164 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



scarlet and gold, steers his impatient leaders through 

 the mazes that conduct to St. Martin's-le-Grand. A 

 minute's pause at the side-entrance of the Post-Office, 

 and the guard is then seen emerging from the lamp- 

 lit passage into the brightness of the western sun, 

 with porter after porter bearing the leathern bags. 

 They are rapidly stowed in the boot, amidst perfect 

 silence. " All right " is the word, and we are briskly 

 trotting up Aldersgate Street ; and then the stories of 

 what the road was before Mr. Telford took it in hand, 

 and how Mr. McNeill [meaning McAdam] has laid 

 down a mile of concrete that will never be rutty, and 

 — but we are upon the place [Barnet] where the 

 quarrel between York and Lancaster was fought out, 

 and so we bid a mutual good-night.'* 



The writer describes the road as it now presents 

 itself, but in the early part of this century access to 

 Barnet and St. Albans was gained from London by 

 only one route — that is, through Islington and 

 Holloway, and over the western crest of Highgate 

 Hill, passing the old house which Cromwell is said to 

 have occupied, and so by Sir Eoger Cholmondeley's 

 School, and the western front of the Wellington Inn, 

 to Finchley. In 1813 a new road was cut on the 

 eastern side of Highgate, from Whittington's alms- 

 houses on the southern slope to the eastern front of 

 the inn at the northern foot of the hill. 



By this means the terrific gradients of the old road 



* ' The Land We Live In.' Orr and Co., Amen Corner, 

 circa 1850. 



