The Norwich Road: An East Anglian Highway - Charles G. Harper

THE ROAD TO NORWICH

	MILES
London (Whitechapel Church) to Mile End	1
Stratford-le-Bow (Bow Church)	2	½
(Cross River Lea).
Stratford (Broadway)	4
Forest Gate	5
Manor Park	6
Ilford	6	½
(Cross River Roding).
Seven Kings	7	½
(Cross "Seven Kings' Watering," or Fillebrook).
Chadwell Heath	9
Romford	12
Hare Street	13
Puttels Bridge	15	½
(Cross Weald Brook).
Brook Street	16	½
Brentwood	18
Shenfield	19
Mountnessing Street	21
Ingatestone	23
Margaretting Street	25
Widford	27	½
(Cross River Wid or Ash).
Moulsham	28	¼
(Cross River Chelmer).
Chelmsford	29
Springfield	29	½
Boreham	32	¾
(Cross River Ter).
Hatfield Peverel	34	¾
(Cross River Witham).
Witham	37	½
Rivenhall End	39	½
Kelvedon	41
(Cross River Blackwater).
Gore Pit	42
Mark's Tey	45	¾
Copford	46	¼
Stanway	47
Lexden Heath	48
Lexden	49
Colchester	51
(Cross River Colne).
Dilbridge	52	½
Stratford Bridge	57	¾
(Cross River Stour).
Stratford St Mary	58	½
Capel Railway Crossing. Capel Station. Capel St Mary.	63	½
Copdock	65	½
Washbrook	66
(Cross Wash Brook).
Ipswich	69	¼
(Cross River Orwell)
Whitton Street	71	¾
Claydon	72	¾
Creeting All Saints	76	¾
Stonham Earls	79
Little Stonham	79	¾
Brockford	83	¾
Thwaite	84	½
Stoke Ash	86	¼
Yaxley	88	¼
Brome	90	¼
(Cross River Waveney).
Scole	92
Dickleburgh	94	½
Tivetshall Level Crossing	97	¼
Wacton	100
Long Stratton	101	½
Tasburgh	102	¾
(Cross River Tase).
Newton Flotman	104	½
(Cross River Tase).
Hartford Bridge	109	¼
(Cross River Yare).
Norwich (Market Place)	111	½

THE NORWICH ROAD

In the days before railways came, robbing the exits from London of all dignity and purpose, the runaway 'prentice lads of the familiar legends, who were always half starved and continually beaten, revolting at length from their uncomfortable beds under the shop counters and their daily stripes and scorpions, were wont, according to the story-books, to steal at night out of their houses of bondage and make for the roads. Such an one, making in those days for Norwich, and standing at Aldgate in the grey of the morning, looking across the threshold of London, would have seen, in the long broad road stretching before him, the only means of escape. The shilling or so of which he would be the owner would scarce serve him for two or three days' keep; and so, although he might have longed for a place on the coach he could see starting from the "Spread Eagle," in Gracechurch Street, at 4 a.m., there would have been for such as he no choice but to start afoot, with as light a heart as possible, and chance the offer of a lift on some waggon returning into Essex. Had he, in leaving Aldgate behind, asked some passer-by the way to Norwich, he might have been seized for what he was, a runaway; but, if he escaped suspicion, would have been answered readily enough, for everyone in those times knew the way to lie along the Whitechapel Road and by Mile End Turnpike. Has anyone in these enlightened and highly-educated times courage sufficient to ask his way to Norwich from Aldgate? and, assuming that dauntless courage, is it conceivable that anyone in that crowded street could tell him?

There are no apprentices and no tyrannical masters of the old kind left now, and the only runaways of these days are the bad boys of precocious wits who would not think of tramping the highway while they could raise a railway fare or "lift" a bicycle. But the way still lies open to the explorer from Aldgate, and the old Norwich Road yet follows the line of the Roman way into the country of the Iceni.