68 History of Inland Transport 



Defoe tells how the transport of timber from the neighbour- 

 hood of Lewes to Chatham by road sometimes took two or 

 three years to effect. He saw there twenty-two oxen engaged 

 in dragging " a carriage known as a ' tug ' " on which the 

 trunk of a tree had been loaded ; but the oxen would take it 

 only a short distance, and it would then be thrown down again 

 and left for other teams to take it still further short distances 

 in succession. He also speaks of having seen, at Lewes, 

 " an ancient lady, and a lady of very good quality," going to 

 church in a " coach " drawn by six oxen, " the way being 

 stiff and deep that no horses could go in it." 



There would seem to have been difficulties not only in going 

 to church in Sussex but even in getting buried there, for in the 

 " Sussex Archaeological Collections " mention is made of the 

 fact that in 1728 Judith, widow of Sir Richard Shirley, of 

 Preston, Sussex, directed in her will that her body should be 

 brought for burial to Preston, " if she should die at such time 

 of the year as the roads thereto were passable." 



An authority quoted in the article on " Roads " in Postle- 

 thwayt's "Dictionary" (1745), in referring to "that impass- 

 able county of Sussex," bears the following testimony thereto : 

 " I have seen, in that horrible country, the road 60 to 100 

 yards broad, lie from side to side all poached with cattle, the 

 land of no manner of benefit, and yet no going with a horse 

 but at every step up to the shoulders, full of sloughs and holes, 

 and covered with standing water." 



On the other hand the bad roads were regarded by many 

 of the inhabitants of Sussex as a distinct advantage. They 

 afforded increased facilities for the smuggling operations 

 practised there down to the beginning of the nineteenth 

 century, by rendering pursuit more difficult, 

 p Arthur Young is an especially eloquent witness as to the 

 conditions of travel in England about the year 1770. In 

 making his tours through the country, with a view to investi- 

 gating and reporting on the state of agriculture, he passed over 

 all sorts of roads, and, though some of them were " good," 

 " pretty good," and even " very good " these compliments 

 being more especially paid to roads constructed by the country 

 gentry at their own cost he experiences a difficulty in finding 

 words sufficiently strong in which to express himself when he 

 attempts to describe the roads that were really bad ; and this 



