8o ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



it would have been not less to the purpose had the 

 lady claimed that there were also turnpikes. 



On the Great North Eoad, in the forties, we were 

 fairly well supplied with turnpike-gates, but my im- 

 pression is that in such respect no way out of London 

 could compare with the first three or four stages of 

 the Dover road. Gates were fixed at the Green Man, 

 near the Surrey Canal ; at New Cross ; Deptford ; 

 Crooked Log, Welling ; Stone Bridge, near North - 

 fleet ; at Chalk Street, south-east of Gravesend ; and 

 at Strood, two miles beyond Dickens's Gad's Hill and 

 within hail of Rochester — seven gates in twenty-nine 

 miles. Some, no doubt, cleared others, else a four- 

 in-hand from London to Rochester must have cost in 

 tolls alone a good round sum. 



Probably no one who has driven over the first stage 

 will forget the half-mile pull up Shooters' Hill to 

 the crest of the road — not, indeed, over the highest 

 point, but at considerably more than four hundred 

 feet above sea-level. Perhaps it was from merciful 

 consideration for mail-coach and post-horses that the 

 old Bull Inn, where the first change took place, was 

 planted half-way up the hill, SJ miles from London, 

 so that it was a fresh team, and not the blown steeds 

 from the White Horse in Fetter Lane, which had to 

 tackle the remahiing half of the ascent. The old 

 house has been pulled down, and a new Bull Lni built 

 on the same (north-eastern) side, very near the top, 

 but it matters little to the Dover mail where the 

 Bull is situated now. 



