the short stages

suppose, instead of taking one of the fast mails to exeter, and journeying straight away, we book a seat in one of the ‘short stages’ which were the only popular means of being conveyed between london and the suburbs in the days before railways, omnibuses, and tramways existed. we will take the stage to brentford, because that is on our way.

what year shall we imagine it to be? say 1837, because that date marks the accession of her majesty and the opening of the great victorian era, in which everything except human nature (which is still pretty much what it used to be) has been turned inside out, altered, and ‘improved.’

if, in the year 1837, we wished to reach brentford and could not afford to hire a trap or carriage, practically the only way, other than walking the seven miles, would have been to take the stage; and as these stages, starting from the city or the strand, were comparatively few, it was always advisable to go down to the starting-places and secure a seat, rather than to chance finding one vacant at hyde park corner.

‘how we hate the putney and brentford stages that draw up in a line in piccadilly, after the mails are gone,’ says hazlitt, writing of the romance of the mail coach. well, it may be that their five or ten mile journeys afforded no hold for the imagination, compared with the dashing ‘quicksilver’ and the{34} lightning ‘telegraph’ to exeter; but what on earth the londoner of modest means who desired to travel to putney or to brentford would in those pre-omnibus times have done without those stages it is impossible to conceive. we, in these days, might just as well find romance in the majesty of the beautiful great western express locomotives that speed between paddington and penzance, and then turn to the omnibuses that run to hammersmith, and say, ‘how we hate the ’buses!’

all these suburban stages started from public-houses. there were quite a number which went to brentford and on to hounslow, and they set out from such forgotten houses as the ‘new inn,’ old bailey; the ‘goose and gridiron,’ st. paul’s churchyard; the ‘old bell,’ holborn; the ‘gloucester coffee house,’ piccadilly; the ‘white hart,’ ‘red lion,’ and ‘spotted dog,’ strand; and the ‘bolt-in-tun,’ fleet street. it is to be feared that those stages were not ‘swiftsures,’ ‘hirondelles,’ or ‘lightnings.’ nor, indeed, were ‘popular prices’ known in those days. concessions had been made in this direction, it is true, some seven years before, when the man with the extraordinary name—mr. shillibeer—introduced the first omnibus, which ran between the ‘yorkshire stingo,’ in the new road, marylebone, and the city; and the very name ‘omnibus’ was originally intended as a kind of finger-post to point out the intended popularity of the new conveyance, but as the fare to the city was one shilling, it may readily be supposed that bill mortarmixer, tom tenon, and the whole of{35}

the ‘goose and gridiron’

image unavailable: the west country mails starting from the gloucester coffee house, piccadilly (after james pollard).

the west country mails starting from the gloucester coffee house, piccadilly (after james pollard).

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their artisan brethren, who did not in those times aspire to one-and-twopence per hour, preferred to walk. for the same reason, they were only the comparatively affluent who could afford the eighteenpenny fare, or the two-hours journey, to brentford by the ‘stage.’

let us suppose ourselves to be of that fortunate company, and, paying our one-and-sixpence, set out from the ‘goose and gridiron.’

that old-fashioned hostelry, which stood modestly back from the roadway on the north side of st. paul’s churchyard, was, unhappily, demolished in 1894, after a good deal more than two centuries’ record for good cheer. it was originally the ‘swan and harp,’ but some irreverent wag, probably as far back as the building of the house in wren’s time, found the other name for it, and the effigies of the goose and the gridiron remained even to our own time.

this year of our imaginary journey affords a strange contrast with the appearance the streets will possess some sixty years later. ludgate hill, in 1837 an exceedingly narrow thoroughfare, paved with rough granite setts, will in the last decade of the century present a very different aspect. instead of the dingy brick warehouses there will be handsome premises of some architectural pretensions, and the hill will be considerably widened. the setts will have disappeared, to be replaced by wood pavement, and the traffic will have increased tenfold; until, in fact, it has become a continuous stream. there will be strange vehicles, too, unknown in 1837,—omnibuses,{38} hansom-cabs, and motor cars, and where ludgate hill joins fleet street there will be a circus and an obstructive railway-bridge.

image unavailable: ‘an old gentleman, a cobbett-like person.’

‘an old gentleman, a cobbett-like person.’

we proceed in leisurely fashion down ludgate hill, and halt for passengers and parcels at the ‘bolt-in-tun,’ fleet street, which is now a railway receiving office. thence by slow degrees, calling at the ‘red lion,’ ‘spotted dog,’ and the ‘white hart,’ we eventually reach the ‘gloucester coffee house,’ piccadilly, re-built many years ago, and now the ‘berkeley hotel.’ beyond this point, progress is fortunately speedier, and we reach hyde park corner in, comparatively speaking, the twinkling of an eye. hyde park corner in 1837, this year of the queen’s accession, has begun to feel the great changes that are presently to alter london so marvellously. we have among our fellow-travellers by the stage an old gentleman, a cobbett-like person, who wears a rustic, semi-farmer kind of appearance, and recollects many improvements here; who can ‘mind the time, look you,’ when the turnpike-gate (which was removed in 1825) stood at the corner; when st. george’s hospital was a private mansion, the residence of lord lanesborough; and when the road leading past it to pimlico was quite wild country, as in the picture on page 43, where sportsmen shot snipe in those marshes that were in future years{39}

image unavailable: the duke of wellington’s statue.

the duke of wellington’s statue.

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to become the site of belgrave square and other aristocratic quarters.

at this spot mr. decimus burton had already built the great triumphal arch forming the entrance to constitution hill, together with the classic screen at hyde park corner. the screen was built in 1828, and the arch, which is a copy of the arch of titus at rome, in 1832. already, in 1820, apsley house had become the residence of the iron duke, but it was not until 1846 that what thackeray justly names ‘the hideous equestrian monster’ was placed on the summit of that arch, opposite the duke’s windows. here is an illustration of it, before it was hoisted up to that height. beside it you see the duke himself, in his characteristic white trousers, in company with several weirdly dressed persons. again, over page, may be seen the arch, with the statue on it, and the neighbourhood vastly changed from the appearance it wears in the picture of the ‘north-east prospect of st. george’s hospital.’ instead of the great hooded waggons starting for the west country, the road is occupied with very crowded traffic, and among the vehicles may be noticed two omnibuses, one going to chelsea, the other (for this is the year 1851) to the exhibition,—the first exhibition that ever was. if, ladies and gentlemen, you will be pleased to look at those omnibuses, you will see that they have neither knifeboards nor seats on the roof, and that passengers are squatting up there in the most supremely uncomfortable, not to say dangerous, positions. also, in those dark ages of london locomotion, the ascent to that uncomfortable roof was of itself perilous, for no{41}

image unavailable: the wellington arch and hyde park corner, 1851.

the wellington arch and hyde park corner, 1851.

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image unavailable: st. george’s hospital, and the road to pimlico, 1780.

st. george’s hospital, and the road to pimlico, 1780.

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one had as yet dreamed of the staircase. other curious points will be noticed by the observant, and among them the fact that ’buses then had doors. the present historian vividly recollects a door being part of the equipment of every ’bus, and of the full-flavoured odour of what mr. w. s. gilbert calls ‘damp straw and squalid hay’ which assailed the nostrils of the ‘insides’ when that door was shut; but in what particular year did the door vanish altogether? alas! the straw, with the door, is gone for evermore, and passengers no longer lose their small change in it to the great gain of the conductor, who, by the way, used to be called ‘the cad,’ even although he commonly wore a ‘top hat’ and a frock coat, as per the picture. the word ‘cad’ has since then acquired a much more offensive meaning, and if you addressed a conductor by that name nowadays, he would probably express a desire to punch your head.

the hideous statue of the duke and his charger ‘copenhagen,’ which the french said ‘avenged waterloo,’ was removed to aldershot in 1884, when the alterations were made at hyde park corner.