GHAP. iv. rmvAiiPs TIIK K\I> OF LAST CENTURY. 201 



"that ever disgraced tin's kingdom in the very ages of 

 barbarism, none ever equalled that from Billericay to 

 llic King's Jlead at Tilbury. It is for near twelve miles 

 so narrow that a mouse cannot pass by any carriage. I 

 saw a fellow creep under his waggon to assist me to lift, 

 if possible, my chaise over a hedge. To add to all the 

 infamous circumstances which concur to plague a tra- 

 veller, I must riot forget the eternally meeting with chalk 

 waggons, themselves frequently stuck fast, till a collec- 

 tion of them are in the same situation, and twenty or 

 thirty horses may he tacked to each to draw them out 

 one by one ! " Yet, will it be believed, the proposal to 

 form a turnpike-road from Chelmsford to Tilbury was 

 resisted, as Arthur Young says, " by the Bruins of the 

 country, whose horses were worried to death with 

 bringing chalk th rough those vile roads ! ' ' No better 

 did he find the turnpike between Bury and Sudbury, in 

 Suffolk : " I was forced to move as slow in it," he says, 

 " as in any unmended lane in Wales. For ponds of 

 liquid dirt, and a scattering of loose flints just sufficient 

 to lame every horse that moves near them, with the 

 addition of cutting vile grips across the road under the 

 pretence of letting the water off', but without effect, 

 altogether render at least twelve out of these sixteen 

 miles as infamous a turnpike as ever was beheld." 

 Between Tetsworth and Oxford he found the so-called 

 turnpike abounding in loose stones as large as one's 

 lie; id, full of holes, deep ruts, and withal so narrow that 

 with un -ill difficulty he got his chaise out of the way of 

 1 1 K ' \V i i iu -y waggons. " Barbarous " and " execrable " 

 are the words which he constantly employs in speaking 

 of the roads ; parish and turnpike, all seemed to be alike 

 bad. From Gloucester t< > Xewnliam. a distance of twelve 

 miles, he found a " cursed road," "infamously stony," 

 with " ruts all the way." From Newnham to Chepstow 



1 Arthur Young's 'Six Weeks' I of En-land ami Wales.' 2nd Eil., 

 Tour through the Southern (\.untirs | 1769, pp. 88-9. 



