Portsmouth Road

“ But they were not only highway robberies that gained the Portsmouth Road so unenviable a notoriety a hundred and fifty years ago. Smuggling was rife along the highway from Hindhead to Portsmouth in those days, and the whole sea-board, together with the forest villages that were then so untravelled, swarmed with the “free-traders,” as they euphemistically called themselves. ”

“ The Portsmouth Road is measured (or was measured when road-travel was the only way of travelling on terra firma, and coaches the chiefest machines of progression) from the Stone’s End, Borough. It went by Vauxhall to Wandsworth, Putney Heath, Kingston-on-Thames, Guildford, and Petersfield; and thence came presently into Portsmouth through the Forest of Bere and past the frowning battlements of Porchester. The distance was, according to Cary,—that invaluable guide, philosopher, and friend of our grandfathers,—seventy-one miles, seven furlongs ”

“ But memories of coaching days on this old road are rather meagre, for, although sea-faring business sent a great many travellers journeying between London and the dockyard town, the Portsmouth Road was never celebrated for crack coaches or for record times, and when coaching was in full swing, men saw as little romance in being dragged down the highways behind four horses as we can discover in railway travelling. ”

“ The courtyards and coach-houses of the “Dolphin” are a sight to see and to wonder at. You gaze at them, and presently the old times seem to come crowding back. The eight-and-twenty coaches [Pg 282] (more or less, as you choose your period) that fared either way upon the Portsmouth Road seem more real to you who look upon these capacious stables; and the passengers, the coachmen and guards, the ostlers, and the horsey hangers-on of such places come upon the imagination with a great deal more of reality than is gained from the reading of books, howsoever eloquent. ”

“ The highway, but just now as lonely as most of the old coach-roads are usually become in these days of steam and railways, is alive with wagons and tradesmen’s carts, and neatly-kept footpaths are bordered with lamp-posts, furnished with oil-lamps.
This is the entirely modern neighbourhood of Waterlooville, a settlement nearly a mile in length, bordering the Portsmouth Road, and wearing not so much the appearance of an English village as that of some mushroom township in the hurried clearings of an American forest. ”

“ Another country lane affords the opportunity of regaining the Portsmouth Road from Buriton, without undergoing what always is the penance of retracing one’s steps. It brings the traveller out into the highway just below where the railway crosses, underneath a bridge ”

“ Keen to send you this week a fine goose, and a brace of partridges....
“The road from Guildford quite to Portsmouth is really enchanting. But I wanted you to enjoy with me these glorious scenes of Nature. I hope, however, that the quiet of your present situation” (Miss Wilkes was visiting the Duchess de la Vallière) “has chased away your feveret, and restored you to sweet sleep, Nature’s best nurse. Pray send me such welcome news.”
And then this agitator and sometime blasphemous member of the Medmenham Hell-Fire Club goes on to write verses appreciative of the scenery on the Portsmouth Road. ”

“ For other memories of Gibbon we must wait until we reach his ancestral acres of Buriton, near Petersfield, and meanwhile, we have come to the hill-brow, where the new route and the old meet, and the Portsmouth Road definitely begins.
There are many other memories at Putney; too many, in fact, to linger over, if we wish to come betimes to the dockyard town that is our destination. ”

“ Hotel, Piccadilly. The fame of this sole survivor of the Guildford coaches is of no mere mushroom growth, for it is now over twenty years since Mr. Walter Shoolbred first drove his own teams over this road, so that to-day he is become an institution. Time was (and that but a few years since) when a Portsmouth coach was the delight of the road; but Captain Hargreaves’ “Rocket” no longer enlivens the way, and, below Guildford, the Portsmouth Road is unexploited. To-day we fare no farther behind our four-in-hand than Mr. Shoolbred can take us, and he has the route entirely to himself. ”

“ If the excellence of the great highways of England is remarkable, the tangled lanes and absolute rusticity of the roads but a stone’s throw from the main routes call no less for remark. Here, just a little way from Liphook, and in the immediate vicinity of a railway, I might have been in the deepest wilds of Devon, so meandering were the lanes, so untamed the country. An old pack-horse trail, still distinct, though unused these many generations past, wandered along, amid gorse and bracken, and footpaths led in perplexingly-different directions. ”

“ On another occasion we learn that “the farmers are swearing, the parsons praying, for rain; neither hopeful of any result until the weather changes.” About this time—on July 7, 1793—Mr. Wilkes has been returning along the Portsmouth Road from London to the Isle of Wight. He found the dust and heat almost overpowering, and the highway crowded with recruits, both for army and navy, who were no small inconvenience to his progress. ”

“ Among the memorable passengers along the Portsmouth Road in other days who have left any record of their journeys is “that strenuous and painful preacher,” the Rev. John Wesley, D.D. On the fifth day of October, 1753, he left the “humane, loving people” of Cowes, “and crossed over to Portsmouth.” Here he “found another kind of people” from the complaisant inhabitants of the Isle of Wight. ”

“ Good roads lead thence to Byfleet Station, two miles distant, for those who desire to return by train; but the more enjoyable course, should daylight last, is to return to Ripley, and to cycle thence back to Esher through Cobham Street, along that splendid highway, the old Portsmouth road. Commons are almost continuous along this route—Ockham Common, Wisley Common, and that of Fairmile—and the scent of the surrounding pine-woods is over them all. ”

“ The real centre of the town was, of course, the Common Hard—which is one of the streets of the world like the Cannebière of Marseilles, the King's Road of Brighton, or the High Street of Oxford. Portsmouth cannot be conceived as existing without the Common Hard. It is a broad street facing the harbor ”

“ And now, save for the slight rise of Cold Ash Hill, it is all down-hill to Liphook, and excellent going, too, on a fine gravelly road, closely compacted and well kept. The country, though, is still wild and unfertile, and for long stretches, after passing the “eligible plots” of Hindhead, the road is seen narrowing away in long perspectives with never a house in sight. In midst of all this waste stands a lonely roadside inn—the “Seven Thorns” a wayside sign proclaims it to be—which draws its custom the Lord only knows whence. ”

“ The old-time aspect of Portsmouth is gone for ever. An almost complete transformation has taken place in appearance, in thought, and manner in little over a century, and where the body of Jack the Painter hung, high as Haman, from a lofty gallows on Blockhouse Beach, no criminals swing to-day. ”

“ The surroundings of Portsmouth are, in fact, very modern, and probably the most ancient edifice here is the High Level [Pg 357] railway station: a class of building which age has no power to render venerable. The latest effort of modernity is to be seen from this point in the Town Hall, of which every inhabitant of the allied towns of Portsmouth, Southsea, Gosport, and Landport is inordinately proud. And if size should count for anything, they have cause for pride in this municipal effort; for Portsmouth Town Hall is particularly immense. ”

“ Behind their prosperous-looking fronts are the vast stable-yards, approached from the High Street by yawning archways that “once upon a time” admitted the coaches, and whence issued the carriages and post-chaises of a by-gone day; now echoing with the rumble of the omnibus that plies between the town and the railway-station, laden chiefly with the sample-boxes of enterprising bagmen. But in that “once upon a time,” whose chronology finally determined and came to an end in the ’40’s, there was a superabundance of coach traffic here. ”

“ The tavern stood on the high-road side between Godalming and
Portsmouth; that is to say the main artery of communication between
London and Portsmouth.
After rising out of the rich overshadowed weald land, the road had crossed long sandy wastes, where population was sparse, where were no enclosures, no farms, only scattered Scottish firs; and in front rose the stately ridge of sandstone that culminates in Hind Head and Leith Hill. ”

“ See what a long list the wayside commons make from London to Portsmouth. To Putney Heath succeeds Wimbledon Common, Ditton Marsh, Fairmile Common, and the commons of Wisley and Peasmarsh, all this side of Godalming; while those of Witley, Hindhead, and Milland, with the bare and open downs of Rake and Chalton, and the remains of Bere Forest, render the remainder of the way one long expanse of free and open land. ”

“ A fine stretch of heather extending for some miles, through which the old main road from London to Portsmouth runs, with now and again considerable stretches of fir woods forming a dark fringe to the view, whilst over the fir tops the sun, just emerging, adds a sparkling brightness to the landscape, which would be alone sufficient to repay the early start. ”

“ From Rowlands Castle, past Wood Ashes, Goodthorpe Deane, and to Lady Holt Park, this scourging was continued through the night until the wretched [Pg 315] men were three parts dead. At two o’clock in the morning this gruesome procession reached the Portsmouth Road at Rake, where the foremost members of the party halted before the “Red Lion,” kept in those days by one Scardefield, who was no stranger to their kind, nor unused to the purchase and storing of smuggled spirits. ”

“ We used to start from the “Globe Inn,” Oyster Street, Portsmouth, and finished the journey to London at the “New Inn,” Old Change, or at the “Castle and Falcon,” Aldersgate Street. Yes, I took to the road pretty early. I was only about sixteen or seventeen years of age when I took charge of the London mail for my father. Father used to ride to Moushill and back (that’s seventy-two miles) every night for fifty years. He drove the night “Nelson” for thirty-two years. That was a coach with a yellow body, and [Pg 216] about 1822 its name was altered to that of the “Star of Brunswick.” ”

“ Modern times of road travel, that range from the reign of George IV. to the beginning of the Railway Era, are chiefly filled with stories of the Allied Sovereigns, who ate and drank a great deal too much on their way down to Portsmouth to celebrate the Peace of 1814; of the Duke of Wellington, who followed them in a carriage drawn by eight horses, and ate sparingly and drank little; and of all sorts of naval and military bigwigs and left-handed descendants of Royalty who held fat offices in army or navy, and lorded it grandly over meaner, but more legitimate, mortals. ”

“ This event brings us to the threshold of the coaching era, for in 1784, four years after the Gordon Riots, mail-coaches were introduced, and the roads were set in order. Years before, when only the slow stages were running, a journey from London to Portsmouth occupied fourteen hours, if the roads were good! Nothing is said of the time consumed on the way in the other contingency ”

“ POOR JACK
[Pg 341] Another, and a much more spirited, plate by Isaac Cruikshank, dated 1797, and entitled, “True Blue; or Britain’s Jolly Tars Paid Off at Portsmouth,” shows a coach-load going off to London without more ado, accompanied by Poll and Sue, Nancy, Kate, and Joan; all (nay, I will not say uproariously drunk) in the merriest of moods. The horses gallop, hats are waved in every direction, and those who have no hats flourish beer-bottles instead. ”

“ Returning from this sentimental excursion to Selborne to the road at Rake, the pedestrian will notice a singular old cottage with many angles, fronting the highway. This is one of the old toll-houses left after the abolition of turnpike trusts, and of the vexatious taxes upon road-travel that only finally disappeared within comparatively recent years. Sixty, nay fifty, years ago, there were six toll-houses and turnpike bars between London and Portsmouth. They commenced with one at Newington, followed closely by another at Vauxhall, and one more at the “Robin Hood,” in Kingston Vale. ”

“ Stories innumerable have been told of his childlike innocence of landsmen’s ways, and pictures and caricatures without end have been drawn and painted with the object of making men smile at his strange doings. Here is a caricature dated so far back as 1772, showing “The Sailor’s Return from Portsmouth to London.” The point of view chosen is, apparently, only a mile or two from Portsmouth, for in the background rise some ruins obviously intended to represent Porchester Castle. ”

“ If they had been paid off at Portsmouth and came eventually to London, they would doubtless have walked, and with no very steady step at that, for the furies of Gosport and the red-visaged trolls of Portsea took excellent good care that Jack should be fooled to the top of his bent, and that having been done, there would be little left either for coach journeys or indeed anything else, save a few shillings for that indispensable sailor’s drink, rum. ”