760 C.Y THE COST OF CARRIAGE. 



myself, in contrast with the sleepy quiet which now reigns 

 over the deserted landing-place and forgotten pier, what a 

 scene of activity Burcot must have been when it was the head of 

 the Thames navigation, and was thronged all the year through 

 with river traffic ; how it swarmed with bargemen and carriers, 

 how the heavily laden waggons were dragged up those roads 

 or carried their freight down to the water's edge, and how the 

 numerous barges, ready to unship or receive their cargoes, 

 were waiting at the pier. In the days of its prosperity it 

 must have been one of the busiest spots in England, and 

 possibly a considerable amount of the goods which were sent 

 from London to the Midland towns used this place as the 

 beginning of the land carriage, even for the purchases of such 

 a personage as Lord Spencer, in Warwickshire. At present, 

 all that remains to testify to its former activity and importance 

 are the deeply sunk roads over which the traffic passed, for all 

 knowledge of its ever having been a place of great significance 

 in the internal trade of England has entirely passed away 

 from local memory, as have also, when I enquired about 

 them on the spot, all recollections of the great fairs of Stour- 

 bridge and Winchester. 



The Act of James I recognises the existence of a navigable 

 water-way from Oxford to Lechlade. The highest point on 

 the Thames which my accounts refer to is Radcot bridge, from 

 which point, on two occasions, a better quality of stone than 

 the local quarries afford is brought to Oxford. It is I infer 

 quite certain, though I have no evidence of the practice, that 

 the river was greatly employed for the carriage of corn all 

 along the valley of the Thames to London. This valley is 

 broad, fertile, and ripens its crops at an earlier date than land 

 which lies on the same parallel 1 , no small matter in England, 

 and its produce could therefore be sent to market not only at 

 a cheap rate, but before other parts of the general harvest 

 were ready. Now in going through Houghton's corn prices, 



1 There is, I think, no country in which a few miles north make so much differ- 

 ence in the time of harvest as they do in England. 



