12 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



Thomas Blewman, carrier, coming from " Bredhemp- 

 stone ' to the " Queen's Head," Southwark, on 

 Wednesdays, and, setting forth again on Thursdays, 

 reaching Shoreham the same day : which was remark- 

 ably good travelling for a carrier's waggon in the 

 seventeenth century. Here, then, we have the Father 

 Adam, the great original, so far as records can tell us, 

 of all the after charioteers of the Brighton Road. It 

 is not until 1732, that, from the pages of " New 

 Remarks on London," published by the Company of 

 Parish Clerks, we hear anything further. At that date 

 a coach set out on Thursdays from the " Talbot," in 

 the Borough High Street, and a van on Tuesdays from 

 the " Talbot ' and the " George." In the summer 

 of 1745 the " Flying Machine " left the " Old Ship," 

 Brighthelmstone at 5.30 a.m., and reached Southwark 

 in the evening. 



But the first extended and authoritative notice is 

 found in 1746, when the widow of the Lewes carrier 

 advertised in The Lewes Journal of December 8th that 

 she was continuing the business : 



Thomas Smith, the Old Lewes Carrier, being dead, 



THE BUSINESS IS NOW CONTINUED BY HIS WIDOW, MARY 



smith, who gets into the " George Inn," in the Borough, 

 Southwark, every Wednesday in the afternoon, and sets 

 out for Lewes every Thursday morning by eight o'clock, 

 and brings Goods and Passengers to Lewes, Fletching, 

 Chayley, Newick and all places adjacent at reasonable rates. 



Performed (if God permit) by 



MARY SMITH. 



We mav perceive by these earlv records that the real 



" ^ ** ii 



original way down to the Sussex coast was by the 

 Croydon, Godstone, East Grinstead and Lewes route, 

 and that its outlet must have been Newhaven, which, 

 despite its name, is so very ancient a place, and was a 

 port and harbour when Brighthelmstone was but a 

 lisher-village. 



That is the only glimpse we get of the widow Smith 

 and her waggon ; but the " George Inn, in the 



