Tag: Bath

Fifty miles of good road?

And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day’s journey. Yes, I call it a very easy distance.

Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice

That was the opinion of Mr Darcy from Jane Austen’s novel of 1813, Pride & Prejudice. Whether many travellers of the time would have agreed with him it is difficult to say.

Of course, roads in towns and cities would have been very different from roads – where they existed – in rural areas such as ours. The villages of our benefice would have been linked back then, as now, by a network of winding lanes  but then they would have become muddy and impassable in bad weather. Street names sometimes indicate what would have been the most direct or preferred route into larger towns such as Newbury Street in Kintbury, the road which can be followed eastwards through Hamstead Marshall and Enborne to enter Newbury on the south side, or oldest, part of town. This would have been the route used by the carriers’ carts and others for whom life moved at a much slower pace.

In Jane Austen’s day many working people rarely travelled beyond a few miles from their homes – although there were, of course, exceptions, such as the servants who travelled with their more affluent employers. But for many people the local villages furnished all their day to day needs and even somewhere as small as Combe had its own shops and even a post office.   

But for some local people – and it goes without saying these were the upper classes – travel to the world beyond was part of their lives.

For the benefit of these people, with their liveried carriages, many roads had been steadily improving since the early years  of the eighteenth century. This was when turnpike trusts, with responsibility for improving and maintaining important routes, were set up by acts of parliament and toll houses  with their accompanying gates, became a familiar sight. So, whilst the lanes through Kintbury to Inkpen, West Woodhay and the like would have remained dusty or muddy track ways, roads linking important towns were much improved to facilitate coach travel.

At this time, Bath had become a very fashionable venue for the upper classes, many of whom travelled there from London. Consequently, the road we now know as the A4 – the Bath Road – was much repaired and widened. The stretch between Marlborough and Newbury in particular saw much improvement after 1744 when an act of parliament established a turnpike trust responsible for its repair. Milestones erected along the route at this time can still be seen today. One of its trustees was a man local to our area, a Dr Brickenden of Inkpen House, who, one can presume, could see the advantage of faster travel beyond his village.

The first public stage coaches to run between London and Bath had begun in 1657 when there were two regular services a week. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, the service had grown to over 150 a week. The Bear Inn, Cheap Street, Bath even advertised “A day and a half coach to London every Monday, Wednesday and Friday”. This was the express travel of the day.

For those able to afford to travel, mail coaches offered a more comfortable – and speedy -travelling experience. In 1782, John Palmer, a theatre owner from Bath, suggested to the Post Office in London that mail could be transported more quickly using the service he had developed for transporting his actors and stage scenery. An experimental run proved he was correct and his coach travelled along the Bath Road to London in just sixteen hours.

Mail coaches were pulled by teams of four horses, each team replaced every ten miles at one of the many coaching inns which had become well established along the Bath Road.  Journeying more frequently through the night when the road was less busy, the black and maroon coaches with the coat of arms and words, “Royal Mail” emblazoned on the doors would have made a striking sight on a moonlit night as they made their way towards the toll house by the Hoe Benham turning.

There would have been a stop, too, at the Elcot turning; we know this because mail for the local area was deposited with the blacksmith there. We have, at St Mary’s, Kintbury, a letter written by Rev Noyes Lloyd of Enborne regarding his communication with the sculptor Sheermakers regarding the monument to the former Lady Craven, now in the north transept. Presumably written and sent from London, the letter is for the Rev Thomas Fowle of Kintbury but the direction is to the blacksmith’s at Elcot. From here the mail would have been collected and distributed. For those of the letter-writing classes, having relatively easy access to a speedy mail coach route must have been a big advantage.   

But would this much improved turnpike road, along with the availability of fast travel to the bright lights of London or the fashionable resort of Bath, have really made much difference to the working villagers of Combe or Inkpen, West Woodhay or Kintbury? For those for whom travel was either by the carriers’ cart or a stout pair of boots, the answer is most probably no. The road to Newbury would have remained the lane through Enborne and the route to Hungerford was across the common.

For the toilers in the fields to the north of Kintbury, Hamstead Marshall or Enborne, the site and sounds of fashionable coaches rumbling past must have emphasised the great gulf between their lived experiences and those of the better off. So who would have used the new, improved Bath Road?

It goes without saying that the upper classes and members of the wealthier middle classes are most likely to have made the Bath Road their route of choice, particularly those who kept and maintained their own efficient carriage and horses. Dr Brickenden of Inkpen House, an early Commissioner of the Turnpike Trust, was most probably acting out of self interest in his support for the road.

Members of the Craven family of Hamstead Marshall may well have availed themselves of the fashionable amenities and social life to be had at Bath during the season. For the likes of them, a seat with very easy access to the turnpike road was equivalent to one’s country retreat having easy access to the M4 and onwards to Heathrow today.

Another person for whom the improved Bath Road must have been particularly convenient would have been Charles Dundas, member of Parliament for Berkshire from 1794 to 1832. Dundas lived at Barton Court which was – and still is – situated just off the Avenue, Kintbury. Two hundred years ago this route was one of the main roads into the village from the Bath Road, thus making access to the turnpike road particularly convenient for someone who could afford the very best carriage and team of horses. 

Kintbury to Westminster along the Bath Road was – and still is – around 65 miles so just a bit longer than the fifty miles of good road which Mr Darcy thought “ a very easy distance” to travel  in little more than half a day. I think Dundas would have needed the very best horses and several changes to travel to parliament in so short a time. However, if Palmer’s coaches managed nearly twice the distance in sixteen hours, it seems likely that the MP could have reached The House from his house on the same day as he set out, all other things, such as weather conditions, being equal.

Tessa Lock, May 2023

In the time of the Romans

Imagine our area over sixteen hundred years ago in the fourth century AD. For three hundred years the country has been ruled as part of the Roman Empire and the local Celtic tribe, the Atrebates, now have a good working relationship with the incomers.

Imagine our area over sixteen hundred years ago in the fourth century AD. For three hundred years the country has been ruled as part of the Roman Empire and the local Celtic tribe, the Atrebates, now have a good working relationship with the incomers.

The regional centre is at Calleva Atrebatum (modern Silchester) – a town in the traditional Roman style but with a name reflecting the presence of the Iron Age people who were here first. Out here to the west, our area is close to the main route from Calleva to Aquae Sulis (modern day Bath) where the hot springs are an attraction to visitors. The route passes through the settlement of Spinis, which today we know as Speen.

For those living closer to this major road, the ranks of Roman soldiers, their helmets and shields glistening in the pale sunlight, have been a familiar sight. The men are not all from Rome, of course – far from it. The Roman army recruit from all over the Empire – across Europe and even North Africa. Sometimes local men from the indigenous Celtic tribes have signed up too, attracted to the idea of gaining Roman citizenship with all its advantages if you were able to complete a long period of military service, as well as the chance to travel and see the world.

Those who have travelled beyond our valley, or have spoken to others who have done so, speak of towns where the buildings are of stone with heating actually under the floor, where there is drainage and streets paved so that you are not deep in mud as soon as you leave your dwelling. This is the Roman way, and it all sounds very attractive and modern.

Indeed, some local people are wanting a piece of this new, improved lifestyle for themselves. There has been talk of local, Celtic women who have, despite family opposition, married young Roman men. Perhaps they have been attracted by the striking uniform or the offer of a more comfortable home. Who knows. But you do not have to marry into a Roman family to adopt this new way of living. Wealthier Celts have been increasingly adopting Roman ways.

Although there were no major Roman towns in our immediate area, we know that  those who were influenced by Roman ways did live in our valley. These people may have been exclusively of Roman descent, although it is more likely that they were Romano-British and therefore of possible mixed heritage or of Celtic descent but influenced by Roman ways.

Between 1950 and 1951, a teacher from St Barts Grammar School, Douglas Connah, led an excavation of a site which had been uncovered following work at the sewage works to the east of Kintbury. The excavation revealed the rectangular ground plan of a fourth century bath house, unfortunately badly damaged by ploughing and robbing out of much of its stone.

The building measured 5.25m by 4.04m with an extension to the south. At the east end was evidence of a praefurium, or furnace, to facilitate heating via a hypocaust which had been cut into the natural chalk and was still, at the time of the excavation, covered by a layer of wood ash. The building had been constructed of large flints and the lower courses of sarsen stone.

Painted plaster remains, now in West Berks Museum, indicated that the walls of the building were originally decorated whilst several tesserae suggested that there had once been a mosaic floor. It was possible to date the building to the fourth century due to pottery and a fibula brooch found in a rubbish pit nearby.

A tessera found near Irish Hill, outside of Kintbury

Although the bath house, as excavated, appeared not to have been joined to another building, it would not have been built in isolation but as part of a villa complex. It could have been on the site of a prosperous farm or indeed at the centre of a large estate. We may never know. But it is clear that sixteen hundred years ago, someone from around here wanted to build a modern, fashionable house with the latest in painted walls and mosaic flooring, and, of course, central heating.

It is sad for us that the remains of the accompanying villa have long been destroyed, most likely when the canal was constructed in the early 19th century. What happened to the broken remains of the roof tiles, the wall plaster, the tesserae? Who knows, keeping a sharp eye open when you’re walking towards Hamstead Marshall from Kintbury, you just might spot something of interest.

Tessa Lock