TURNPIKE GATES
At Stonepound a road leads on the right to Hurstpierpoint, which is too big a mouthful for general use, and so is locally “Hurst.” The Pierpoints, whose name is embedded in that of the place, like an ammonite in a geological stratum, were long since as extinct as those other Normans, the Monceaux of Hurstmonceaux, and are what Americans would term a “back number.”
Stone Pound Gate
Clears Patcham Gate
St. John’s and Ansty Gates
Y
Patcham Gate
Clears Stone Pound Gate,
St. John’s and Ansty Gates
126
Stonepound Gate was one of the nine that at one time barred the Brighton Road, and the last but one on the way. It will be seen, by the specimens of turnpike-tickets reprinted here, that at one time, at least, the burden of the tolls was not quite so heavy as the mere number of the gates would lead a casual observer to suppose, a ticket taken at Ansty “clearing” the remaining distance, through three other gates, to Brighton. But it was necessary for the traveller to know his way about, and, if he were going through, to ask for a ticket to clear to Brighton; else the pikeman would issue a ticket, which cost just as much, to the next gate only, when another payment would be demanded. These were “tricks upon travellers” familiar to every road, and they earned the pikemen, as a class, a very unenviable reputation.
It was here, in the great Christmas Eve snowstorm of 1836, that the London mail was snowed up. Its adventures illustrate the uncertainty of travelling the roads.
In those days you took your seat on your particular fancy in coaches, and paid your sixteen-shilling fare from London to Brighton, or vice versa, trusting (yet with heaviness of heart) in Providence to bring you to a happy issue from all the many dangers and discomforts of travelling. Occasionally it was brought home, by storm and flood, to those learned enough to know it, that “travelling” derived originally from “travail,” and the discomforts of leaving one’s own fireside in the winter are emphasized and underscored in the particulars of what befell at Stonepound in the great snowstorm of December 24th, 1836—a storm that paralysed communications throughout the kingdom.
“The Brighton up-mail of Sunday had travelled about eight miles from that town, when it fell into a drift of snow, from which it was impossible to extricate it without assistance. The guard immediately set off to obtain all necessary aid, but when he returned no trace whatever could be found, either of the coach, coachman or passengers, three in number. After much difficulty the coach was found, but could not be extricated from the hollow into which it had got. The guard did not reach London until seven o’clock on Tuesday night, having been obliged to travel with the bags on horseback, and in many instances to leave the main road and proceed across fields in order to avoid the deep drifts of snow.
“The passengers, coachman, and guard slept at Clayton, seven miles from Brighton. The road from Hand Cross was quite impassable. The non-arrival of the mail at Crawley induced the postmaster there to send a man in a gig to ascertain the cause on Monday afternoon, and no tidings being heard of man, gig, or horse for several hours, another man was despatched on horseback. After a long search he found horse and gig completely built up in the snow. The man was in an exhausted state. After considerable difficulty the horse and gig were extricated, and the party returned to Crawley. The man had learned no tidings of the mail, and refused to go out again on any such exploring mission.”
The Brighton mail from London, too, reached Crawley, but was compelled to return.