272 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



better of it afterwards, and left the business to his son ; 

 and after John's days, in the time of Henry the Third, the 

 Downs were turned temporarily into an armed camp by 

 Simon de Montfort, who hourly expected a visitation 

 from Queen Elinor of France. A less martial spectacle 

 was to be witnessed here on the ioth of May, 1625, 

 when Henrietta Maria, on her way from Dover to 

 Canterbury — on her way to church in fact — selected 

 IJarham Downs as the scene of her first drawing-room — 

 and a very draughty drawing-room it must have been. 

 Low dresses and plumes were however not de rigiieur in 

 1625, in addition to which the court ladies who were 

 present to pay their respects to their sovereign were 

 provided providentially with a tent. After which 

 nothing much occurred on Barham Downs till the 

 muster for Napoleon's invasion already mentioned, 

 except wind and snowstorms and frantic struggles of 

 overdue mail coachmen to make up lost time, by 

 "springing" tired cattle, and the stopping of mail 

 coachmen so struggling by a gentleman named Black 

 Robbin, who rode a black mare and drank a great deal 

 meanwhile at a small inn between Bishopsbourne and 

 Barham, whose sign still perpetuates his name. 



And so into Dover, which is seventy-one miles 

 exactly from the Surrey side of London Bridge, and 

 bears very few traces about it now of the Coaching Age, 

 either in its inns or its atmosphere. Attacked on two 

 sides by the demon steam — by land and by sea, with 

 steam packets roaring at one end of the pier and tidal 

 trains at the other, the very memories of old-fashioned 

 travel seem to have folded their wings and fled. There 

 is no touch perceptible of the Dover of 1775 — of the 

 Dover, that is to say, of Mr. Jarvis Lorry and the old 

 Dover Mail. Where is the drawer at the Royal George 

 who opened the coach door " as his custom was " ? 

 Who used to cry into the ears of still half-awakened 

 passengers the following programme of peace : " Bed 

 room and breakfast, sir ? Yes, sir ! That way, sir. 



