THE EXETER ROAD 131 



Row, great exhibits of machinery and enormous cart- 

 horses, and, enveloping all, a Babel indescribable. The 

 whole thing is curious in the extreme and antique into 

 the bargain— indeed the line in Piers Ploughman's 

 Vision, 



" At Wy and at Winchester I went to the fair," 



is supposed to allude to Wcyhill, and I have no doubt 

 that it does, though I leave the decision of the point to 

 the wise. 



After leaving Wcyhill the Telegraph went by way of 

 Mullen's Pond, where in the good old days there was a 

 turnpike to give you pause (if you had no coppers), to 

 the Park House four miles further on, in old days an 

 inn of some importance, now a solitary beer-house, 

 standing on the verge of desolate downs — on the verge 

 of Salisbury Plain, in fact — across which the road runs 

 under the side of Beacon Hill, a windy place celebrated 

 for its hares, coursing meeting, and some time since for 

 a march past held at the close of autumn manoeuvres ; 

 then across the Bourne river into the extremely ancient 

 town of Amesbury, which is fourteen miles from 

 Andover and seventy-seven miles seven furlongs from 

 Hyde Hark Corner. 



Over this bleak and inhospitable country, between 

 Amesbury and Andover, the great snowstorm of 1836 

 raged in a way which those who have seen a snowdrift 

 on Salisbury Plain may best be able to realise, and the 

 Telegraph Coach passed through the very thick of it. 

 The guard of the mail who travelled with it on that 

 memorable December 27, 1836, from Ilminster to 

 London, had an experience to retail when he reached 

 Piccadilly. The snow began to fall when the coach 

 reached Wincanton, and never left off driving all the 

 way to London. Nor did the coachman either, to his 

 credit be it said, though over this tract of ground we are 

 discussing two extra pairs of leaders were put on, and 

 could only with the utmost difficulty and after much 



K 2 



