There were two considerable features of Peterborough which have entirely disappeared. Where Queen Street and North Street now stand were two large breweries, known as Buckle’s Brewery and Squires’s Brewery. They were quite institutions of the place, and it always strikes me as a very strange thing that they should have entirely disappeared, as one of them would have been larger than all the breweries now in Peterborough. Buckles’ Brewery was certainly a very remarkable one, and carried on with great energy and spirit. There was one peculiarity they had—that some friends of the partners could assemble on Easter Monday and spend the afternoon in playing at marbles. I have spent pleasant afternoons there on Easter Mondays. There were two large tuns or barrels in which the beer was kept, one of which was called Mrs. Clarke, and the other the Duke of York, to perpetuate a scandal at the time when they were constructed. A very hospitable time always followed the game at marbles.
Buckles’ Brewery was the cause of another peculiar circumstance. On one occasion there visited the town for the amusement of the people, a calculating boy. He went through, his entertainment with great success, and at last one of our worthy inhabitants got up and asked the question “How many gallons does Mr. Buckles’ great copper hold?” The boy said he could not tell. “No; I thought you could not,” was the reply. Our worthy citizen had forgotten to give the dimensions of the copper, and went away rejoicing over the fact that he had puzzled the calculating boy!
He reminds me very much of a story one has heard in connection with our own professional experience. A witness was called to prove an assault, which consisted in a man having been knocked down by a stone thrown at him. The counsel was anxious to ascertain the size of the stone. The witness said “do you want to know how big it was?” “Yes,” said the counsel. “The size do you mean?” “Yes.” “Well, it was biggish.” “Well, I want you to tell me how big it was”! “Well, sir, if you want me to tell you how big it was, I should think it was as big as a lump o’ chalk.” Now, I think the gentleman who put the question about the copper, and the witness, must have been very nearly related.
When I arrived in the City, it became very important to me to know how I could get away from it. I lived at Northampton. Between Peterborough and Northampton there are now eleven trains a day. When I came to Peterborough in 1833, and for some years afterwards, the only communication between the town of Northampton and the City of Peterborough was a one-horse carrier’s cart, which came twice a week, and I think the large proportion of its business consisted in carrying parcels from the Probate Office at Northampton to the Probate Office at Peterborough. For coaches we were pretty well off. Two mails ran through Peterborough, the Boston Coach, and the Coach to Hull. We used to go shares with the town of Stamford with a London Coach. One of our townsmen ran a coach to Stilton daily, where it joined the coach from Stamford. At one time that coach carried the letter bag, and on one occasion it started without the bag.
There was a man known as “Old John Frisby,” who was not quite “all there,” and this man went after the coach with the letter bag, and overtook it at Stilton. The poor man was under the impression that he had done the State a great service and thought he ought to receive a pension, and he daily expected it until his death.
The Mail Coaches were very comfortable for travelling in fine weather, and an eight or ten hours’ journey was very pleasant, providing you did not ride inside. A journey to London and Edinburgh occupied two whole days and nights. The expense of such a mode of travelling was very great, being five or six times as much as the ordinary first class railway fare. Every fifty or sixty miles the Coachman would touch his hat and say, “I leave you here, sir,” which meant that you were to give him a fee. The guard would do the same, and when your luggage was put up, the ostler came to you. If you travelled post or in “a yellow and two,” as it was called, you had to pay 1s. 6d. a mile, beside the toll bars, and 3d. a mile for the post boy, as well as something more that he always expected. The 3d. a mile for the post boy, as his regular fee, is about equal to the highest first class railway fare that is paid on any railway in the country.
Just conceive what a change there is in the communication and you do not wonder that the introduction of the railway system has made a stationary nation into a nation of travellers. After a time things did improve a little. The Birmingham Railway was made at considerable cost. When I wanted to go to Northampton, for many years I had to get up at six o’clock in the morning, hire a gig to go to Thrapston, where I caught the Cambridge coach, which ran in connection with the coach at Oxford. It cost about £4 to go home and come back again. When the Blisworth railway was opened, a coach was set up from Lynn to Blisworth six days in the week. This was a great convenience, and was very well supported. There were two coachmen. One was very grave and serious and the other light and frivolous. Everybody knew them very well indeed. It was very amusing to travel with them.
At last, the Northampton Railway was projected, and it was plain to those men that their reign was coming to an end; but they used to endeavour to convert you to the belief that it was far better for things to remain as they were. The light and frivolous one used to sing a song in praise of the “Tally Ho” Coach. I remember the chorus was:
Let the steam pot hiss
Until it is hot.
Give me the speed of
The Tally-ho trot!
The other coachman used to appeal to your fears, and say how dreadful it was when a railway accident occurred—“when an accident occurred to the coach—there you are! Just fancy an accident at 20 or 30 miles an hour; when that happens, where are you?”