EAST AND SOUTH-EAST 83 



horses were changed thrice before Gravenor handed 

 over his charge at Canterbury to the late Harry 

 Pincher, who took the despatches forward. 



On that occasion, I am told, the whole journey 

 from Dover to London (it is, as I have said, seventy- 

 one miles to the Surrey side of London Bridge) w^as 

 performed in three hours and forty- seven minutes ; 

 equal to a mean speed, including stoppages, of 18| 

 miles an hour. This, although an extremely high 

 rate, seems feasible with five-mile stages, but the 

 swiftness of the run from Dover to Canterbury was 

 certainly phenomenal. 



The mean speed of the express, however, consider- 

 able as it was, does but recall what, according to 

 Stow, Bernard Calvert did, either for a wager or his 

 own pleasure, on July 17, 1619. He had provided 

 beforehand relays of horses along the London and 

 Dover road, and an eight-oared barge to await his 

 arrival. Then, starting from St. George's Church in 

 Southwark, at three o'clock in the morning, he rode 

 on horseback to Dover, reaching that port at seven. 

 He went into his barge, was rowed to Calais and back, 

 again mounted his horse at Dover, soon after three 

 o'clock in the afternoon, and reached St. George's 

 Church, Southwark, in the evening at a little after 

 eight o'clock, ' fresh and lusty.' 



There is a curious restlessness about post-offices 

 — the sites of them, I mean — which it is difficult 

 to explain. Even in Canterbury, one of the last of 



