The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles

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About a century later, in 1700, the Rev. Mr. Brome, rector of
Cheriton in Kent, entered upon a series of travels in England as if
it had been a newly-discovered country. He set out in spring so
soon as the roads had become passable. His friends convoyed him on
the first stage of his journey, and left him, commending him to the
Divine protection. He was, however, careful to employ guides to
conduct him from one place to another, and in the course of his
three years' travels he saw many new and wonderful things. He was
under the necessity of suspending his travels when the winter or
wet weather set in, and to lay up, like an arctic voyager, for
several months, until the spring came round again. Mr. Brome
passed through Northumberland into Scotland, then down the western
side of the island towards Devonshire, where he found the farmers
gathering in their corn on horse-back, the roads being so narrow
that it was impossible for them to use waggons. He desired to
travel into Cornwall, the boundaries of which he reached, but was
prevented proceeding farther by the rains, and accordingly he made
the best of his way home.*[1] The vicar of Cheriton was considered
a wonderful man in his day,-- almost as as venturous as we should
now regard a traveller in Arabia. Twenty miles of slough, or an
unbridged river between two parishes, were greater impediments to
intercourse than the Atlantic Ocean now is between England and
America. Considerable towns situated in the same county, were then
more widely separated, for practical purposes, than London and
Glasgow are at the present day. There were many districts which
travellers never visited, and where the appearance of a stranger
produced as great an excitement as the arrival of a white man in an
African village.*[2]

The author of 'Adam Bede' has given us a poet's picture of the
leisure of last century, which has "gone where the spinning-wheels
are gone, and the pack-horses, and the slow waggons, and the
pedlars who brought bargains to the door on sunny afternoons. "Old
Leisure" lived chiefly in the country, among pleasant seats and
homesteads, and was fond of sauntering by the fruit-tree walls, and
scenting the apricots when they were warmed by the morning
sunshine, or sheltering himself under the orchard boughs at noon,
when the summer pears were falling." But this picture has also its
obverse side. Whole generations then lived a monotonous, ignorant,
prejudiced, and humdrum life. They had no enterprize, no energy,
little industry, and were content to die where they were born. The
seclusion in which they were compelled to live, produced a
picturesqueness of manners which is pleasant to look back upon, now
that it is a thing of the past; but it was also accompanied with a
degree of grossness and brutality much less pleasant to regard, and
of which the occasional popular amusements of bull-running,
cock-fighting, cock-throwing, the saturnalia of Plough-Monday, and
such like, were the fitting exponents.

People then knew little except of their own narrow district. The
world beyond was as good as closed against them. Almost the only
intelligence of general affairs which reached them was communicated
by pedlars and packmen, who were accustomed to retail to their
customers the news of the day with their wares; or, at most, a
newsletter from London, after it had been read nearly to pieces at
the great house of the district, would find its way to the village,
and its driblets of information would thus become diffused among
the little community. Matters of public interest were long in
becoming known in the remoter districts of the country. Macaulay
relates that the death of Queen Elizabeth was not heard of in some
parts of Devon until the courtiers of her successor had ceased to
wear mourning for her. The news of Cromwell's being made Protector
only reached Bridgewater nineteen days after the event, when the
bells were set a-ringing; and the churches in the Orkneys continued
to put up the usual prayers for James II. three months after he
had taken up his abode at St. Germains. There were then no shops
in the smaller towns or villages, and comparatively few in the
larger; and these were badly furnished with articles for general
use. The country people were irregularly supplied by hawkers, who
sometimes bore their whole stook upon their back, or occasionally
on that of their pack-horses. Pots, pans, and household utensils
were sold from door to door. Until a comparatively recent period,
the whole of the pottery-ware manufactured in Staffordshire was
hawked about and disposed of in this way. The pedlars carried
frames resembling camp-stools, on which they were accustomed to
display their wares when the opportunity occurred for showing them
to advantage. The articles which they sold were chiefly of a
fanciful kind--ribbons, laces, and female finery; the housewives'
great reliance for the supply of general clothing in those days
being on domestic industry.

Every autumn, the mistress of the household was accustomed to lay
in a store of articles sufficient to serve for the entire winter.
It was like laying in a stock of provisions and clothing for a
siege during the time that the roads were closed. The greater part
of the meat required for winter's use was killed and salted down at
Martinmas, while stockfish and baconed herrings were provided for
Lent. Scatcherd says that in his district the clothiers united in
groups of three or four, and at the Leeds winter fair they would
purchase an ox, which, having divided, they salted and hung the
pieces for their winter's food.*[3] There was also the winter's
stock of firewood to be provided, and the rushes with which to
strew the floors--carpets being a comparatively modern invention;
besides, there was the store of wheat and barley for bread, the
malt for ale, the honey for sweetening (then used for sugar), the
salt, the spiceries, and the savoury herbs so much employed in the
ancient cookery. When the stores were laid in, the housewife was
in a position to bid defiance to bad roads for six months to come.
This was the case of the well-to-do; but the poorer classes, who
could not lay in a store for winter, were often very badly off both
for food and firing, and in many hard seasons they literally
starved. But charity was active in those days, and many a poor
man's store was eked out by his wealthier neighbour.

When the household supply was thus laid in, the mistress, with her
daughters and servants, sat down to their distaffs and spinning-wheels;
for the manufacture of the family clothing was usually the work of
the winter months. The fabrics then worn were almost entirely of
wool, silk and cotton being scarcely known. The wool, when not
grown on the farm, was purchased in a raw state, and was carded,
spun, dyed, and in many cases woven at home: so also with the linen
clothing, which, until quite a recent date, was entirely the
produce of female fingers and household spinning-wheels. This kind
of work occupied the winter months, occasionally alternated with
knitting, embroidery, and tapestry work. Many of our country
houses continue to bear witness to the steady industry of the
ladies of even the highest ranks in those times, in the fine
tapestry hangings with which the walls of many of the older rooms
in such mansions are covered.

Among the humbler classes, the same winter's work went on.
The women sat round log fires knitting, plaiting, and spinning by
fire-light, even in the daytime. Glass had not yet come into
general use, and the openings in the wall which in summer-time
served for windows, had necessarily to be shut close with boards to
keep out the cold, though at the same time they shut out the light.
The chimney, usually of lath and plaster, ending overhead in a cone
and funnel for the smoke, was so roomy in old cottages as to
accommodate almost the whole family sitting around the fire of logs
piled in the reredosse in the middle, and there they carried on
their winter's work.

Such was the domestic occupation of women in the rural districts in
olden times; and it may perhaps be questioned whether the
revolution in our social system, which has taken out of their hands
so many branches of household manufacture and useful domestic
employment, be an altogether unmixed blessing.

Winter at an end, and the roads once more available for travelling,
the Fair of the locality was looked forward to with interest. Fairs
were among the most important institutions of past times, and were
rendered necessary by the imperfect road communications. The right
of holding them was regarded as a valuable privilege, conceded by
the sovereign to the lords of the manors, who adopted all manner of
devices to draw crowds to their markets. They were usually held at
the entrances to valleys closed against locomotion during winter,
or in the middle of rich grazing districts, or, more frequently, in
the neighbourhood of famous cathedrals or churches frequented by
flocks of pilgrims. The devotion of the people being turned to
account, many of the fairs were held on Sundays in the churchyards;
and almost in every parish a market was instituted on the day on
which the parishioners were called together to do honour to their
patron saint.

The local fair, which was usually held at the beginning or end of
winter, often at both times, became the great festival as well as
market of the district; and the business as well as the gaiety of
the neighbourhood usually centred on such occasions. High courts
were held by the Bishop or Lord of the Manor, to accommodate which
special buildings were erected, used only at fair time. Among the
fairs of the first class in England were Winchester, St. Botolph's
Town (Boston), and St. Ives. We find the great London merchants
travelling thither in caravans, bearing with them all manner of
goods, and bringing back the wool purchased by them in exchange.

Winchester Great Fair attracted merchants from all parts of Europe.
It was held on the hill of St. Giles, and was divided into streets
of booths, named after the merchants of the different countries who
exposed their wares in them. "The passes through the great woody
districts, which English merchants coming from London and the West
would be compelled to traverse, were on this occasion carefully
guarded by mounted 'serjeants-at-arms,' since the wealth which was
being conveyed to St. Giles's-hill attracted bands of outlaws from
all parts of the country."*[4] Weyhill Fair, near Andover, was
another of the great fairs in the same district, which was to the
West country agriculturists and clothiers what Winchester St.
Giles's Fair was to the general merchants.

The principal fair in the northern districts was that of
St. Botolph's Town (Boston), which was resorted to by people from
great distances to buy and sell commodities of various kinds.
Thus we find, from the 'Compotus' of Bolton Priory,*[5] that the
monks of that house sent their wool to St. Botolph's Fair to be sold,
though it was a good hundred miles distant; buying in return their
winter supply of groceries, spiceries, and other necessary
articles. That fair, too, was often beset by robbers, and on one
occasion a strong party of them, under the disguise of monks,
attacked and robbed certain booths, setting fire to the rest; and
such was the amount of destroyed wealth, that it is said the veins
of molten gold and silver ran along the streets.

The concourse of persons attending these fairs was immense.
The nobility and gentry, the heads of the religions houses, the
yeomanry and the commons, resorted to them to buy and sell all
manner of agricultural produce. The farmers there sold their wool
and cattle, and hired their servants; while their wives disposed of
the surplus produce of their winter's industry, and bought their
cutlery, bijouterie, and more tasteful articles of apparel.
There were caterers there for all customers; and stuffs and wares
were offered for sale from all countries. And in the wake of this
business part of the fair there invariably followed a crowd of
ministers to the popular tastes-- quack doctors and merry andrews,
jugglers and minstrels, singlestick players, grinners through
horse-collars, and sportmakers of every kind.

Smaller fairs were held in most districts for similar purposes of
exchange. At these the staples of the locality were sold and
servants usually hired. Many were for special purposes--cattle
fairs, leather fairs, cloth fairs, bonnet fairs, fruit fairs.
Scatcherd says that less than a century ago a large fair was held
between Huddersfield and Leeds, in a field still called Fairstead,
near Birstal, which used to be a great mart for fruit, onions, and
such like; and that the clothiers resorted thither from all the
country round to purchase the articles, which were stowed away in
barns, and sold at booths by lamplight in the morning.*[6] Even
Dartmoor had its fair, on the site of an ancient British village or
temple near Merivale Bridge, testifying to its great antiquity; for
it is surprising how an ancient fair lingers about the place on
which it has been accustomed to be held, long after the necessity
for it has ceased. The site of this old fair at Merivale Bridge is
the more curious, as in its immediate neighbourhood, on the road
between Two Bridges and Tavistock, is found the singular-looking
granite rock, bearing so remarkable a resemblance to the Egyptian
sphynx, in a mutilated state. It is of similarly colossal
proportions, and stands in a district almost as lonely as that in
which the Egyptian sphynx looks forth over the sands of the
Memphean Desert.*[7]

[Image] Site of an ancient British village and fair on Dartmoor.

The last occasion on which the fair was held in this secluded spot
was in the year 1625, when the plague raged at Tavistock; and there
is a part of the ground, situated amidst a line of pillars marking
a stone avenue--a characteristic feature of the ancient aboriginal
worship--which is to this day pointed out and called by the name of
the "Potatoe market."

But the glory of the great fairs has long since departed. They
declined with the extension of turnpikes, and railroads gave them
their death-blow. Shops now exist in every little town and
village, drawing their supplies regularly by road and canal from
the most distant parts. St. Bartholomew, the great fair of
London,*[8] and Donnybrook, the great fair of Dublin, have been
suppressed as nuisances; and nearly all that remains of the dead
but long potent institution of the Fair, is the occasional
exhibition at periodic times in country places, of pig-faced
ladies, dwarfs, giants, double-bodied calves, and such-like
wonders, amidst a blatant clangour of drums, gongs, and cymbals.
Like the sign of the Pack-Horse over the village inn door, the
modern village fair, of which the principal article of merchandise
is gingerbread-nuts, is but the vestige of a state of things that
has long since passed away.

There were, however, remote and almost impenetrable districts which
long resisted modern inroads. Of such was Dartmoor, which we have
already more than once referred to. The difficulties of
road-engineering in that quarter, as well as the sterility of a
large proportion of the moor, had the effect of preventing its
becoming opened up to modern traffic; and it is accordingly curious
to find how much of its old manners, customs, traditions, and
language has been preserved. It looks like a piece of England of
the Middle Ages, left behind on the march. Witches still hold
their sway on Dartmoor, where there exist no less than three
distinct kinds-- white, black, and grey,*[9]--and there are still
professors of witchcraft, male as well as female, in most of the
villages.

As might be expected, the pack-horses held their ground in Dartmoor
the longest, and in some parts of North Devon they are not yet
extinct. When our artist was in the neighbourhood, sketching the
ancient bridge on the moor and the site of the old fair, a farmer
said to him, "I well remember the train of pack-horses and the
effect of their jingling bells on the silence of Dartmoor.
My grandfather, a respectable farmer in the north of Devon, was the
first to use a 'butt' (a square box without wheels, dragged by a
horse) to carry manure to field; he was also the first man in the
district to use an umbrella, which on Sundays he hung in the
church-porch, an object of curiosity to the villagers." We are also
informed by a gentleman who resided for some time at South Brent',
on the borders of the Moor, that the introduction of the first cart
in that district is remembered by many now living, the bridges
having been shortly afterwards widened to accommodate the wheeled
vehicles.

The primitive features of this secluded district are perhaps best
represented by the interesting little town of Chagford, situated in
the valley of the North Teign, an ancient stannary and market town
backed by a wide stretch of moor. The houses of the place are
built of moor stone--grey, venerable-looking, and substantial--some
with projecting porch and parvise room over, and granite-mullioned
windows; the ancient church, built of granite, with a stout old
steeple of the same material, its embattled porch and granite-groined
vault springing from low columns with Norman-looking capitals,
forming the sturdy centre of this ancient town clump.

A post-chaise is still a phenomenon in Chagford, the roads and
lanes leading to it being so steep and rugged as to be ill adapted
for springed vehicles of any sort. The upland road or track to
Tavistock scales an almost precipitous hill, and though well enough
adapted for the pack-horse of the last century, it is quite
unfitted for the cart and waggon traffic of this. Hence the horse
with panniers maintains its ground in the Chagford district; and
the double-horse, furnished with a pillion for the lady riding
behind, is still to be met with in the country roads.

Among the patriarchs of the hills, the straight-breasted blue coat
may yet be seen, with the shoe fastened with buckle and strap as in
the days when George III. was king; and old women are still found
retaining the cloak and hood of their youth. Old agricultural
implements continue in use. The slide or sledge is seen in the
fields; the flail, with its monotonous strokes, resounds from the
barn-floors; the corn is sifted by the windstow--the wind merely
blowing away the chaff from the grain when shaken out of sieves by
the motion of the hand on some elevated spot; the old wooden plough
is still at work, and the goad is still used to urge the yoke of
oxen in dragging it along.

[Image] The Devonshire Crooks

"In such a place as Chagford," says Mr. Rowe, "the cooper or rough
carpenter will still find a demand for the pack-saddle, with its
accompanying furniture of crooks, crubs, or dung-pots. Before the
general introduction of carts, these rough and ready contrivances
were found of great utility in the various operations of husbandry,
and still prove exceedingly convenient in situations almost, or
altogether, inaccessible to wheel-carriages. The long crooks are
used for the carriage of corn in sheaf from the harvest-field to
the mowstead or barn, for the removal of furze, browse,
faggot-wood, and other light materials. The writer of one of the
happiest effusions of the local muse,*[10] with fidelity to nature
equal to Cowper or Crabbe, has introduced the figure of a
Devonshire pack-horse bending under the 'swagging load' of the
high-piled crooks as an emblem of care toiling along the narrow and
rugged path of life. The force and point of the imagery must be
lost to those who have never seen (and, as in an instance which
came under my own knowledge, never heard of) this unique specimen
of provincial agricultural machinery. The crooks are formed of two
poles,*[11] about ten feet long, bent, when green, into the
required curve, and when dried in that shape are connected by
horizontal bars. A pair of crooks, thus completed, is slung over
the pack-saddle--one 'swinging on each side to make the balance
true.' The short crooks, or crubs, are slung in a similar manner.
These are of stouter fabric, and angular shape, and are used for
carrying logs of wood and other heavy materials. The dung-pots, as
the name implies, were also much in use in past times, for the
removal of dung and other manure from the farmyard to the fallow or
plough lands. The slide, or sledge, may also still occasionally
be seen in the hay or corn fields, sometimes without, and in other
cases mounted on low wheels, rudely but substantially formed of
thick plank, such as might have brought the ancient Roman's harvest
load to the barn some twenty centuries ago."

Mrs. Bray says the crooks are called by the country people
"Devil's tooth-picks." A correspondent informs us that the queer
old crook-packs represented in our illustration are still in use in
North Devon. He adds: "The pack-horses were so accustomed to their
position when travelling in line (going in double file) and so
jealous of their respective places, that if one got wrong and took
another's place, the animal interfered with would strike at the
offender with his crooks."

Footnotes for Chapter III.

*[1] 'Three Years' Travels in England, Scotland, and Wales.'
By James Brome, M.A., Rector of Cheriton, Kent. London, 1726.

*[2] The treatment the stranger received was often very rude.
When William Hutton, of Birmingham, accompanied by another gentleman,
went to view the field of Bosworth, in 1770, "the inhabitants,"
he says, "set their dogs at us in the street, merely because we were
strangers. Human figures not their own are seldom seen in these
inhospitable regions. Surrounded with impassable roads, no
intercourse with man to humanise the mind. nor commerce to smooth
their rugged manners, they continue the boors of Nature."
In certain villages in Lancashire and Yorkshire, not very remote from
large towns, the appearance of a stranger, down to a comparatively
recent period, excited a similar commotion amongst the villagers,
and the word would pass from door to door, "Dost knaw'im?" "Naya."
"Is 'e straunger?" "Ey, for sewer." "Then paus' 'im-- 'Eave a duck
[stone] at 'im-- Fettle 'im!" And the "straunger" would straightway
find the "ducks" flying about his head, and be glad to make his
escape from the village with his life.

*[3] Scatcherd, 'History of Morley.'

*[4] Murray's ' Handbook of Surrey, Hants, and Isle of Wight,' 168.

*[5] Whitaker's 'History of Craven.'

*[6] Scatcherd's 'History of Morley,' 226.

*[7] Vixen Tor is the name of this singular-looking rock. But it
is proper to add, that its appearance is probably accidental, the
head of the Sphynx being produced by the three angular blocks of
rock seen in profile. Mr. Borlase, however, in his ' Antiquities
of Cornwall,' expresses the opinion that the rock-basins on the
summit of the rock were used by the Druids for purposes connected
with their religious ceremonies.

*[8] The provisioning of London, now grown so populous, would be
almost impossible but for the perfect system of roads now
converging on it from all parts. In early times, London, like
country places, had to lay in its stock of salt-provisions against
winter, drawing its supplies of vegetables from the country within
easy reach of the capital. Hence the London market-gardeners
petitioned against the extension of tumpike-roads about a century
ago, as they afterwards petitioned against the extension of
railways, fearing lest their trade should be destroyed by the
competition of country-grown cabbages. But the extension of the
roads had become a matter of absolute necessity, in order to feed
the huge and ever-increasing mouth of the Great Metropolis, the
population of which has grown in about two centuries from four
hundred thousand to three millions. This enormous population has,
perhaps, never at any time more than a fortnight's supply of food
in stock, and most families not more than a few days; yet no one
ever entertains the slightest apprehension of a failure in the
supply, or even of a variation in the price from day to day in
consequence of any possible shortcoming. That this should be so,
would be one of the most surprising things in the history of modern
London, but that it is sufficiently accounted for by the
magnificent system of roads, canals, and railways, which connect it
with the remotest corners of the kingdom. Modern London is mainly
fed by steam. The Express Meat-Train, which runs nightly from
Aberdeen to London, drawn by two engines and makes the journey in
twenty-four hours, is but a single illustration of the rapid and
certain method by which modem London is fed. The north Highlands
of Scotland have thus, by means of railways, become grazing-grounds
for the metropolis. Express fish trains from Dunbar and Eyemouth
(Smeaton's harbours), augmented by fish-trucks from Cullercoats and
Tynemouth on the Northumberland coast, and from Redcar, Whitby, and
Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast, also arrive in London every
morning. And what with steam-vessels bearing cattle, and meat and
fish arriving by sea, and canal-boats laden with potatoes from
inland, and railway-vans laden with butter and milk drawn from a
wide circuit of country, and road-vans piled high with vegetables
within easy drive of Covent Garden, the Great Mouth is thus from
day to day regularly, satisfactorily, and expeditiously filled.

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