other as the town
ascends the opposite shore of the river, are seen, with
the spired Town Hall dominating all at the further
end of the long, narrow, hump-backed old structure,
and away to the left that fine viaduct of the North-
Eastern Railway, the Royal Border Bridge. But the
finest view, and the most educational in local topo-
graphy, is that gained by exploring the southern

232 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

shore of the Tweed for half a mile in an easterly
direction. An unlovely waterside road, it is true,
a maze of railway arches spanning it, and shabby
houses hiding all but the merest glimpses of Tweed-
mouth church and its gilded salmon-vane, referring
to the salmon-fishery of the Tweed ; but leading to a
point of view whence the outlook to the north-west
is really grand. There, across the broad estuary of
the Tweed, lies Berwick, behind its quays and its
enclosing defences. Across the river, in the middle
distance, goes Berwick Bridge, its massive piers and
arches looking as though carved out of the rock,
rather than built up of single stones. Beyond it, in
majestic array, go the tall arches of the Eoyal Border
Bridge, and, in the background, the Scottish hills.
Tweedmouth, its timber jetty, its docks, and church
spire, and its waterside lumber are in the forefront.
This, then, is the situation of Berwick, for centuries
the best-picked bone of contention between the rival
countries of England and Scotland ; the Border
cockpit, geographically in the northern kingdom, but
wrested from it by the masterful English seven
hundred and fifty years ago, and taken and re-taken
by or from stubborn Scots on a round dozen of
occasions afterwards. Sieges, assaults, stormings,
massacres under every condition of atrocity : these
are the merest commonplaces of Berwick's story,
until the mid-sixteenth century ; and the historian
who would write of its more unusual aspects must
needs turn attention to the rare and short-lived
interludes of peace.

It was in 1550, during the short reign of Edward

THE ROYAL BORDER BRIDGE 235

the Sixth, that the existing fortifications enclosing
the town were beo-un, whose river-fronting walls are

O y O

so conspicuous from Tweedmouth. The old bridge,
built by James the First, was the first peaceful enter-
prise between the two kingdoms ; for, although
Berwick had for over a century been recognised as a
neutral or ' buffer ' state, peace went armed for fear
of accidents, and easy communication across the
Tweed was not encouraged. There is food for re-
flection in comparison between that bridge and the
infinitely greater work of the railway viaduct. The
first, 1164 feet in length, with only 17 feet breadth
between the parapets, bridging the river with fifteen
arches, cost £17,000, and took twenty-four years to
build ; the railway bridge of twenty-eight giant
arches, each of 6 1^ feet span, and straddling the Tweed
at a height of 129 feet, was built in three years, at a
cost of £120, 000. The 'Royal Border Bridge,' as it
was christened at its opening by the Queen, has
precisely the appearance of a Roman aqueduct and
belongs to the Stone and Brick Age of railways.
Were it to do over again, there can be no doubt that,
instead of a long array of graceful arches, half a
dozen lengths of steel lattice girders would span the
tide. It was at a huge cost that England and Scot-
land were thus joined by rail ; bridge and approaches
swallowing up the sum of £253,000. The first
passenger train crossed over. October 15, 1848, but
the works were not finally completed until 1850. In
the August of that year the Queen formally opened
it, nearly two years after it was actually opened ; a
fine object-lesson for satirists. How we laugh at

236 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

ceremonials less absurd than this when they take
place in China and Japan !

Berwick town is seen, on entering its streets, to
be unexpectedly modern and matter-of-fact. The
classically steepled building that bulks command-
ingly in the main thoroughfare, and looks like a
church, is the Town Hall, and displays the arms of
Berwick prominently, the municipal escutcheon sup-
ported on either side by a sculptured bear sitting
on his rump and surrounded by trees. It is thus
that one of the disputed derivations of Berwick's
name is alluded to. At few towns has the origin
of a place-name been so contested as at Berwick ;
and, for all the pother about it, the question is still,
and must remain, unanswered. It might as reason-
ably have come from aberwic, the mouth of a
river, as from bergwic, the hillside village, and
much more reasonably than from the fanciful
' bar ' prefix alluding to the bareness of the
country; while of course the legend that gives
the lie to that last variant, and seeks an origin
in imaginary bears populating mythical woods, is
merely infantile.

The church-like Town Hall, which is also a market-
house and the town gaol, does indeed perform one
of the functions of a church, for the ugly Puritan
parish church of the town has no tower, and so the
steeple of the Town Hall rings for it.

In the broad High Street running northward from
this commanding building are all the prominent inns
of the town, to and from which the coaches came
and went until the opening of the Edinburgh and

SCOTTISH MAILS 237

Berwick Eailway in 1846. Some of the short stages
appear to have been misery-boxes, according to Dean
Ramsay, who used to tell an amusing anecdote of
one of them. On one occasion a fellow-traveller at
Berwick complained of the rivulets of rain-water
falling down his neck from the cracked roof. He
drew the coachman's attention to it on the first
opportunity, but all the answer he got was the
matter-of-fact remark, ' Ay, mony a ane has com-
plained o' that hole.'

The mail-coaches leaving Berwick on their journey
north were allowed to take an extra — a fourth —
outside passenger. Mail-coaches running in England
were, until 1834, strictly limited to four inside and
three outside. Of these last, one sat on the box,
beside the coachman, while the other two were seated
immediately behind, on the fore part of the roof, with
their backs to the guard. This was a rule originally
very strictly enforced, and had its origin in the fear
that, if more were allowed, it would be an easy
matter for desperadoes to occupy the seats as passen-
gers and to suddenly overpower both coachman and
guard. The guard in his solitary perch at the back,
with his sword-case and blunderbuss ready to hand,
could have shot or slashed at those in front, on
his observing any suspicious movement, and it is
somewhat surprising that no nervous guard ever
did wound some innocent passenger who may have
turned round to ask him a question. The concession
of an extra seat on the outside of coaches entering
Scotland was granted to the mail- contractors in view
of the more widely scattered population of Scotland,

238 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

and of the comparative scarcity of chance passengers
on the way.

But there is very great uncertainty as to the
number of passengers allowed on the mails in later
years. Moses Nobbs, one of the last of the old mail-
guards, states that no fewer than eight passengers
were allowed outside at the end of the coaching age.
Doubtless this was owing both to the complaints of
the contractors that with the smaller complement
they could not make the business pay, and to the
growing security of the roads.

Royal proclamations used, until recent times, to
specifically mention ' our town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed ' when promulgating decrees, for as by treaty
an independent State, neither in England nor Scot-
land, laws and ordinances affecting Great Britain
and Ireland could not legally be said to have been
extended to Berwick without the especial mention
of ' our town.' A state whose boundaries north and
south were Lamberton Toll and the Tweed, a distance
of not more than four miles, with a corresponding
extent from east to west, it was thus on a par with
many a petty German principality. Nearly three-
quarters of the land comprised within ' Berwick
Bounds' is the property of the Corporation, having
been granted by James the First when, overjoyed
at his good fortune in succeeding to the English
crown and thus uniting those of the two countries,
he entered upon his heritage. Lucky Berwick ! Its
freehold property brings in a revenue of £18,000 a
year, in relief of rates.

If the streets of Berwick are disappointing in so

DEFENCES' OF BERWICK 239

historic a place, then let the pilgrim make the circuit
of the town on the ramparts. These, at least, tell
of martial times, as also do the fragmentary towers
of the old castle, the few poor relics left of that
stronghold by the modern railway station overhang-
ing a deep cleft. Then, away in advance of the
ramparts, still thrusting its tubby, telescopic, three-
storied form forward, is the old Bell Tower, where,
in this advanced post, the vigilant garrison kept eyes
upon the north, whence sudden Scottish raids might
be developed at any time.

Grass covers the ramparts and sprouts in tufts
upon the gun-platforms contrived in early Victorian
days upon them ; and almost every variety of obsolete
cannon, short of the demi-culverins with which Drake
searched the Spanish Main, go to make up what—
Heaven help them and us ! — War Office officials call
batteries. Guns bristle thickly upon the waterside
batteries overlooking the harbour, but not one of
them is modern. All are muzzle-loading pieces, fit
for an artillerist's museum, and their carriages —

' O

where they are mounted at all — are in bewildering
variety, principally, however, of rotting wood. The
most recent piece, an Armstrong gun not less than
thirty years old, lies derelict in the long grass, and
children amuse themselves by filling its hungry-
looking maw with clods. Pot-bellied like all the
old Armstrongs, it has a look as though it had grown
fat and lazy with that diet and lain down in the lono-

•> o

grass to sleep. Perhaps to guard its slumbers, a Wai-
Office notice beside the prostrate gun vainly forbids
trespassing !

240 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Down in a ditch of the fortifications a soldier in
his shirt sleeves, his braces dangling about his legs,
is tending early peas with all the tenderness of a
mother for an invalid child — for, look you, early peas
in these latitudes have a hard fight for it ; and the
fight of those vegetables for existence against the
nipping blasts that sweep from off the North Sea
is the only sign of warfare the place has to show.
Taken as a whole, and looked at whichever way you
will, the ' defences ' of Berwick-upon-Tweed show a
trustfulness in Providence and in the astounding luck
of the British Empire which argues much for the
piety or the folly of our rulers. And so, with the
varied reflections these things call forth, let us away
up the High Street, and, passing under the archway
of the Scotch Gate, spanning its northern extremity,
leave Berwick on the way to Scotland.

XXX

' Seeing Scotland, Madam/ said Dr. Johnson, in
answer to Mrs. Thrale's expressed wish to visit that
country, ' is only seeing a worse England. It is
seeing the flower gradually fade away to the naked
stalk.' This bitter saying of the Doctor's comes
vividly to mind when leaving Berwick on the way to
Edinburgh. Passing the outskirts of the town at
a point marked on the Ordnance map with the
unexplained name of 'Conundrum,' the country
grows bare and treeless on approaching the sea ; and

SCOTLAND 241

at Lambert on Toll, three miles north, where ' Ber-
wick Bounds' are reached and Scotland entered,
the scene is desolate in the extreme. The cottage
to the left of the road at this point, formerly the
toll-house of the turnpike-gate that stood here, is a
famous place, rivalling Gretna Green for the run-
away matches legalised at the gate until 1856, when
changes in the law rendered a part of the once-
familiar notice in the window out-of-date. It ran,
' Ginger-beer sold here, and marriages performed on
the most reasonable terms ' ; an announcement which

LAMBERTON TOLL.

for combination of the trivial and the tremendous it
WTtuld be difficult to beat.

Geographically in Scotland when across the Tweed,
we are not politically in that country until past this
cottage. Then indeed we are, in many ways, in a
foreign land.

Scots law is a fearful and wonderful variant from
English. Even its terminology is strange to the
English ear, which finds — hey, presto ! — on passing
Berwick Bounds, a barrister changed into an ' advo-
cate/ a solicitor converted into a 'Writer to the

242 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Signet/ and a prosecutor masquerading under the
thrilling and descriptive alias of ' pursuer.' It was
the laxity of Scots law that made, not only
Gretna Green, but any other place over the Border
from England, a resort of those about to marry and
impatient of constraints, legal or family, at any
period between 1753 and 1856. Gretna Green and
its neighbour, Springfield, in especial, and in no
small degree Lamberton Toll, were the scenes of
much hasty marrying, during that space of time.
Marrying, Men entendu, and not giving in marriage,
for these were runaway matches, and those whose
position it was to give, and who withheld their con-
sent, generally came posting up to the toll-gate in
pursuit just in time to hear the last words of the
simple but effective ritual of the toll-keeper, who had
witnessed the declaration of the truants that 'This
is my wife,' and ' This is my husband,' a simple form
of words which, uttered in the presence of a witness,
was all that the beneficent legal system of Scotland
required as marriage ceremony. This form com-
pleted, and for satisfaction's sake a rough register
subscribed, the indignant parent, who possibly had
been battering on the outside of the door, was ad-
mitted and introduced to his son-in-law.

It was a century of licence (not marriage licence)
that prevailed on the Border from the passing of
Lord Hardwicke's Clandestine Marriage Act in 1753
until that of Lord Brougham in 1856, which put a
stop to this ' over the Border ' marrying by rendering
unions illegal on the part of those not domiciled in
Scotland, which had not been preceded by a residence

LAMBERTON TOLL 245

in that kingdom of not less than twenty-one days by
one or other of the contracting parties.

There was no special virtue in the first place across
the Border-line at any point, nor did it matter who
'officiated,' the person who 'performed the cere-
mony ' being only a witness and in no sense a clergy-
man ; but it was obviously, with these legal facilities,
the prime object of runaway couples pressed for time,
and with hurrying parents and guardians after them,
to seize their opportunity at the first place, and at
the hands of the first person in that liberal-minded
land. Not that the Kirk looked benevolently upon
this. It fined them, for discipline's sake, and the
happy couples cheerfully paid, for by doing so they
acquired the last touch of validity, which, on the
face of it, could not be called into dispute.

One of this long line of Hymen's secular priesthood
at LambertonToll had, early in the nineteenth century,
an unhappy time of it, owing to an error of judg-
ment and an ignorance of the law scarcely credible.
Joseph Atkinson, the toll-keeper, was away one day
at Berwick when a runaway pair arrived at the gate.
His wife, or another, sent them after him, and in
Berwick the ceremony, such as it was, was performed.
Now Berwick is a county of itself, and the inhabi-
tants boast, or used to, that their town belongs to
neither England nor Scotland. It is hinted (by
those who do not belong to Berwick) that it belongs
instead to the devil, which possibly is a reminiscence
of the townsfolk's smuggling days, on the part of
those who duly render unto Ca3sar. This by the
way. Unhappily for Mr. Joseph Atkinson, Berwick

246 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

owes allegiance to English law, as he found when his
ceremony was declared null and void, and he was
duly sentenced to seven years' transportation for
having contravened the Marriage Act of 1753.

Halidon Hill, where the English avenged Bannock-
burn upon the Scots in 1333, is on the crest of the
upland to the west of Lamberton Toll. Now the
road runs upon the edge of the black cliffs that
plunge down into the North Sea, commanding bold
views of a stern and iron-bound coast. Horses,
coachmen, guards, and passengers alike quailed before
the storms that swept these exposed miles, and even
the highwaymen sought other and more sheltered
spots. Macready, on tour in the north, was sno wed-
up here, in the severe winter of 1813-14. Coming
south through the deep and still falling snow, he
travelled in a cutting made in the drifts for miles
between Ross Inn and Berwick-on-Tweed. ' We did
not reach Newcastle,' he says, ' until nearly two
hours after midnight : and fortunate was it for the
theatre and ourselves that we had not delayed our
journey, for the next day the mails were stopped ;
nor for more than six weeks was there any con-
veyance by carriage between Edinburgh and New-
castle. After some weeks, a passage was cut through
the snow for the guards to carry the mails on horse-
back, but for a length of time the communications

7 O

every way were very irregular.'

Where the little Flemington Inn stands solitary
at a fork of the road, close by a tremendous gap in
the cliffs, is placed Burnmouth station, on the main
line, wedged in a scanty foothold, hundreds of feet

BURNMOUTH 247

above the sea. Day or night it is a picturesque
place, but more especially in the afterglow of sunset,
when the inky blackness of the rift in the cliffs can
still be set off against the gleam of the sea, caught
in a notch of the rocks, and when the lighted signal-
lamps of the little junction glow redly against the
sky on their tall masts, like demon eyes. A fishlike,
if not an ancient, smell lingers here, for Burnmouth
station is constantly in receipt of the catches made
down below by the hardy fishers of the three hamlets
of Burnmouth, Partinghal, and Ross, queer fishing-
villages of white-washed stone cottages that line the
rocky shore unsuspected by ninety-nine among every
hundred travellers along the road above. Herrings
caught in the North Sea are cured here, packed in
barrels, and sent by rail to distant markets.

Ayton, two miles onward, away from the sea, is
entered in perplexing fashion, downhill and by a
sharp turn to the right over a bridge spanning the
Eye Water, instead of continuing straight ahead
along a road that makes specious pretence of being
the proper way. Ayton itself, beyond being a large
village, with a modern castellated residence in the
Scottish baronial style and vivid red sandstone at
its entrance, is not remarkable.

Leaving Ayton, the road enters a secluded valley
whose solitudes of woodland, water, and meadows
are not imperilled, but only intensified, by the rail-
way, which goes unobtrusively within hail of this
old coaching highway. On the right rise the gently
swelling sides of a range of hills sloping upwards
from the very margin of the road and covered with

248 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

woods of dwarf oak, through whose branches the
sunlight filters and lies on the ferns below in twink-
ling patches of gold. Here stood the old Houndwood
Inn, and the building yet remains, converted — good
word in such a connection — into a manse for the
Free Church near by, itself a building calculated to
make angels weep, — if angels have appreciations in
architecture. Another, and a humbler, building
carries on the licensed victualling trade, and calls
itself, prettily enough, the ' Greenwood Inn.' It is,
in fact, a stretch of country that makes for inspira-
tion in the rustic sort. If there were a sign of
the ' Robin Hood ' here we should acclaim it romantic
and appropriate, even though tradition tells not of
that mythical outlaw in these marches. If not
Robin, then some other chivalric outlaw surely
should have pervaded the glades of Houndwood,
open as they are, with never a fence, a hedge, or
a ditch to the road, just as though these were still
the fine free days of old, before barbed-wire fences
were dreamed of, or notices to trespassers set up,
threatening vague penalties to be enforced ' with
all the rigour of the law,' as the phrase generally
runs.

It is a valley of whose delights one must needs
chatter, although with but dim hopes of communi-
cating much of its charm. Through it that little
stream called by the medicinally sounding name, the
Eye Water, wanders with a feminine hesitancy and
inconstancy of purpose. It flows all ways by turns
and never long in any direction, and with so many
amazing loops and doublings, that it might well

G& ANT'S fro USE 249

defy the precision of the Ordnance chartographers
themselves. We bid farewell to this fickle stream
at Grant's House, and scrape acquaintance with
another, the Pease Burn, flowing in another direction.
For Grant's House stands on the watershed which
orders the going of several watercourses. It is also
the summit-level of this railway route to the North.
Here, quite close to the road, is Grant's House
station, and here, bordering the road, are the houses
that form Grant's House itself. This sounds like
speaking in paradox, but the place is a village, or
rather a scattered collection of pretty cottages that
have gathered around the one inn which was the
home of the original Grant, The place-name seems
to hint of other and less-travelled times, when these
Borders were sparsely settled and wayfarers few ;
when but one house served to take the edge off the
solitude, and that an inn kept by one Grant. The
imagination, thus uninstructed, weaves cocoons of
speculation around these premises and conceives
him to have been a host of abounding personality,
thus to hand his name down to posterity, preserved
in a place-name, like a fly in amber. But all specu-
lations that start upon this innkeeping basis would
be incorrect, for this sponsorial Grant was the con-
tractor who made the road from Berwick to Edin-
burgh, building a cottage for himself in this then
lonely spot, which only in later years became the
Grant's House inn.

More streams and woods beyond this point, and then
comes the long and toilsome rise up to Cockburns-
path, past Pease Burn, where the road takes a

250 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

double S curve on the hillside, and other tall hills, to
right and left and ahead, largely covered with firs and
larches, seem to look on with a gloomy anticipation
of some one, less cautious than his fellows, breaking
his neck. Where there are no hillside woods there
are grass meadows in which, if it be June or July,
the haymakers can be seen from the road, haymaking,
with attendant horses and carts, at a perilous angle.
The Pease Burn, flowing deep down in its Dene, is
spanned at a height of 127 feet, half a mile down-
stream, by a four-arched bridge, built in 1786.

XXXI

Set in midst of these steep and twisting roads
and above these watery ravines is Cockburnspath
Tower, a ruined Border castle of rust-red stone that
frowns down upon the road on the edge of a tremen-
dous gully. It was never more than a peel- tower,
but strongly placed and solidly built, a fitting refuge
for those who took part in the ups and downs of
Border forays. In the days when Co'path Tower
(local pronunciation) was built, every one's house
was more or less a defensible building. ' An English-
man's house is his castle' is a figurative expression
commonly used to prefigure the inviolate character
of the law-abiding citizen's domicile, but it might
have been said literally of dwellers in these debat-
able lands. The more property he possessed, the
stronger was the Border farmer's tower. When the
moss-troopers and mediaeval scoundrels of every

BORDER FORAYS 251

description were on the warpath, or merely out on
a cattle-lifting expedition, these embattled agricul-
turists shut themselves up in their safe retreats. The
lower floor, on a level with the ground, received
the live stock ; the floor above, the servants ; and to
the topmost story, as the safest situation, the family
retired. The gate below was of iron, for your Border
reiver was no squeamish sort, and would burn these
domestic garrisons alive without hesitation. There-
fore in the most approved type of fortress there was
nothing inflammable. Sympathy, however, would
be wasted on those old-time cultivators, for they
all took a turn at armed cattle-lifting as occasion
offered, and found the readiest way of stocking their
farms with every requisite to be that of stealing
what they required.

' For why 1 Because the good old rule

Sufficeth them ; the simple plan
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.'

Short and sudden forays were characteristic of this
kind of life. The Border cattle-lifter came and went
in the twinkling of an eye, and drove the captured
flocks and herds away with him at a rate at which
no merely honest drover ever marshalled his sheep
and heifers to market. There must have been many
highly desirable, but inanimate and not easily port-
able, things which the raiders were obliged to leave
behind, as one of this kidney regretted in casting
a last glance at a hayrick he had no means of lifting.
' Had ye but four feet, ye suld no stand lang there,'
said he, as he turned to go.

252 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

The mouldering old tower here at Cockburnspath
belonged to the Earls of Home. Beautifully situated
for preying upon occasional travellers, the glen and
the foaming torrent below have no doubt received
the bodies of many a one who in the old days was
rash enough to pass within sight of the old tower.
The comparatively modern bridge that takes a flying
leap across the ravine is the successor of an ancient
one of narrower span that still, covered with moss
and ferns, arches over the water, deep down in the
hollow, and is popularly supposed to be the oldest
bridge in Scotland. A dense tangle of red-berried
rowan-trees, firs, and oaks overhangs the gorge. Alto-
gether a place that calls insistently to be sketched
and painted, but a place, from the military point
of view, to be wary of; being a position, as Crom-
well in one of his despatches says, ' where one man
to hinder is better than twelve to make way.' It
was at the ' strait pass at Copperspath,' as he calls
it, writing after the battle of Dunbar, that the great
general found plenty to hinder.

If ever general profited more by the mistakes of
the enemy than by his own tactical ability, it was
Cromwell at this juncture. The Scots under Leslie
had cooped him up at Dunbar, and, surrounded by
the enemy, who occupied the heights and closed
every defile that led to a possible line of retreat,
he must, diseased and famishing as were his forces,
have capitulated, for the sea was at his back, and
no help possible from that direction. It was then
that Leslie made his disastrous move from the hills,
and came down upon the English in the levels of

THE BA TTLE OF D UNBAR 2 5 5

Broxbnrn, to the south of Dunbar town, where
Cromwell had his headquarters ; and it was then
that Cromwell, seizing the moment when the enemy,
coming down in a dense mass upon a circumscribed
space by Broxburn Glen, retrieved the situation, and,
directing a cavalry movement upon Leslie's forces,
had the supreme relief of seeing them broken up and
stamped into the earth by the furious charge of his
horsemen. The fragments of the Scottish army, routed
with a slaughter of three thousand, and ten thousand
prisoners, fled, and Cromwell's contemplated retreat
to Berwick was no longer a necessity. Indeed, the
whole of the Lowlands of Scotland now lay open
before him, and he entered Edinburgh with little
opposition.

It is a distance of nine miles between the village of
Cockburnspath and Dunbar, the road going parallel
with the sea all the way. First it goes dizzily over
the profound rift of Dunglass Dene, spanned at a
height of a hundred and twenty-five feet above
the rocky bed of a mountain stream by the bold
arch of the railway viaduct and by the road bridge
itself. It is a scene of rare beauty, and the walk
by the zigzagging path among the thickets and the
trees, down to where the sea comes pounding furiously
into a little cove, a quarter of a mile below, wholly
charming. Away out to sea is the lowering bulk
of the Bass Rock, a constant companion in the view
approaching Dunbar.

The direct road for Edinburgh avoids Dunbar
altogether, forking to the left at Broxburn where
the battlefield lay, where the burn still flows across

256 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

the road as it did on the day of 'Dunbar Drove,'
as Carlyle calls that dreadful rout. Here ' the great
road then as now crosses the Burn of Brock. . . .
Yes, my travelling friends, vehiculating in gigs or
otherwise over that piece of London road, you rnay
say to yourselves, Here, without monument, is the
grave of a valiant thing which was done under the
Sun ; the footprint of a Hero, not yet quite undis-
tinguishable, is here ! '

Ahead, with its great red church on a hillock, still
somewhat apart of the south end of the town, is Dun-
bar, the first characteristically Scottish place to which
we come. It is not possible to compete with Carlyle's
masterly word-picture of it, which presents the place
before you with so marvellous a fidelity to its spirit
and appearance : — ' The small town of Dunbar stands
high and windy, looking down over its herring-boats,
over its grim old castle, now much honeycombed,
on one of those projecting rock-promontories with
which that shore of the Firth of Forth is niched and
vandyked as far as the eye can reach. A beautiful
sea ; good land too, now that the plougher under-
stands his trade ; a grim niched barrier of whinstone
sheltering it from the chafings and tumblings of the
big blue German Ocean.' There you have Dunbar.

Let us add some few details to the Master's fine
broad handling : such as the fact that its streets are
wondrously cobble-stoned, that those whinstone rocks
are red and give a dull, blood-like coloration to the
scene, and that the curious old whitewashed Tolbooth
in the High Street is the fullest exemplar of the
Scottish architectural style. Windy it is, as Carlyle

D UNBAR

257

says, and with a rawness in its air that calls forth
shivers from the Southron even in midsummer.
Here the stranger new to Scotland is apt to see for
the first time the sturdy fishwives and lasses who,
still often with bare feet, go along the streets carrying

THE TOLBOOTH, DUNBAU.

prodigiously weighty baskets of fish on their backs,
sometimes secured by a leather strap that goes from
the basket around the head and forehead !

One leaves Duribar by wriggly and exiguous streets,
coming through the fisher- villages of Belhaven and

258 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

West Barns to where the main avoiding route
rejoins at Beltonford. The Scottish Tyrie winds
through the flat meadows on the right — at such
fortunate times, that is to say, as when it does not
pretend to be an inland sea and take the meadows,
the road, and the railway for its province. The
road, too, is flat, and the railway, which hugs it
closely, the same. A good road, too, and beautiful.
Midway of it, towards East Linton, are the farm-
steads and ricks of Phantassie, at which spot Rennie,
the engineer who built London Bridge, and heaven
and Dr. Smiles alone know how many harbours, was
born in 1761. 'Phantassie' is a name that sorely
piques one's curiosity, so odd is it ; but the group
of farm-buildings is commonplace enough, if more
than commonly substantial. No fantasy in their
design, at any rate.

At East Linton we cross the Tyne, which, crawling
through the 'meadows, plunges here in cascades under
the road bridge, amid confused rocks. The railway
crosses it too, close by, and spans the road beyond ;
and the village huddles together at an angle of the
way. A long ascent out of it commands wide views
of agricultural Haddingtonshire, and of that surpris-
ing mountainous hill, Traprain Law, rising out of the
plain to a height of over seven hundred feet.

To the north-going cyclist the road presently
makes ample amends for the mile-long rise, for, once
topping it, a gentle but continuous descent of four
miles leads into Haddington, down a road that for
the most part could scarce be bettered, so excellent
its surface, so straight its course, and so beautifully

AMISFIELD 259

sylvan its surroundings. Hailes Castle is finely seen
on the left during this descent, its ruined walls and
ivy-covered towers wrapped three parts round with
the thick woodlands that clothe the lower slopes of
Traprain Law. Mary, Queen of Scots, and her evil
spirit, the sinister Both well, had Hailes Castle for
their bower of love, and Wishart the martyr had a
cell in it for a prison, so that its present beauty of
decay lacks nothing of historic interest.

Nor does the fine mansion of Amisfield, through
whose park-like lands the road now descends.
Amisfield has lurid associations. Under the name
of New Mills, it was in 1687 the scene of a dreadful
parricide, and was at a later period purchased by the
infamous Colonel Francis Charteris, who might aptly
be termed (in Mr. Stead's phrase), the Minotaur of
his day. It was he who renamed it after the home
of his family in Nithsdale. As his exploits belong
chiefly to London, we, fortunately, need not enlarge
upon them here. The parricide already referred to
was the murder of his father by Philip Standsfield.
Sir James Standsfield had set up a cloth-factory here,
on the banks of the Tyne, and had done remarkably
well. He had two sons, Philip and John. The
eldest had been a scapegrace ever since that day
when, as a student at St. Andrews, he had gone to
a meeting-house and flung a loaf at the preacher.
It took the astonished divine on the side of the
head and aroused within him the spirit of prophecy.
Addressing the crowded chapel at large (for the loaf
had been thrown unseen from some dark corner), he
saw in a vision the death of the culprit, at whose

260 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

end there would be more present than were hearing
him that day : ' and the multitude then present,'
adds the chronicler, 'was not small.'

Philip had a short and ignominious military career
on the Continent, and returned home to prey upon
his father ; who, for sufficient reasons, disinherited
him in favour of his younger brother. In the end,
aided by some servants, he strangled the old man
and threw the body in the river. For this he was
hanged at Edinburgh ; and as the hanging was not
effectual, the executioner had to finish by strangling
him, in which public opinion of that time saw the
neat handiwork of Providence.

XXXII

Here begins Haddington, and here end good roads
for the space of a mile ; and not until the burgh
is left behind do they recommence. The traveller
who might set out in quest of bad roads and vile
paving would without difficulty discover the objects
of his search at Haddington. He might conceivably
find as bad elsewhere, but worse examples would be
miraculous indeed. We have encountered many
stretches of road, thus far, of a mediaeval quality,
but the long road to the North boasts, or blushes for,
nothing nearly so craggy as are the cobble- stoned
thoroughfares of this 'royal burgh.' The entrance
to the town from the south resembles, in its pictur-
esque squalor, that to one of the decayed towns of

HADDINGTON

261

Brittany. Unswept, tatterdemalion as it is, it still
remains a fitting subject for the artist's pencil, for
here beside the narrow street stands the rugged
mass of Bothwell Castle, patched and clouted from
time to time, but happily as yet unrestored. Over
the lintels of old houses adjoining still remain the
pious invocations and quaint devices originally sculp-
tured there for the purpose of averting the baleful
glance of the Evil Eye.

BOTHWELL CASTLK.

The initial letter in the name of Haddington is a
superfluity and a misuse of the letter H, the name
deriving from that of Ada. Countess of Northumber-

o *

land and ancestress of Scottish monarchs ; foundress
also of a nunnery here which has long gone the
way of such mediaeval things. The Tyne borders
this town, and sometimes floods it, as may be readily
seen by an inscription on the wall of a house in
High Street, which tells how the water on October 4,

262 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

1775, suddenly rose eight feet and three-quarters.
A curious legend, too, still survives, recording a
flood in 1358, when a nun of the pious Ada's old
foundation, seizing a statue of the Virgin out of its
niche, waded into the torrent and threatened to
throw it in unless the Blessed Mary instantly caused
the waters to subside. That they immediately did
so appears to have .been taken as evidence of the
effective moral suasion thus applied.

Haddington Abbey, the successor of earlier build-
ings, and now itself partly ruined, stands by the
inconstant river, the nave now the parish church,
and the choir roofless, open to the sky. It is here,
within these grass-grown walls, that 'Jane Welsh
Carlyle, spouse of Thomas Carlyle, Chelsea, London/
lies, as the remorseful epitaph says, * suddenly
snatched away from him, and the light of his life as
if gone out.' The spot where the Abbey stands, by
the dishevelled and tumbledown quarter of Nungate,
is the more abject now in that it still possesses old
mansions that tell of a more prosperous past. Here,
on the river-bank, neglected and forlorn like every-
thing around, is the fine old screen of the Bowling
Green, where no one has, for a century past, played
bowls, unless indeed the wraiths of bygone Scottish
notables haunt the spot o' nights and play ghostly
games, like the Kaatskill gnomes in Rip Van
Winkle. It is from the other side of the river that
the Abbey is best seen, its roofless central tower,
the Lucerna Laudonice, or ' Lamp of Lothian,' still
showing those triple lancets in every face which,
according to the legend, obtained for it that title.

A SHORT WAY WITH EVIL-DOERS

263

To obtain this view, the Abbey bridge is crossed,
which even now vividly illustrates on its wall the
ready way the old burgh had with malefactors.
From it projects a great hook, rusty for long want
of usage, from which were hanged the reivers, the
horse-thieves, and casual evildoers, with jurisdiction
of the most summary kind. No Calcraft science
with it either, with neck broken in decent fashion,
but just a hauling up of the rope and a tying of it

^5y; • TfflB&j^'t

•S j-^rfj^-^ f *ifr^-\< /x • lL*W//7£' Y*" ^-

HADDINGTON ABBEY, FROM NTTNOATE.

to some handy stanchion, and the unhappy male-
factor left to throttle by slow degrees. No other
such picturesque hanging-place as this ; but what
is scenery to a criminal about to be hanged like a
tom-cat caught killing chickens ?

The crest, arms, trade-mark, or badge of Haddington
is a goat. There is no doubt about that, for Billy
(or is it a Nanny ?) has his (or her) effigy on many
of the old buildings. Only by comparison and by
slow degrees is it that the stranger arrives at the

264 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

conclusion that it is a goat, for the drawing of many
of these representations leaves much to be 4esired.
Some resemble an elephant, others a horse, others yet
what 'the mind's eye, Horatio' might conceive a
Boojum to be like ; but in the open space where
High Street and Market Street join, the modern
Market Cross, surmounted by a more carefully
executed carving, determines the species.

This is the centre of the town and neater than
its entrance from the south. The steepled classic
building close by is not a church but the Town
House, masquerading in ecclesiastical disguise, very
much as Berwick's Town Hall does. From this
point it is only seventeen miles into Edinburgh ; but
in 1750 and for long after the coach journey em-
ployed the best efforts of the local stage during
the whole day. Musselburgh, little more than eleven
miles away, was reached in time for dinner, and only
when evening was come did the lumbering vehicle
lurch into its destination in Auld Reekie, when every
one went to bed, bruised and weary with the toils
of the expedition. The road at that time must have
resembled the specimen of roadway still adorning the
south entrance to Haddington.

To-day, happily, it is in good condition as far as
Levenhall, seven miles short of our journey's end,
whence it is bad beyond the credibility of those
who have not seen it. Gladsmuir, Macmerry, and
Tranent are interposed between : places that sink
their memories of the battle of Prestonpans in iron-
founding and coal-digging and suchlike, disregard-
ing the futilities of the Stuarts. As for Macmerry,

MACMERR} 265

whose name prefigures orgies at the most of it, or
sober revelry at the very least, it is odds against
your finding as depressing a place within a hundred
miles. If place-names were made to fit, why, then,
Macdolour might suit it to a marvel. Why ? Just
because it stands at the crest of a barren knowe ;
an ugly row of cottages on either side, with cinders
and dust, clinkers and mud in front of them, and
gaunt works within eyeshot. God knows who
christened the place, or if the name signified merri-
ment ; but, if it did, either the scene has changed
wholly since then, or else he was a humorist of the
sardonic sort who so dubbed it. Tranent, too, a
townlet subsisting upon collieries : how grimly com-
monplace ! But it at least has this advantage, that
from its elevated foothold it looks down upon the
Firth of Forth, that noble frith which Victor
Hugo blundered over so whimsically in rendering
it as ' le Premier de la Quatrieme.' Seen under
the summer sun, how glorious that seaward view,
with the villages of Preston and Cockenzie, half
hidden by their woodlands, by the level shores.
Half-way down from Tranent's hillside you see a fine
panorama : Arthur's Seat in front, Calton Hill and
its Nelson's column, peering from behind, and the
distant shores of Fife, with blowing smoke-clouds,
many miles away. Between Arthur's Seat and the
Calton, Edinburgh is hid, nine miles from this point.
Down in the levels in the mid-distance there are hints
of Musselburgh in smoke-wreaths and peeping towers ;
and mayhap, while you gaze, the southwrard-bound
train, with its white puff of steam, is seen setting

266 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

forth on its long journey London wards. In these
levels was fought the battle of Prestonpans, Sunday,
September 21, 1745, around that village of Preston
and those briny meads where the salt-pans used to
be and are no longer. The world has vastly changed
since ' the Forty -five/ It has, as a small detail,
ceased to produce its salt by evaporation of sea- water ;
and, a larger and more significant matter, no longer
wages war for sake of dynasties. The Highlanders
who fought and gained this fleeting victory for Prince
Charlie were the last who drew the sword for Romance
and Right Divine. Prince Charlie had moved out of
his loyal Edinburgh at the approach of the English
under Sir John Cope, who, of course, in that fine
foolish manner of British officers, which will survive as
long as the officers themselves, wholly underrated his
enemy. He was defeated easily, with every circum-
stance of indignity, his soldiers fleeing in abject terror
before the impetuous charge of the ferocious hairy-
legged Highlanders, emerging, figures of grotesque
horror, out of the mists slowly dispersing off the
swampy fields in the laggard September sunrise.

The English numbered 2100 against the 1400
under Prince Charlie ; but only four minutes passed
between the attack and the flight. In that short
space of time the field was deserted and the clans-
men, pursuing the terror-stricken rabble which just
before had been a disciplined force, slew nearly four
hundred of them. The total loss of the Highlanders
in slain was thirty, nearly the whole of them falling
in the first discharge of musketry. Almost in-
credible, but well-authenticated, stories are told of

THE BATTLE OF PRESTONPANS 269

the cowardice of Cope's regiments. Cope himself was
swept away in the wild rush, vainly endeavouring to
stem it, and it was not until they were two miles from
the field, at St. Clement's Wells, that he could bring
them to a halt. Even then, the accidental discharge
of a pistol scared them off again, and, although no
one pursued, they rode off with redoubled energy.
This precipitate retreat of mounted troops over miles
of country, from an unmounted enemy who were-
not pursuing them, is perhaps the most disgraceful
incident in the military history of the country.

The flying infantry were in far worse case. In
endeavouring to escape by climbing the park walls of
Preston, they were cut down in great numbers by the
terrible broadswords of the Highlanders. Colonel
Gardiner and a brave few were cut down defending
themselves on the field of battle. One story, of a
piece with many others, relates how a Highlander,
pursuing alone a party of ten soldiers, struck down
the hindermost with his sword, and shouting, 'Down
with your arms ! ' called upon the others to surrender.
They threw their weapons away without looking
behind them, and the Highlander, his sword in one
hand and a pistol in the other, drove them — nine of
them ! — prisoners into camp. Everywhere Cope, so
helter-skelter was his flight, himself brought the first
news of his defeat. He reached Coldstream that
night, and did not rest until the next day he was
within the sheltering fortifications of Berwick.

We will not further pursue the fortunes of the
Young Pretender, but hurry on into Levenhall,
downhill, and then over the awful cobbles into the

27o THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

accursed town of Musselburgh. 'Accursed,' not by
reason of those self-same cobbles, but for the sacri-
legious doings of its magistrates who rebuilt their
Tolbooth, burnt after the battle of Pinkie, with
stones from the Chapel of Loretto. Now that
chapel, which stood at the entrance to the town, was
the place of business of one of those roadside hermits
of whom we have in these pages heard so much
(would that he had a successor in these times, for then
the road would perhaps be in better condition !), and
the Pope, indignant at the injury done to the way-
side shrine, solemnly anathematised town and in-
habitants in sleeping or waking, eating and drinking,
at every conceivable time and every imaginable
function. No Pope since that period seems to have
removed the curse, and no one is particularly anxious
that it should be removed, Musselburgh being rather
proud of it than otherwise. When it begins to take
effect will be quite time enough. There were those
who at the close of the coaching days perceived the
beginning of it, although then three hundred years
overdue ; but as the town has rather increased in
prosperity since that period, the time evidently is not
yet. Nor do the burghers anticipate it, for they still
repeat the brave old rhyme :—

' Musselburgh was a burgh

When Edinburgh was nane;
And Musselburgh shall be a burgh
When Edinburgh is gane.'

This, however, is a quibble, for Musselburgh derived
its name from the ' broch,' or bed, of mussels at the
mouth of the river Esk. Looked at in this light, the

271

statement is true enough and the prophecy a not
particularly rash one. The sponsorial shell-fish have
an honoured place in the town arms, in which three
mussels are seen in company with three anchors : the
motto * Honesty ' writ large below. This was pro-
bably adopted at some period later than the purloin-
ing of the stones of the Loretto Chapel.

The Town Hall, with that tower whose building
brought about the curse, forms the centre of Mussel-

MUSSKLBURGH.

burgh, a fishy, stony, picturesque place with four
bridges over the Esk, leading to the western bank,
where the fisher quarter of Fisherrow straggles
towards Joppa, two miles distant. Joppa Pans are
gone now, just as those other pans at Preston ; but
factories of sorts, with clustered chimney-stacks, are
still grouped about the melancholy sea-shore, where
gales set the very highroad awash on occasion.
Not vulgar, modern factories, but of a certain age ;
old enough and grim enough to look like the scene of

272 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

some thrilling story that yet awaits the telling.
Somewhat thrilling is the report as to the condition
of the road here in 1680, a complaint laid before the
Privy Council stating that, four miles on the London
side of Edinburgh, travelling was dangerous, and
travellers to be pitied, ' either by their coaches over-
turning, their horses falling, their carts breaking,
their loads casting, or horses stumbling, and the
poor people with burdens on their backs sorely dis-
couraged ; moreover, strangers do often exclaim
thereat/ All this reads with a very modern touch to
those who know the road to-day, for it is as bad now
as it could have been then, and so continues, in
different kinds of badness, through adjoining Porto-
bello into Edinburgh itself. Here seas of slimy
mud, there precipitous setts, here again profound
holes in the macadam, or tramway rails projecting
above the road level, make these last miles wretched.
Portobello, that suburban seaside resort of Edin-
burgh, fares in this respect no better than the rest of
the way, and the original road across Figgate Whins,
the lonely moor that was here before the first house
of Portobello was built, could have been no worse.
That house was the creation of a retired sailor who
had been at the capture of Portobello in Central
America by Admiral Veruon in 1739. He named it
after that town, and when the present seaside resort
began to spring up, it took the title. Now it has a
promenade, a pier, hotels, and crowds of visitors in
summer upon the sands, and calls itself ' the Brighton
of Scotland.'

MILLER'S TOMB 273

XXXIII

Leaving the ' Brighton of Scotland ' behind, we
come to the flat lands of Craigentinny, stretching
away from the now suburban highway down to the
wind-swept and desolate seashore, where the whaups
and the sandpipers make mournful concerts in a
minor key, to the accompaniment of the noise of the
sullen breakers and the soughing of the wind amid
the rustling bents. Overlooking the road, within
sight and sound of the tinkling tramcars passing
between Joppa, Portobello, and Edinburgh, is that
singular monument, ' Miller's Tomb.'

William Henry Miller, whose remains lie beneath
this pile of classic architecture, was an antiquary and
bibliophile, and obtained his nickname of ' Measure
Miller ' from his habit of measuring the margins of
the ' tall copies ' of the scarce books he bought. His
beardless face and shrill voice led to the lifelong
belief that he was really a woman. The tomb is
elaborately decorated with a carved marble frieze
representing the Song of Miriam and the destruction
of the Egyptians in the Ked Sea. Miller and his
father were both Quakers, and the wealth of which
they were possessed derived from a prosperous
seedsman's business in Canongate, Edinburgh. To
the father came an adventure which does not fall
to many men. He was married in 1789 for the
third time, when nearly seventy years of age, to an
Englishwoman, who conveyed him against his will
in a post-chaise from Edinburgh to London.

274 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Passing Craigentinny and Jock's Lodge, we are,
in the words of the old song, * within a mile of
Edinburgh town.' The more modern and acceptable
name of Jock's Lodge is Piershill, but it has been
known by the other for over two hundred and fifty
years. Who the original Jock was seems open to
doubt, but he is supposed to have been a beggar
who built himself a hut on this then lonely road
leading to Figgate Whins. Even in 1650, when
Cromwell besieged Edinburgh, the spot had obtained
its name, and is referred to as ' that place called
Jockis Lodge.' Towards the close of the eighteenth
century a Colonel Piers had a villa here, pulled down
in 1793, when barracks — known as Piershill Barracks
— were built on the site. It is a district slowly
emerging from the reproach of a disreputable past,
when footpads and murderers haunted the muddy
roads, or took refuge amid the towering rocks of
Arthur's Seat, Crow Hill, or Salisbury Crags, or
hid in the congenial sloughs of the Hunter's Bog.
Close by the road, at the entrance to the Queen's
Park of Holyrood, is Muschat's Cairn, the place
where Scott makes Jeanie Deans meet the outlaw
Robertson. This heap of stones marks the spot
where Nicol Muschat of Boghall, a surgeon, a man
of infamous character, murdered his wife by cutting
her throat in 1720; a crime which, with Scottish
old-time mysticism, he said was committed by direct
personal instigation of the devil. All the same, they
hanged him for it in the Grassmarket, where martyrs
' testified ' of old and the criminals of ' Auld Reekie '
expiated their crimes.

^ ED IN A, SCOTIA'S DARLING SEAT' 275

Of course the approach to Edinburgh has, from
the picturesque standpoint, been spoiled. Ranges
of grim stone houses and sprawling suburbs now
hem in the road and hide the view of Arthur's Seat
and its neighbouring eminences ; but a few steps
to the left serve to disclose them, the little loch of
St. Margaret, and the ruined walls of St. Anthony's
Chapel on the hillside, once guarding the holy well.
St. Anthony's Chapel, within the rule of the Abbey
of Holyrood, served another turn, for from its tower
glimmered a beacon which in the old days guided

O J O

mariners safely up the Forth, a service paid for out
of the harbour dues.

The so-called ' London ' and ' Regent ' Roads that
now lead directly into the New Town of Edinburgh
are modern improvements upon the old approach
through Canongate into the Old Town. If steep,
rugged, and winding, the old way was at least more
impressive, for it lay within sight of Holyrood Palace
and brought the wayfarer into the very heart of
Scott's ' own romantic town/ to where the smells and
the dirt, the crazy tenement-houses and the ragged
clouts hanging from dizzy tiers of windows, showed
' Scotia's darling seat ' in its most characteristic
aspects.

The distant view of Edinburgh is magnificent.

o o

The peaked and jagged masses of Arthur's Seat and
Salisbury Crags, the monument - cumbered Calton
Hill, the Castle Rock — all these combine to make
the traveller eager to reach so picturesque a spot.
Approaching it and seeing the smoke-cloud drifting
with the breeze away from the hollow from which

2 76 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Edinburgh's million chimneys are seen peering, one
instantly notes the peculiar appropriateness of the
Scots endearing epithet, 'Auld Reekie.' But it was
not only — if indeed at all — an admiration of the
picturesque that made the sight of Edinburgh so
welcome to old-time travellers. It was rather the
prospect of coming to the end of their journey, and
almost in sight of a comfortable hotel, that rendered
the view so welcome to those who in the last thirty
years or so of the coaching era made this trip of
almost four hundred miles ; but those who had come
this way at an earlier period had no such comfortable
prospect before them. Instead of putting up at some
fine hospitable inn, such as they were used to even
in the smaller English towns, they were set down at
a c stabler' s/ the premises of one whose first business
was to horse the coaches and to let saddle-horses, and
who, as in some sort an after-thought, lodged those
who were obliged to journey about the country.

A traveller arriving at Edinburgh in 1774, for
instance, had indeed little comfort awaiting him.
' One can scarcely form in imagination the distress
of a miserable stranger on his first entrance into this
city,' says one writing at this period. No inn better
than an alehouse, no decent or cleanly accommoda-
tion, nor in fact anything fit for a gentleman. ' On
my first arrival,' says this traveller, ' my companion
and self, after the fatigue of a long day's journey,
were landed at one of these stable-keepers' (for they
have modesty to give themselves no higher denomi-
nation) in a part of the town which is called the
Pleasance ; and on entering the house we were con-

OLD TRAVELLERS IN EDINBURGH 277

ducted by a poor girl without shoes or stockings,
and with only a single linsey-woolsey petticoat which
just reached half-wray to her ankles, into a room
where about twenty Scotch drovers had been regaling
themselves with whisky and potatoes. You may
guess our amazement when we were informed that
this was the best inn in the metropolis, and that
we could have no beds unless we had an inclination
to sleep together, and in the same room with the
company which a stage-coach had that moment dis-
charged. "Well," said I to my friend, "there is
nothing like seeing men and manners ; perhaps we
may be able to repose ourselves at some coffee-house."
Accordingly, on inquiry, we discovered that there
was a good dame by the Gross who acted in the
double capacity of pouring out coffee and letting
lodgings to strangers, as we were. She was easily
to be found out, and, with all the conciliating com-
plaisance of a Maitresse d' Hotel, conducted us to our
destined apartments, which were indeed six stories
high, but so infernal in appearance that you would
have thought yourself in the regions of Erebus. The
truth is, I will venture to say, you will make no
scruple to believe when I tell you that in the whole
we had only two windows, which looked into an
alley five feet wide, where the houses were at least
ten stories high and the alley itself was so sombre
in the brightest sunshine that it was impossible to
see any object distinctly.'

Private lodgings, just as those described above,
were the resort of those who had neither friends nor
acquaintance in Edinburgh at that time ; but travel-

278 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

lers in Scotland were nearly always exercising their
ingenuity to come, at the end of their day's journey,
to the house of some friend or some friend's friend,
to whom before starting they had been careful to
obtain letters of introduction. So old and so wide-
spread a custom was this, that, so far back as 142 5>
we find an Act of James the First of Scotland
actually forbidding all travellers resorting to burgh
towns to lodge with friends or acquaintances, or ,in
any place but the ' hostillaries/ unless indeed he was
a personage of consequence, with a great retinue, in
,which case he might accept a friend's hospitality,
provided that his 'horse and meinze' were sent to
,the inns.

Of course such an Act was doomed to fall into
neglect, but the innkeepers, equally of course
during a long series of years, almost ceased to exist.
A few ' stablers' ' establishments became known ,as
' inns ' at about the period of Doctor Johnson's visit
to Edinburgh. They were chiefly situated in the
Pleasance, or in that continuation of it, St. Mary's
Wynd (now St. Mary Street). These inns, such as
they were, burst upon the by no means delighted
gaze of the wayfarer from England as he entered the
historic town of Edinburgh, and when he saw them
he generally lifted up his voice and cursed the fate
that had sent him so far from home and into so
barbarous a country.

The Pleasance was largely in receipt of the traffic
to and from the south until the construction of the
North and South Bridges, opened in 1769 and 1788,
diverted it to a higher level. We may look in vain

AN OLD INN 279

nowadays in the Pleasance for the inns of that day.
They are demolished and altered so greatly as to be
unrecognisable ; but the ' White Horse,' which stands
in a court away down Canongate, will give us an
idea of the kind of place. Situated in ' White Horse,'
or Davidson's, Close in Canongate, and reached from
that street by a low-browed archway, it remains a
perfect example of the Edinburgh inn of nearly three

THE ' WHITE HOKSE ' INN.

hundred years ago. An inn no longer, but occupied
in tenements, the internal arrangements are some-
what altered, but the time when the house extended
a primitive hospitality to travellers is not difficult
to reconstruct in the imagination. To it, at the end
of their journeys, came those wearied ones, to find
accommodation of the most intimate and domestic
kind. Kitchen and dining-room were one, and it

2 8o THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

was scarce possible for a guest to obtain a bedroom
to himself. Dirt was accepted as inevitable. In
fact, the modern ' dosser ' is better and more decently
housed. To the ' White Horse ' came others — those
about to set out upon their travels. Booted and
spurred, wills made and saddle-bags packed, they
resorted hither to hire horses for their journeys ; and
it is not unlikely that the old house saw in early
times many a quaking laird, badly wanted by the
Government, slinking through the archway from the
Canongate, to secure trusty mounts for instant flight.
Scott, indeed, has made it the scene of strange doings
in his Waverley.

This is the oldest house in Edinburgh ever used as
an inn, but must not be confused with that other
' White Horse/ long since demolished, made famous
by Doctor Johnson.

It was in 1773 that Johnson reached Edinburgh.
He put up at the ' White Horse ' in Boyd's Close,
called, even in those uncleanly times, ' that dirty and
dismal ' inn, kept by James Boyd. The great man
immediately notified his arrival to Boswell in this
short note : —

' Saturday night. — Mr. Johnson sends his compli-
ments to Mr. Boswell, being just arrived at Boyd's.'

When Boswell arrived, falling over himself in his
eagerness, he found the Doctor furiously angry.
Doubtless he had been conducted to his room, as
was not unusually the case, by some dirty sunburnt
wench, without shoes' or stockings, a fit object for
dislike ; but the chief cause of his anger was the

THE FIRST ' HOTEL' 281

waiter, who had sweetened his lemonade without
the ceremony of using the sugar-tongs. He threw
the lemonade out of window, and seemed inclined to
throw the waiter after it.

' Peter Ramsay's ' was a famous inn, situated at
the foot of St. Mary's Wynd, next the Cowgate Port.
To it came travellers along both the east and the
south roads. Ramsay advertised it in 1776 as being
' a good house for entertainment, good stables for
above one hundred horses, and sheds for about twenty
carriages.' In 1790 he retired with a fortune of
£10,000. But in the best of these old Edinburgh
inns the beds well merited a description given of
them as ' dish-clouts stretched on grid-irons/

First among the innkeepers of this unsanctified
quarter to remove from it into the New Town was
James Dun. He was a man notable among his
kind, having not only been the first to call himself
an ' innkeeper ' instead of a ' stabler,' but the greatly
daring person who first used the outlandish word
' Hotel ' in Edinburgh. He began ' hotel '-keeping in
the flats above the haberdashery shop of John Neale,
who, two years before, in 1774, had built the first
house in the New Town. Neale himself was a
pioneer of considerable nerve ; for although the New
Town had been projected and building-sites laid out
on what is now the chief ornament of it, Princes
Street, prospective tenants were shy of so bleak and
exposed a situation as this then was. They preferred
to live in the dirty cosiness of the old wynds and
closes, and so the New Town seemed likely to be a
paper project for years to come. At this juncture

282 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

the Town Council made a sporting offer of exemption
from all local taxes for the first who would build a
house there. Neale was this pioneer, and he built
the house that still stands next the Register House,
the most easterly house in Princes Street.

Dun, to whom he had let the upper part, im-
mediately displayed a great gilded sign, ' Dun's
Hotel/ whereupon the Lord Provost, representing
public feeling, wrote objecting to the foreign word
'Hotel/ saying that, whatever might be the real
character of his establishment, he might at least
avoid the scandalous indecency of publicly pro-
claiming it !

XXXIV

These concluding pages of a book on the road to
Edinburgh form no fitting place to attempt the
description or history of so ancient and historic a
town. Our business is to reach the northern capital,
leaving the story of Edwin's Burgh to be told by
others. Yet we cannot leave it thus without some
brief survey.

The modern traveller by road, coming in by the
London Road, Greenside, Leith Street, and Princes
Street, comes in by the New Town, and sees on his
left, across a deep ravine, partly occupied by a huge
railway station and partly by beautiful public
gardens, the dark mass of the Castle and the Old
Town crowning the opposite heights, grey and
stern, in effective contrast with the gay flower-beds

CANONGA TE

283

down below, the old houses huddling together on

the scanty foothold of the

ridge and rising to sheer

heights. That is the

original historic town :

this, to which the modern

traveller comes by road,

the new. Little more

than a hundred years ago

this New Town was not

thought of: its site the

meadows and wastes that

sloped down to the Firth

of Forth and the sea, and

the site of the railway

station and the Princes

Street Gardens covered

with the dark waters of

the Nor' Loch.

Old-time arrivals in
Edinburgh, coming in by
Canongate, found them-
selves in midst of squalor
and picturesqueness ; and
although much of the

picturesque is gone, it is
still a quaint street and
the squalor survives. The
poor who live here ' hang
out their banners on the
outward walls/ in the
shape of their domestic washing, fluttering in the

'SQUALOR AND

2&4 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

breeze from every window, at the end of long poles ;
and how poor they are may be judged from the con-
dition of the clothes they consider worth keeping.
That sometime prison, the Canongate Tolbooth, facing
the long street, remains one of the most curious relics
of Edinburgh's past. Not a very ancient past, for
it was only ' biggit ' in 1591, but old enough to be
regarded with reverence, and quaint to admiration,
with its spired tower and tourelles, so eminently
Scottish of that period when the French influence in
architecture was yet strong. You can match those
curious spires time and time again among the old
chateaux of the Loire, and in Brittany ; just as in
the old Norman town of Coutances one can find the
counterpart of the old theatre in Playhouse Close,
near by.

From here, those travellers saw the Old Town
ahead, and, progressing up High Street, came success-
ively to the Tron Church, the Market Cross, St. Giles'
Cathedral, and, before 1817 — when it was pulled
down — to the Old Tolbooth. Beyond this, the
Lawnmarket conducted to the Castle, which then
marked the end of the town. In this progress the
tall and crowded houses and darkening wynds and
closes stood to right and left. Later years have seen
the disappearance of many of these places, where in
old times the ferocious Scots nobles lived, poor and
proud, bloodthirsty and superstitious ; but those that
are left are very grim, dark, and dirty, and the ten
and eleven-storied houses of such a height that only
by great exertions is it possible to crane the neck and
lift the eyes to the skyline, against which the belching

CANONCATK TOLBOCTH.

UNCLEANLY CUSTOMS 287

chimneys of the piled-up ' lands ' are projecting the
smoke of domestic hearths and eternally justifying
the old Scots term of endearment for Edinburgh.
The nobles are gone, lang syne, their old dens
occupied now by the very poorest of Edinburgh's
poor ; but sanitary conditions, even with the present
occupants, are not so degraded as they were when
the flower of Scotland's nobility dwelt here ; when
pigs and fowls were herded in the basements, or
ran unheeded in the alleys, and wayfarers skulked
under the walls at the sound of voices above, calling
' gardy-loo ' — a call which accompanied a discharge
of overflowing household utensils from inconceivable
heights into the gutters below. ' Gardy-loo ' was a
term which, with this dreadfully unclean custom,
derived from France, having been originally gardez-
leau; just as the cakes sold at Craigmillar, called
' petti coat- tails,' were originally petits gateaux.

Nothing is more characteristic of the Old Town
than the religious texts carved upon the stone door-
lintels of these ancient houses. Few are without
them. To a stranger they would seem to tell of a
fervent piety, but they meant more than that. They
were always accompanied with a date and with the
initials — sometimes also the arms — of their owners,
as in the beautiful example still remaining in Lady
Stair's Close ; and represented both pride and a
fearful superstition. Superstition, because the im-
proving texts and pious ejaculations meant little
beyond talismanic protection against ' Auld Hornie,'
wizards, and warlocks, wehr-wolves, and all those
frightful inhabitants of Satan's invisible world in

288

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

which 'the Scots most fervently believed, from king
to peasant. Thus when we read over one of these

old doorways the queerly spelled

\
' Blissit be God in all His giftis,'

we know that this was little less than an incantation,
and marked a lively sense of favours to come ; and
when our eye lights upon the inscription next door,

' Pax intrantibvs : Salvs exevntibvs,'

we know that the good feeling thus prominently
displayed would by no means have prevented the

OLD INSCRIPTION, LADY STAIR'S HOUSE.

fierce lord of the house from stabbing his guest in
a dark corner, if he had a mind to it.

A highly interesting book might be written on
these old sculptured stones alone. Nor are they in
every instance old. Some modern ones exist, and
the entirely laudable passion for commemoration has
caused interesting tablets to be set up, marking many
of Edinburgh's famous spots. A curious modern
piece of sculpture decorates more or less artistically
the archway leading from the High Street into
Paisley Close, supporting a tall building erected in
1862. It represents the bust of a boy, and includes
an inscribed label. It seems that the old building

TIRLE-PINS

289

THE 'HEAVE AWA" SIGN.

standing on this site suddenly collapsed on a Sunday
morning in 1861, and buried a number of people

in the ruins, thirty-five
actually dying from their
injuries. Some were
fortunate enough to be
screened from the heavy
masses of stone and brick
by timbers which in
falling had imprisoned
them. Among these was
the lad whose face is represented in the carving.
The rescuers who came with pick and shovel to dig
out the survivors had succoured many, and
were turning back, when they heard the
muffled cry, ' Heave awa, lads, I 'm no' deid
yet,' and, redoubling their efforts, extricated
the author of it.

No relic now remains upon the door-posts
of these old houses of the curious contriv-
ance which preceded the door-knocker, and
for the sight of a ' tirle-pin ' the stranger
must needs go to the museum of the Eoyal
Scottish Society of Antiquaries, to which
the last example was long since removed,
from an old house in the Canongate.

The tirle-pin had a variety of names.
Sometimes it would be called a ' risp ' or a
' ringle/ and there were those who knew it A TIRLK.PIN.
as a ' craw ' ; that is to say, a crow, from the
harsh crow-like sound produced by its use. A tirle-
pin was just a rasping contrivance made of a twisted

290 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

bar of iron fixed against the door-post, with an iron
ring hanging loosely from it, as in the accompanying
sketch. Instead of knocking, one who desired
admittance would seize the ring and rasp it up and
down the twisted iron, producing a noise which could
be distinctly heard within.

The origin of the tirle-pin, like that of many
another Scottish custom, was French. It originated
in France in the times of the Valois, in days when it
was not etiquette to knock at the doors of royal
personages. In face of this, courtiers were reduced
to scratching with the finger-nails — a disagreeable
sensation when practised upon wood, as any one who
tries it may readily discover for himself. Perhaps
from this cause, or because the scratching was not
loud enough (or perhaps even because the polish
began to disappear from the royal portals) this
mechanical scratcher was invented. The fashion
spread from France to Scotland in times when the
two countries were linked in close ties of friendship.
From the palace it spread down to the mansions of
the nobles and the houses of the merchants, finally
coming into general use. It was never acclimatised
in England, although another kind of scratching
was, if we may believe the satirists, who say that
James the First and his Scottish followers imported
the itch.

However, the tirle-pin is obsolete, but it did not
disappear without leaving a trace of its existence in
old Scots ballads ; as, for instance, that of Sweet
William's Ghaist : —

PL A CES OF PIL GRIM A GE 291

; There cam a ghaist to Margaret's door,

Wi' mony a grievous groan ;
And aye he tided upon the pinne,
But answer made she nane.

Is that my father Philip 1

Or is 't my brother .John,
Or is 't my true love Willie

To Scotland now come hame ? '

XXXV

A grim old town, Edinburgh, dominated by the
ancient castle from its rock, bodeful with the story of
a thousand years. Newer new towns have sprung
up around it to south and west, and hem the old
fortress in with a bordure of unhistoric suburbs, so
that from the topmost battlements you sec how
small the original Edinburgh is, compared with its
surroundings. Places of pilgrimage are not lacking
in the old streets. There are John Knox's house,
one of the queerest, three-storied and gabled, the
very ideal of rugged strength ; and the Parliament
Square, once St. Giles' Churchyard, where ' I K 1572,'
on a stone in the pavement, marks the site of Knox's
grave. Passers-by walk over it, curiously fulfilling
Johnson's aspiration, made years before the church-
yard was destroyed, by which he hoped that dour
Presbyterian was buried on a highway. While we
are on the subject of tombs, let us mention that
other place of pilgrimage, Greyfriars Churchyard.
Few places so grim as a Scottish burial-ground, and

292 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Greyfriars is of these the grimmest. Dishevelled
backs of houses look down upon the mouldering
tombs, and kitchens and living-rooms open into the
houses of the dead. Rusty iron railings, bolts and
bars, guard the blackened and broken mausoleums and
give the pilgrim the weird idea that the living have
taken extraordinary precautions to imprison those
who are never likely to break out. The only living
things here are the foul grass that grows within the
sepulchral enclosures, and the demon cats of an
heraldic slimness that haunt the churchyard in
incredible numbers, and, stealing victuals from the
neighbouring houses, gnaw them within the tombs.
Many martyrs for religion have their resting-place
here, together with those who martyred them.
Persecutors and persecuted alike rest here now.

Sympathies will ever be divided between the
Covenanters and their oppressors. As you read how
they upheld their faith and signed their names to the
Covenant in this gruesome yard of Greyfriars, so
ominously on that flat tombstone which even now
remains, you are fired with an enthusiasm for those
rejecters of a liturgy alien from their convictions,
and can curse ' Cla verse ' with the best of those who
do not forget the heavy ways of 'bonnie Dundee'
with them. But the Covenanters were as intolerant
with those when thev came to rule. The men of

•/

both sides were men of blood. The strain of intoler-
ance remains, and the tomb of that other persecutor
of the Covenanters, Sir George Mackenzie, has
always been, and still is, with the people ' bloody
Mackenzie's.'

FEROCIOUS PUNISHMENTS 293

Old Edinburgh life centred at the Market Cross,
happily restored in 1885 by Mr. Gladstone. The
Cross has had a troubled history. Keconstructed
from a much older one in 1617, it remained here
until 1756, when the 'improving' fanatics of that
time swept the historic structure away, without a
thought of the associations belonging to it. They
were associations of every kind. Kings had been
proclaimed at it by heralds with fanfare of trumpet ;
patriots and traitors with equal contumely had been
done to death beside it ; and the continual round of
punishments which gave the common hangman a
busy time were inflicted here. In fact, wrere a rogue
to be pilloried or a king's birthday to be kept with
becoming ceremony, the Cross was the place. Let
us see what those punishments were like, from one
example illustrative of the general run of them.
Here is what they did in 1655 to 'Mr. Patrik
Maxwell, ane arrant decevar.' They brought him
here ' quhair a pillorie wes erectit, gairdit and
convoyed with a company of sodgeris ; and their,
eftir ane full houris standing on that pillorie, with
his heid and handis lyand out and hoilis cuttit out
for that end, his rycht lug was cuttit af; and
thaireftir careyit over to the town of St. Johnnestoun,
quhair ane uther pillorie wes erectit, on the quhilk
the uther left lug wes cuttit af him. The caus heirof
wes this ; that he haid gevin out fals calumneis and
leyis aganes Collonell Daniell, governour of Peirth.
Bot the treuth is, he was ane notorious decevar and
ane intelligencer, sumtyme for the Engleschcs, uther
tymes for the Scottis, and decevand both of thame ;

294

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

besyde mony prankis quhilk wer tedious to writt.'
Quite so ; but if all deceivers had their ears cut off,
how few would retain them ! A ferocious folk, those
old Scots, and petty delinquents supped sorrow at
their hands with a big spoon. Sorry the lot of
scandal- mongers and the like, seated on a wooden
horse with hands and legs tied, and permission
freely accorded to all for the throwing of missiles.
Ferocity, however, should go hand in hand with
courage — a quality apparently not possessed by the

citizens of Edinburgh
when Prince Charlie
and his Highlanders

came, in 1745. In-
credulous of the wild
clansmen ever daring
to attack the town,
they laughed at the
very idea ; but when
they heard of his small
force having eluded
the force of Johnny Cope, sent to intercept them,
and advancing in earnest, things took a very different
colour. Those who were loyal to the House of Hanover
were quaking in their shoes, and the Jacobites rejoic-
ing. The city armed, even to the clergymen, who,
on the Sunday before the surrender, preached in the
churches with swords and daggers buckled on under
their gowns. Bands of volunteers were raised, and, on
the report that the Pretender was near, were marched
outside the walls to dispute his entry, despite their
murmurs that they had volunteered to defend the

THE WOODEN HOKSE.

TERR OR-STRICKEN B UR GHERS 2 9 5

city from the inside, and were not prepared to go
out to be cut to pieces with the invaders' claymores.
Captain ex-Provost Drummond marched with his
company down the West Bow towards the West
Port. Looking round when he had readied it, he
to his astonishment found himself alone. The
volunteers had vanished down the back lanes or
closes ! But the dragoons were as bad. Coming
near the enemy at Corstorphine, two miles out, they
bolted without firing a shot, and so back into Edin-
burgh and through it and out at the other end.
It was the ferocious appearance of the Highlanders
that caused this terror. They were comparatively
few ; ill -armed, ragged, and ill -fed. But their
strange dress, their wild looks, shaggy locks, and
generally outlandish appearance, frightened the good
Lowlanders, who knew almost as little of these Gaelic
tribes as Londoners themselves. The old-time war-
fare of the Japanese and the Chinese, with their
hideous masks ; the dismal tom-toming of the African
savage ; the war-paint of the Eed Indian, are justified
of their existence, for the strange and hideous in
warfare is very effective in striking a paralysing
terror into an enemy. Accordingly, the tartans,
the naked les;s and arms, and the uncombed locks

of the lairds' uncivilised levies captured Edinburgh
for Prince Charlie, who, a few days later, September
17, caused his father, the Old Pretender, to be pro-
claimed king, by the title of James the Third, at
the Cross.

With the suppression of ' the Forty-five,' the
stirring warlike story of Edinburgh came to an end ;

296

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

but not until 1807, when the Edinburgh police came
into existence, was the semi-military Town Guard,
raised in 1682, abolished. The Town Guard and
the townspeople were always at odds, and hated one
another cordially. Recruited from the army, and
armed with the formidable weapons
called ' Jeddart axes,' it was originally
a fine body, designed rather to keep
the town in order than to protect it,
and its members never lost sight of
that fact. In its last years, however,
the Town Guard declined in import-
ance and in numbers, and, coming
to be regarded as a refuge for old
pensioners who could scarcely manage
to crawl about, became an object of
derision. Then the sins of their
forerunners were visited upon the
heads of those unhappy old men,
and it became a common sight to
see them baited by mischievous
small boys. The last of the Town
Guard tottered about Parliament
Square in his queer uniform and three-cornered hat,
hardly able to shoulder his axe, and regarded by the
inhabitants as one of their most genuine antiquities,
until he too followed his comrades to the tomb.

THE LAST OF THE
TOWN GUARD.

§1 gratis? v

—''-'• . li.;--^ * V- '?"'-'*'• ' ' ''
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PRINCES STREET 299

XXXVI

One must needs admire Edinburgh. You may
have seen the noblest cities of the world ; have stood
upon the Acropolis at Athens, on the Heights of
Abraham at Quebec ; have viewed Rome and her
seven hills, or Constantinople from the Golden Horn ;
but Edinburgh still retains her pride of place, even
in the eyes of the much travelled. You need not
be Scottish to feel the charm of her, and can readily
understand why she means so much to the Scot ;
but your gorge rises at the immemorial dirt of the
Old Town, simultaneously with your admiration of
its wondrous picturesqueness, and stately Princes
Street seems to you a revelation of magnificence
even while the bulk of the New Town appears grey,
formal, and forbidding. The great gulf fixed be-
tween Old Town and New, that ravine in which
the railway burrows, and on whose banks the Princes
Street Gardens run, renders that thoroughfare, with
its one side of grass and trees and its other of
fine shops and towering houses, reminiscent to the
Londoner of Piccadilly. But Piccadilly has not a
towering Castle on one side of it, nor a Calton Hill
at the end ; nor, on the other hand, does Piccadilly
know such easterly blasts as those that sweep
down the long length of Princes Street and freeze
the very marrow of the Southerner. Princes Street
is perhaps even more like the Brighton Front in its
well-dressed crowds and fine shops. With the sea in

300 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

place of the Gardens and the Castle, the resemblance
would be singularly close.

As for Caltou Hill, that neo-classic eminence
gives form and substance to Edinburgh's claim to
be the ' Modern Athens/ Learning had not been
unknown in the Old Town, where Hume and Boswell
wrote ; but, given air and elbow-room, it expanded
vastly when the New Town was planned ; and with
the dawn of the nineteenth century, literature
flourished exceedingly. This seems to have in-
spired the idea of emulating the capital of Greece,
to the eye as well as to the mind. Accordingly a
copy of the Parthenon was begun on the crest of
Calton Hill, as a monument to the Scots soldiers
who fell in the campaigns against Napoleon. It cost
a huge sum and has never been completed ; but
doubtless looks a great deal more impressive in its
unfinished state, in the semblance of a ruin, than it
would were it ever finished. A variety of other
freak buildings keeps it company : the Nelson Monu-
ment, memorials to Burns, to Dugald Stewart, and
to Professor Playfair, together with what the many
'guides,' who by some phenomenal instinct scent
the stranger from afar, call an ' obsairvatory.'

Coaching days at Edinburgh ceased in 1846,
when that sole surviving relic of the coaches between
London and the North — the Edinburgh and Berwick
coach — was discontinued on the opening of the
Edinburgh and Berwick Railway, completing the
series of lines that connects the two capitals. It is
true that passengers could not yet travel through
without changing, for the great bridges that cross

EDINBURGH THEN AND NO W 303

the Tyne at Newcastle and the Tweed at Berwick
were not opened until four years later ; but it was
possible, with these exceptions, to journey the whole
distance by train. The opening of the railway
meant as great a change for Edinburgh as did
the beginning of the New Town seventy years
before. Just what it was like then we may
judge from the drawing made from the Castle by
David Roberts in 1847. The point of view he
has chosen is that from the Mons Meg Battery,
and the direction of his glance, omitting the Old
Town on the rio;ht, is to the north-east. Changes

O * O

in detail have come about since then, but, as a whole,
it is the Edinburgh we all know : the Calton Hill,
with its cluster of weird monuments, prominent ; the
New Town, stretching away vaguely to the water-
side ; while in the distance, on the right, is seen
the shore curving to Portobello ; the twin masses of
the Bass Rock and North Berwick Law on the
horizon. Down in the New Town itself the changes
are evident. Where the toy train with its old-
fashioned locomotive is crawling out of the tunnel
under the Mound, and where the old Waverley
Station is seen, alterations have been plenty. The
old North Bridge pictured here has given place to a
new, spanning the ravine in three spans of steel.
Beyond it are still seen the smoke-grimed modern
Gothic battlements of the Calton Gaol, but the huge
new hotel of the North British Railway has replaced
the buildings that rose on that side of the old bridge,
while the towering offices of the Scotsman occupy
the other, all in that florid French Renaissance that

3°4

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

is the keynote of modern Edinburgh's architectural
style. The Scott Monument stands where it did, not,
as David Roberts's drawing shows us, among grounds
but little cared for, but amid gay parterres and velvet
lawns. The Bank of Scotland has been rebuilt and all
the vacant sites long built upon : evidences these of
half a century's progress, the direct outcome of those
railways that two generations ago wrote ' Finis ' to
the last chapter in the romantic story of the Great
North Road.

SKYLINE OF THE OLD TOWN.

END OF VOL. II.

INDEX

ABERFORD, ii. 88, 89, 95.
Alconbury, i. 2, 159, 163.
Alconbury Hill, i. 2, 11, 41, 49, 159-

163, 228 ; ii. 22.
Almvick, ii. 205-221.
Asenby, ii. 100.
Askerne, i. 43, 287.
Ay cliff e, ii. 127.
Ayot Green, i. 118.
Ayton, ii. 247.

BAGBY COMMON, ii. 69.

Balderton, i. 237.

Baldock, i. 139.

Barlby, i. 295.

Barnby Moor, i. 259, 262-266.

Barnet, i. 2, 13, 38, 98-109.

Barnet, Battle of, i. 97, 109.

Barwick in Elmete, ii. 90.

Bawtry, i. 43, 212, 269.

Beeston Green, i. 142.

Belford, ii. 224.

Belhaven, ii. 257.

Bell Bar, i. 113.

Beltonford, ii. 258.

Bentley, i. 286.

Berwick-upon-Tweed, i. 45; ii. 231-

240, 245.

Biggleswade, i. 2, 40, 140-142.
Birdforth, ii. 69.
Birtley, ii. 157.
Blagdon, ii. 195.
Bloody Oaks, i. 195.
Boroughbridge, i. 45, 286 ; ii. 11, 74,

96-100.

Bramham, ii. 93.
Bramham Moor, ii. 89, 90, 93.
Brampton, i. 153-155.
Brayton, i. 288.
Brick wall, i. 118.
Broad water, i. 124.

Brotherton, ii. 78, 88.
Brown's Wells, i. 94.
Browney Bridge, ii. 139.
Brownyside, ii. 223.
Broxburn, ii. 255.
Buckden, i. 2, 41, 148-153.
Burnmouth, ii. 246.

CANTLEY, i. 273.
Carlton-upon-Trent, i. 252, 253.
Causey Park Bridge, ii. 202.
Chalmers, George, i. 45.
Chester-le-Street, ii. 154-157.
Chicken Hill, i. 148.
Clifton, Yorks, ii. 61.
Clifton, Northumberland, ii. 197.
Coaches —

'Amity,' Doneaster and Stamford,

i. 260.

' Courier,' Leeds, i. 60.
Edinburgh Mails, i. 18, 44-49, 227 ;

ii. 34, 35, 65, 81, 189.
'Edinburgh Express,' i. 18, 151;

ii. 65, 100.

' Express,' Leeds, i. 60.
Glasgow and Carlisle Mail, ii. 89,95.
' Highflyer,' London and York, i.

102, 279.

' Highflyer,' London, York, and
Edinburgh, i. 191, 193; ii. 35,
65, 81.

' Leeds Mail,' ii. 88.
' Lord Nelson,' London and Edin-
burgh, i. 26, 283.
Mail Coaches, i. 29-33, 45-49 ; ii.

189, 237.
' Nelson,' Wakefield and Lincoln,

i. 280.
Parcel Mail, London and Bedford,

i. 135.
' Post,' London and Carlisle, i. 26.

306

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Coaches —

' Rockingham,' Leeds, ii. 88.
'B,oyal Forester,' Doncaster and

Nottingham, i. 279.
' Royal Union,' London and New-
castle, i. 279.
Stage Coaches, i. 50-69 ; ii. 90-93,

237.
'Stamford Regent, i. 24, 102, 143,

178, 186.
' Stamford and Retford Auxiliary

Mail,' i. 259.

' Union,' Leeds, i. 59; ii. 88.
'Wellington,' London and New-
castle, i. 18, 284 ; ii. 65, 81.
Coaching Accidents, i. 59-61; ii. 138.
Coaching Notabilities —
Alderson, Dr., ii. 80.
Barclay of Ury, i. 208, 210.
Barker, of Welwyn, i. 118-122.
Barker, John, i. 178.
Cartwright, of Buckden, i. 151.
Chaplin, William, i. 18-23, 98.
Clark, George, i. 259-263.
Dennets, the, of Retford, i. 259.
Hennesy, Tom, i. 121-140.
Herring, J. F., i. 278-283.
Holtby, Tom, ii. 34.
Home, B. W., i. 18, 23.
Mountain, Mrs., i. 23, 29.
Nelson, Mrs., i. 23, 29.
' Nimrod,' ii. 90-93.
Percivals, the, of Wansford and

Greetham, i. 178, 196.
Sherman, Edward, i. 17.
Waterhouse, William, 1. 19.
Whincup, of Stamford, i. 186.
Wood, Richard, i. 278, 283.
Coatham Mundeville, ii. 127.
Cockburnspath, ii. 249-255.
Colsterworth, i. 217.
Coxwold, ii. 69.
Craigentinny, ii. 273.
Croft, ii. 109-113.
Cromwell, i. 252-255.
Cromwell, Oliver, i. 231 ; ii. 127,

252, 255.
Cross Hall, i. 148.
Crow Park, i. 253.
Croxdale, ii. 136.
Cycling Notabilities —
Albone, Dan, i. 40.
Bidlake, F. T., i. 38, 42, 146, 147.

ycling Notabilities —
Butterfield, W. J. A., i. 147.
Edge, T. A., i. 146, 147.
Edge, S. F., i. 146.
Fontaine, C. C., i. 147.
Goodwin, F. R., i. 147.
Hobson, T., i. 147.
Holbein, M. A., i. 147.
Hunt, G., i. 147.
Ilsley, Robert, i. 42.
James, J. M., i. 43, 146.
Keith- Falconer, Hon. Ian, i. 146.
Mills, G. P., i. 147.
Oxborrow, E., i. 148.
Pope, H. R., i. 146.
Sansom, H. H., i. 148.
Shorland, F. W., i. 146, 147.
Thorpe, J. H. Stanley, i. 146.
Waterhouse, — , i. 42.
Wheaton, C., i. 145.
Wilson, H. E., i. 147.
Cycling Records, i. 144-148.

DALTON-UPON-TEES, ii. 109.

Darlington, ii. 114-127.

Darrington, ii. 77.

Dead Drummer, the, i. 156.

De Foe, Daniel, i. 231 ; ii. 114, 115,

157, 202.
Deighton, i. 297.
De Quincey, Thos., i. 30-33, 134 ; ii.

124.

Diddington, i. 148, 156.
Digswell Hill, i. 117-
Dintingdale, ii. 81, 83.
Dishforth, ii. 100.
Doncaster, i. 43, 49, 273-286, 298;

ii. 28, 74.

Driving records, i. 209.
Dunbar, ii. 252, 255-257.
Dunglass Dene, ii. 255.
Durham, ii. 139-153.

EASINGWOLD, ii. 35, 64, 70, 72.

East End, Finchley, i. 85, 88.

East Linton, ii. 258.

East Markham, i. 256.

Eaton, i. 258.

Eaton Socon, i. 40, 143-148.

Edinburgh, i. 47 ; ii. 265, 273-304.

Elections, ii. 36-39.

Empingham, i. 195.

Escriek, i. 297.

INDEX

3°7

FELTON, ii. 202.
Fair-burn, ii. 88.
Ferrybridge, i. 49, 60, 286, 298 ; ii.

25, 76, 77-81, 82, 84, 95.
Ferrylrill, ii. 130-132.
Finchley, i. 81, 85, 88.
Fincliley Common, i. 72, 88-96.
Fisherrow, ii. 271.
Foston, i. 237.
Framwellgate, ii. 153.
Fulford, i. 296, 297.

GALTRES, FOREST OF, ii. 63.

(Jamston, i. 256.

Ganwick Corner, i. 110.

Gate Fulford, i. 297, 298.

Gateshead, ii. 180-184.

General Post Office, i. 38, 44, 229.

Girtford, i. 142.

Gladsmuir, ii. 264.

Gonerby Hill, i. 42, 232-237.

Gosforth, ii. 195.

Grantham, i. 41, 203, 205, 217, 223

232.

Grant's House, ii. 249.
Graveley, i. 139.
Great Casterton, i. 192.
Great Gonerby, i. 231.
Great Ponton, i. 218-222.
Great Smeaton, ii. 104.
Greenhill Cross, i. 98.
Greetham, i. 196.
Grizzy's Clump, ii. 226.

HADDINGTON, ii. 258, 260-264.
Hadley Green, i. 2, 13, 39, 109.
Hadley Highstone, i. 109.
Haggerston Castle, ii. 227-230.
Hambleton Hills, ii. 69, 70.
Hardwick, i. 153.
Hatfield, i. 2, 39, 113-117.
Hf.art of Midlothian, i. 233-236.
Heiferlaw Bank, ii. 221-223.
Hell's Kettles, ii. 113.
Henlow, i. 40.
Hicks's Hall, i. 2, 69.
High Entercommon, ii. 105.
Higbgate, i. 2, 71, 78-87.
Highgate Archway, i. 85-88, 146.
Highgate Hill, i. 73, 78-87.
Highwaymen, i. 69, 72, 85, 89-96

139, 196, 211, 217, 272, 293; ii

17-29, 39, 77, 109.

Highwaymen —

Boulter, Thomas, ii. 27-29.

Bowland, John, i. 196.

Everett and Williams, i. 93.

Hazlett, llobert, ii. 180.

King, Tom, ii. 18.

Nevison, John, ii. 23-26.

Sheppard, Jack, i. 93, 95.

Spiggott, — , i. 90.

Tate, Andrew, ii. 137.

Turpin, l)ick, i. 94, 207, 237 ; ii.

17-22.

Hitchin, i. 39, 135, 142.
Holloway, i. 2, 72, 79.
Holy Island, ii. 224.
Hook Moor, ii. 89.
Horn Lane, i. 195.
Hound wood, ii. 248.

INNS (mentioned at length) —
' Angel,' Ferrybridge, ii. 80, 99.
' Angel,' Grantham, i. 224-226.
' Angel,' Islington, i. 2, 69.
'Angel,' Stilton, i. 167-169.
' Angel,' Wetherby, ii. 95.
' Arabian Horse,' Aberford, ii. 90.
'Bald-faced Stag,' Finchley, i. 88.
' Bay Horse,' Skelton, ii. 62.
'Bay Horse,' Traveller's Rest, ii.

127-129.

'Bee-hive,' Grantham, i. 230.
' Bell,' Barnby Moor, i. 259, 262-

266.

'Bell,' Stilton, i. 166-168, 207.
' Black Bull,' Witham Common, i.

196, 200-203.
'Black Lion,' Scarthing Moor, i.

253

' Black Swan,' York, ii. 32-34.
'Blue Bell,' Barnby Moor, i. 259,

262-266.

'Blue Bell,' Went Bridge, ii. 77.
' Blue Bull,' Witham Common, i.

199.

' Blue Horse, ' Great Ponton, i. 222.
' Brampton Hut,' i. 153.
'Brown Cow,' Doncaster, i. 280.
' Bull and Mouth,' St. Martin's-le-

Grand, i. 16.
' Clinton Arms,' Newark, i. 244,

247.

'Comet, 'Croft, ii. 112.
' Crown,' Bawtry, i. 270.

308

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Inns —

' Crown,' Boroughb ridge, ii. 99.

' Crown,' Selby, i. 293, 294.

' Crown and Woolpack,' nr. Stilton,

i. 164.

' Dirt House,' Finchley, i. 89.
' Duke of York,' Ganwick Corner,

i. 110.

' Etteridge's,' York, ii. 33.
'Gatehouse Tavern,' Highgate, i.

81-84.

'George,' Buckden, i. 41, 151.
'George,' Grantham, i. 224-227.
' George,' Stamford, i. 185.
' George,' York, ii. 32.
'George and Blue Boar,' Holborn,

i. 24.

' Golden Cross,' Charing Cross, i. 23.
'Golden Lion,' Ferrybridge, ii. 81.
'Golden Lion,' Northallerton, ii.

73.

'Grant's House,' ii. 249.
'Green Man,' Barnet, i. 102-109.
'Green Man,' Brown's Wells, i. 94.
' Green Man and Still,' Oxford

Street, i. 16, 23.
'Greetham Inn,' i. 196.
'Gretna Green Wedding,' Travel-
lers' Rest, ii. 127.
'Greyhounds,' Boroughbridge, ii.

99.

'Haycock,' Wansford, i. 175-178.
'Kate's Cabin, 'i. 173.
' Lord Kitchener,' Stevenage, i.

139.

' Markham Moor,' i. 256.
'New,' Easingwold, ii. 65.
' New,' Allerton, ii. 96.
' Newcastle Arms,' Tuxford, i. 255.
'Norman Cross,' i. 170.
' Old Castle,' Stevenage, i. 135.
'Old Fox,' Brotherton, ii. 81.
' Old Fox,' Wetherby, ii. 94.
'Old Red Lion,' Barnet, i. 104.
' Old White Lion,' Finchley, i. 89.
'Our Mutual Friend,' i. 138.
'Peacock,' Islington, i. 69, 71.
' Plough,' Alnwick, ii. 206.
' Queen's Head,' Islington, i. 70.
' Ram,' Doncaster, i. 278.
' Ram,' Newark, i. 41, 248.
' Ram Jam,' Stretton, i. 196-199.
' Red House,' near Doncaster, ii.75.

Inns —

' Red Lion,' Barnet, i. 102-109.
' Rose and Crown,' Easingwold, ii.

35, 65.

' Salutation,' Doncaster, i. 283.
; ' Saracen's Head,' Snow Hill, i.

25-29.
' Saracen's Head,' Newark, i. 235,

244-247.

' Scrooby,' i. 266.
' Spotted Dog,' Thornton-le-Street,

ii. 71.
' Spread Eagle,' Gracechurch Street,

i. 16, 23.

' Swan,' Aberford, ii. 89.
' Swan,' Ferrybridge, ii. 79.
' Swan,' Stevenage, i. 128.
' Swan-with-two-Necks,' Gresham

Street, i. 16.

' Volunteer,' Doncaster, i. 286.
'Waggon and Horses,' Stamford,

i. 191.

< Walshford Bridge,' ii. 96.
' Wellington,' Welwyn, i. 122.
' Wheatsheaf,' Alconbury Hill, i.

41.
' Wheatsheaf,' Rushyford Bridge,

ii. 129.

' White Hart,' Retford, i. 258, 261.
'White Hart,' Welwyn, i. 118,

122.
' White Horse,' Eaton Socon, i.

144.

' White Horse,' Edinburgh, ii. 279.
' White House,' near Easingwold,

ii. 65-68.
' White Swan, ' Biggleswade, i.

140-142.

' Whittington Stone Tavern,' i. 78.
' York Tavern,' ii. 33, 34.
Islington, i. 49, 69-71.

JEANIE DEANS, i. 233-236, 244-247,

251, 274.

Jock's Lodge, ii. 274.
Johnson, Dr., ii. 183, 201, 212, 240,

278, 280.
Joppa, ii. 271.

' KATE'S CABIN,' i. 173.
Kirk Deighton, ii. 96.
Knavesmire, i. 298 ; ii. 17, 40, 61.
Kyloe, ii. 226.

INDEX

3°9

LAMBERT, DANIEL,!. 189-191.
Lamberton Toll, ii. 238, 241-245.
Lannock Hill, i. 139.
Lemsford Mills, i. 117.
Levenhall, ii. 264, 269.
Long Bennington, i. 224.
Lower Caldecote, i. 142.

MACADAM, J. L.. i. 12, 14, 47, 99.

Macmerry, ii. 264.

Malcolm's Cross, ii. 222.

Markham Moor, i. 256.

Marston, i. 237.

Martin, Jonathan, ii., 17, 52-58.

Matcham's Bridge, i. 155-159.

Metcalf, John, i. 13; ii. 99.

Micklefield, ii. 88.

Morpeth, i. 16, 48 ; ii. 197-202.

Musselburgh, ii. 265, 270.

NEWARK-rPON-TRKNT, i. 41, 42, 43,

237-252 ; ii. 24, 25, 28.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, i. 45 ; ii. 183-

196.

Newsham, ii. 100.
Newton-on-the-Moor, ii. 205.
Nicholas Nickleby, i. 26, 144, 227.
Nineveh, ii. 96.

Norman Cross, i. 144, 170-173.
Northallerton, i. 286 ; ii. 27, 69, 71-

74, 103.

North Charlton, ii. 223.
North Finchley, i. 89.
North Muskham, i. 252.
North Road Cycling Club, i. 33-44,

144, 151.

OLD-TIME TRAVELLERS (in general), i.

131, 204-217.
Old-time Travellers : —

Barclay of Ury, i. 208, 210.
Calderwood of Coltness, Mrs., i.

169, 212.

Campbell, Lord Chancellor, i. 213.
Carey, Sir Robert, i. 206.
Charles i., i. 139, 205, 207.
Eldou, Earl of, i. 213; ii. 130,

186.

Evelyn, John, ii. 76.
George m., i. 205.
George iv., i. 206.
Gray, Thomas, i. 252.
James I., i. 205, 241 ; ii. 115.

Old-time Travellers —
Jeffrey, Lord, i. 227.
Lepton, John, i. 206.
Londonderry, Marquis of, i. 210.
Macready, W. C., ii. 246.
Manslield, Earl of, i. 211.
Misson, Henri, i. 71.
Monboddo, Lord, i. 210.
Pepys, Samuel, i. 98, 104, 117,

153-155, 216.
Perlin, Estienne, i. 185.
Powell, Foster, i. 207.
Skene, Dr., i. 211.
Sterne, Rev. Laurence, i. 263; ii. 70.
Thoresby, Ralph, i. 103, 216; ii.

138.

Thornhill, Cooper, i. 168, 207.
Twining, Rev. Thomas, i. 232,

263.

Wharton, Sir Ralph, i. 217.
Woulfe, Peter, i. 212.
Old-time Travelling, i. 5-9, 50-54,

58-62, 128-135, 140-143, 204-

217, 227-229, 253; ii. 91-93,

105-109, 115-126, 162-180, 237,

276-280.

PALMER, JOHN, i. 46.
Pedestrian Records, i. 13, 207-209.
Penshaw Monument, ii. 154.
Phantassie, ii. 258.
Piershill, ii. 274.
'Pity Me,'ii. 153.
Plawsworth, ii. 154.
Portobello, ii. 272.
Potter's Bar, i. 110-113.
Prestonpans, i. 264.
Prestonpans, Battle of, i. 266-209.
Prickler's Hill, i. 99.

RAILWAYS —

Edinburgh, and Berwick, ii. 236,

300.
Great Northern, i. 215, 285, 287 ;

ii. 123.
London and Birmingham (now

London and North-Western), i.

100.

Midland, i. 284.
North British, ii. 124, 303.
North-Eastern, i. 287 ; ii. 123.
Stockton and Darlington, i. 48 ; ii.

117.

310

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Ranskill, i. 266.
Raskelfe, ii. 69.
Retford, i. 43, 258.
Riccall, i. 295-297 ; ii. 34.
Richardson's Stead, ii. 231.
Riding Records, i. 206.
Robin Hood's Well, ii. 75.
Rob Roy, ii. 115.
Roderick Random, ii. 162-180.
Rossington Bridge, i. 272.
Rushyford Bridge, ii. 129.

SAND BUTTON, ii. 100.

Sawtry St. Andrews, i. 163, 217.

Sawtry Abbey, i. 163.

Saxton, ii. 83, 85, 86.

Scarthing Moor, i. 253.

Scott, Sir Walter, i. 72, 203, 204,

232, 233, 236, 244, 248-251,

263 ; ii. 80.
Scremerston, ii. 231.
Scrooby, i. 266.
Seaton Burn, ii. 195.
Selby, i. 43, 48, 286, 287-295, 298 ;

ii. 34.

Shaftholme Junction, i. 287 ; ii. 123.
Shipton, ii. 64.
Sibson, i. 174.
' Six Hills,' the, Stevenage, i. 125-

127.

Skelton, ii. 62, 115, 147.
South Muskham, i. 252.
South Otterington, ii. 100.
Stamford, i. 41, 145, 178, 181-192,

215, 223.

Stanborough, i. 117.
Stangate Hill, i. 163.
Stevenage, i. 2, 124-139.
Stibbington. i. 175.
Stilton, i. 11, 164-170, 172, 199, 207.
Stoke Rochford, i. 218.
'Stonegate Hole,' i. 217.
Stretton, i. 192, 200.
Sunderland Bridge, ii. 137.
Sutton-upon-Trent, i. 217, 253.

TAHCASTER, ii. 81, 83, 92, 96.
« Tally-ho Corner,' i. 89.
Telford, James, i. 12, 14, 16, 47, 99
Tempsford, i. 142.

Thirsk, ii. 70, 72.

Thornhaugh, i. 181.

Thornton-le-Street, ii. 70.

Tickencote, i. 192.

'Tingey's Corner,' i. 142.

Tollerton Cross Lanes, ii. 64.

Topcliffe, ii. 100.

Tophall, i. 273.

Topler's Hill, i. 140.

Torworth, i. 266.

Towton, Battle of, ii. 78, 81-88.

Tranent, ii. 264.

Traveller's Rest, ii. 127.

Trent, River, i. 251.

Turnpike gates, i. 11, 69, 79-82, 87,
98-101, 110, 113, 181, 218, 237,
256, 266, 295 ; ii. 69, 74, 76, 88,
105, 132, 154, 238, 241-245.

Turpin's Oak, i. 94.

Tuxford, i. 253, 254-256.

Tweedmouth, ii. 231-235.

WALSHFORD BRIDGE, ii. 96.

Wansford, i. 173-181, 196.

Warenford, ii. 223.

Warrener's House, ii. 201.

Water Newton, i. 173.

Welwyn, i. 2, 14, 39, 118-124, 142,

152.

Went Bridge, ii. 76.
West Barns, ii. 258.
West Markham, i. 256.
West Thirston, ii. 202.
Weston, i. 253.

Wetherby, i. 286 ; ii. 74, 94-96.
Whetstone, i. 72, 81, 82, 97-101.
Whittington, Sir Richard, i. 73-78.
Wide Open, ii. 195.
Witham Common, i. 196, 200, 203,

217, 228.

Woodham, ii. 129.
Woolmer Green, i. 124.
Wyboston, i. 143.

YAXLEY, i. 172.

York, i. 43, 47, 48, 145, 296-301 ;

ii. 1-61.

York Bar, ii. 74.
Young, Rev. Edward, i. 122-124.

Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty

Harper, Charles George
600 The great North Road

v.2

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