18 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



remarkable a trait, after all, in the character of an 

 agricultural people. 



Our author eventually, notwithstanding the terrible 

 roads, arrived at Brighthelmstone, by way of Lewes, 

 "just as day was fading." It was, so he says, " a 

 village on the sea-coast; lying in a valley gradually 

 sloping, and yet deep. It is not, indeed, contemptible 

 as to size, for it is thronged with people, though the 

 inhabitants are mostly very needy and wretched in 

 their mode of living, occupied in the employment of 

 fishing, robust in their bodies, laborious, and skilled 

 in all nautical crafts, and, as it is said, terrible cheats 

 of the custom-house officers." As who, indeed, is not, 

 allowing the opportunity ? 



Batchelor, the pioneer of Brighton coaching, 

 continued his enterprise in 1757, and with the coming 

 of spring, and the drying of the roads, his coaches, 

 which had been laid up in the winter, after the usual 

 custom of those times, were plying again. In May he 

 advertised, " for the convenience of country gentlemen, 

 etc.," his London, Lewes, and Brighthelmstone stage- 

 coach, which performed the journey of fifty-eight miles 

 in two days ; and exclusive persons, who preferred to 

 travel alone, might have post-chaises of him. 



Brighthelmstone had in the meanwhile sprung into 

 notice. The health-giving qualities of its sea air, and 

 the then " strange new eccentricity ' of sea-bathing, 

 advocated from 1750 by Dr. Richard Russell, had 

 already given it something of a vogue among wealthy 

 invalids, and the growing traffic was worth competing 

 for. Competitors therefore sprang up to share 

 Batchelor's business. Most of them merely added 

 stage-coaches like his, but in May, 1762, a certain 

 " J. Tubb," in partnership with " S. Brawne," started 

 a very superior conveyance, going from London one 

 day and returning from Brighthelmstone the next. 

 This was the : 



LEWES and BRIGHTELMSTONE new FLYING 

 MACHINE (by Uckfield), hung on steel springs, very neat 



