Fragments of Two Centuries | Page 6

Road, through Royston, from the
North to the Metropolis, to return with other wares of a smarter kind
from the London Market for the country people. The arrival of such
caravans was the principal event which varied the life of Roystonians in
the last century, for was not the Talbot a very caravansarai for
Pack-horses! This old inn, kept at the time of which I am writing by
Widow Dixon, as the Royston parish books show, then extended along
the West side of the High Street, from Mrs. Beale's corner shop to Mr.
Abbott's. The Talbot formed a rendez-vous for the Pack-horses known
throughout the land, and in its stables at the back of the new Post
Office, with an entrance from Melbourn Street, known as the Talbot
Back-yard, there was accommodation for about a score of these
Pack-horses.
{7}
Occasionally a rare sign-board at a way-side public-house bearing a
picture of the Pack-horse may be seen, but it is only in this way, or in
some old print, that a glimpse can now be obtained of a means of
locomotion which has completely passed away from our midst. But
besides the Pack-horses being a public institution, this was really the
chief means of burden-bearing, whether in the conveyance of goods to
market or of conveying friends on visits from place to place. As to the
conveyance of goods, we find that as late as 1789, even the farmers
were only gradually getting on wheels. A few carts were in use, no
wagons, and the bulk of the transit in many districts was by means of
Pack-horses; in the colliery districts, coals were carried by horses from
the mines; and even manure was carried on to the land in some places
on the backs of horses! trusses of hay were also occasionally met with
loaded upon horses' backs, and in towns, builders' horses might be seen
bending under a heavy load of brick, stone, and lime! Members of
Parliament travelled from their constituents to London on horseback,
with long over-alls, or wide riding breeches, into which their coat tails
were tucked, so as to get rid of traces of mud on reaching the
Metropolis! Commercial travellers, then called "riders," travelled with

their packs of samples on each side of their horses. Farmers rode from
the surrounding villages to the Royston Market on horseback, with the
good wife on a pillion behind them with the butter and eggs, &c., and a
similar mode of going to Church or Chapel, if any distance, was used
on a Sunday. Among the latest in this district must have been the one
referred to in a note by Mr. Henry Fordham, who says: "I remember
seeing an old pillion in my father's house which was used by my
mother, as I have been told, in her early married days." [Mr. Henry
Fordham's mother was a daughter of Mr. William Nash, a country
lawyer of some note.]
Some months ago the writer was startled by hearing, casually dropped
by an old man visiting a shop in Royston, the strange remark--"My
grandfather was chairman to the Marquis of Rockingham." The remark
seemed like the first glimpse of a rare old fossil when visiting an old
quarry. Of the truth of it further inquiry seemed to leave little doubt,
and the meaning of it was simply this: The Marquis of Rockingham,
Prime Minister in the early years of George III., would, like the rest of
the beau monde, be carried about town in his Sedan chair, by smart
velvet-coated livery men ["I have a piece of his livery of green silk
velvet by me now," said my informant, when further questioned about
his grandfather] preceded at night by the "link boy," or someone
carrying a torch to light the way through the dark streets! I have been
unable to find any trace of the use of the Sedan Chair by any of the
residents of Royston, albeit that gifted but ill-fated youth, John Smith,
alias Charles Stuart, alias King Charles I., did, with the {8} Duke of
Buckingham, alias Thomas Smith, come back to his royal father, King
James I., at Royston, from that romantic Spanish wooing expedition
and bring with him a couple of Sedan Chairs, instead of a Spanish
bride!
The old stage wagons succeeding to the pack-horses, which carried
goods and occasionally passengers stowed away, were a curiosity. A
long-bodied wagon, with loose canvas tilt, wheels of great breadth, so
as to be independent of ruts, except the very broadest; with a series of
four or five iron tires or hoops round the feloes, and the whole drawn
by eight or ten horses, two abreast with a driver riding on a pony with a

long whip, which gave him command of the whole team! Average pace
about