THE EXETER ROAD 



ill-natured brute and a profane country wag, T left 

 liim, dissatisfied.' - 



III 



In these pages, which purport to show the old 

 West of England highway as it was in days of old 

 and as it is now, it is not proposed to follow either of 

 the two routes taken by the ' Telegraph ' coach or 

 the ' Quicksilver ' Devonport mail, by Amesbury or 

 by Shaftesbury, although there will be occasion to 

 mention those smart coaches from time to time. We 

 will take the third route instead, for the reasons that 

 it is practically identical with the course of the Via 

 Iceniana, the old Roman military way to Exeter 

 and the West ; and, besides being thus in the fullest 

 sense the Exeter Road, is the most picturesque and 

 historic route. This way went in 1826, according to 

 Cary, those eminently safe and reliable coaches, the 

 ' Regulator,' in twenty - four hours ; the ' Royal 

 Mail,' in twenty -two hours; and the 'Sovereign,' 

 which, as no time is specified, would seem to have 

 journeyed down the road in a haphazard fashion. Of 

 these, the ' Mail ' left that famous hostelry, the ' Swan 

 with Two Necks' (known familiarly as the 'Wonderful 

 Bird'), in Lad Lane, City, at 7.30 every evening, and 

 Piccadilly half an hour later, arriving at the ' New 

 London Inn,' Exeter, by six o'clock the following 

 evening. 



But even these coaches, which jogged along in so 

 leisurely a fashion, went at a furious and breakneck — 



