The Great North Road, the Old Mail Road to Scotland: London to York

This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler
The Old Mail Road to Scotland
By CHARLES G. HARPER
LONDON TO YORK
Illustrated by the Author , and from old-time Prints and Pictures
London: CECIL PALMER Oakley House, Bloomsbury Street, W.C. 1
First published in 1901 Second and Revised edition , 1922
Printed in Great Britain by C. TINLING & Co., Ltd., 53, Victoria Street, Liverpool and 187, Fleet Street, London.
In Loving Memory OF Herman Moroney
“ I expect to pass through this world but once . Any good , therefore , I can do , or any kindness that I can show to any fellow-creature , let me do it now . Let me not defer or neglect it , for I shall not pass this way again .” Attributed to William Penn.
When the original edition of the “Great North Road” was published—in 1901— the motorcar was yet a new thing . It had , in November , 1896, been given by Act of Parliament the freedom of the roads ; but , so far , the character of the nation’s traffic had been comparatively little changed . People would still turn and gaze , interested , at a mechanically-propelled vehicle ; and few were those folk who had journeyed the entire distance between London and Edinburgh in one of them . For motor-cars were still , really , in more or less of an experimental stage ; and on any long journey you were never sure of finishing by car what you had begun . Also , the speed possible was not great enough to render such a long journey exhilarating to modern ideas . It is true that , the year before , the “ Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland ,” not yet become the “ Royal Automobile Club ,” had in its now forgotten role of a “ Society of Encouragement ” planned and carried out a “ Thousand Miles Tour ,” which had Edinburgh as its most northern point ; but it was a very special effort . Those who took part in it are not likely to forget the occasion .
To-day , all that is changed . Every summer , every autumn , sees large numbers of touring automobiles on the way to Scotland and the moors , filled with those who prefer the road , on such terms , to the railway . From being something in the nature of a lonely highway , the Great North Road has thus become a very much travelled one . In this way , some of its circumstances have changed remarkably , and old-time comfortable wayside inns that seemed to have been ruined for all time with the coming of railways and the passing of the coaches have wakened to a newer life . Chief among these is the “ Bell ” on Barnby Moor , just north of Retford . The story of its revival is a romance . Closed about 1845, and converted into a farm-house , no one would have cared to predict its revival as an inn . But as such it was reopened , chiefly for the use of motorists , in 1906, and there it is to-day .