GODALMING 



293 



The fact of this road being the main highway to the 

 great southern seaport is also recorded in the signs of 

 many of the inns all the way down from London. The 

 ' Anchor ' is frequent ; the ' Mermaid,' the ' Mariners,' and 

 the ' Ship ' are all well-known signs, and there are pro- 

 bably others. 



Separate coaches passed through Godalming from Chi- 

 chester, Midhurst, Petersfield, Portsmouth, Bognor, and 

 Littlehampton. A well - known figure on the road was 

 Francis Faulkner, who drove the Portsmouth and London 

 coach for fifty years. He was a very stout man, and 

 earned the nickname ' Puffing Billy ' from a trick he had 



Flixt-Lock Blunderbuss 



of puffing out his cheeks when he pulled up his horses. 

 Early in the eighteenth century the guard of the coach 

 used to be armed with a flint-lock blunderbuss, but later 

 with pistols, that were always called ' bulldogs.' There 

 were long stretches of lonely waste on the Portsmouth 

 road, and they had to be prepared for occasional meetings 

 with highwaymen. 



Most of the fish for the London market was conveyed 

 in special fish-vans from the various sea-coast places, such 

 as Littlehampton, Bognor, Emsworth, and Havant. They 

 were painted yellow and had four horses. But some of 



