154 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



at his success, celebrated his triumph in libations of 

 champagne. It appears he obtained two moderately- 

 sized ladders, and, with a strong body of men, planted 

 them on a footpath w^hich made the base line of his 

 survey, stationing here one surveyor with a theodolite, 

 strongly attached to the rounds of one ladder, and 

 another with a similar arrangement fifty yards off, 

 and by this expedient he succeeded in taking his 

 levels and survey, looking over the obstacles erected by 

 the Duke's men, and so kept on from distance to 

 distance for more than half a mile over the protected 

 property. Survey work was carried out by moonlight 

 by one staff of men, whilst another lot took up a 

 position on other portions of the estate, to divert the 

 attention of the obstructionists from their proceedings. 

 This is one instance of the difficulties which many of 

 our lines of railway had to overcome, caused by the 

 blind opposition of landowners. 



In the original plan of a railway from London to 

 Birmingham, laid down by G. Stephenson, almost every 

 landowner along the line, which has since become the 

 New ]\Ietropolitan Railway to Aylesbury, opposed it 

 most bitterly — Cox of Hillingdon, Nevvdigate of Ux- 

 bridge, Way of Denham, Hibbert of Chalfont, Drake 

 of Amersham (with a length of nearly forty-five miles), 

 Lord Carrington, and the Smiths of Wendover, and the 

 then Duke of Buckingham, with all the squirearchy who 

 were under his influence. It was this opposition which 

 drove Stephenson to adopt the present line via Wat- 

 ford, Tring, and Bletchlcy. Here, again, the opposition 

 of Lords Essex, Clarendon, and others at the first- 



