The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries: To-Day and in Days of Old

by Charles G. Harper

And at this point the traveller in coaching times came within sight of his destination. Painfully the old stages climbed up the steep ascent of Portsdown Hill before the road was lowered by cutting through the chalk at the summit, about 1820, and grumblingly the passengers obeyed the coachman and walked up the road to save the horses. But when they did reach the crest of the hill such a panorama met their gaze as nowhere else could be seen in England: Portsmouth, the Harbour, Gosport, the Isle of Wight, and the coast-line for miles on either hand lay spread out before their eyes as daintily as in a plan, and smiling like a Land of Promise. Unfortunately, however, our forebears were not yet educated to a proper appreciation and admiration of scenery. They, with that jovial bard of the Regency, Captain Morris, preferred the pavements of great cities to the pastorals of the country-side, and would with the greatest fervour have echoed him when he wrote—

“In town let me live, then, in town let me die;
For, in truth, I can’t relish the country, not I.
If one must have a villa in summer to dwell,
Oh! give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall.”

Fortunately, however, the view remains unspoiled for a generation that takes its pleasures afield, and can find delight in country scenes which our great-grandfathers characterized as places of “horror and desolation.”

This is the point of view from which Rowlandson has sketched his “Extraordinary Scene,” and although we miss in the picture the “George Inn,” that stands so four-square and stalwart, perched up above the road, yet the likeness to the place remains after these many years have flown.

The occasion that led to Rowlandson’s producing the elaborate plate from which the accompanying illustration was made, is referred to at length in the title, which runs thus—

“An Extraordinary Scene on the Road from London to Portsmouth, Or an Instance of Unexampled speed used by a Body of Guards, consisting of 1920 Rank and File, besides Officers, who, on the 10th of June, 1798, left London in the Morning, and actually began to Embark for Ireland, at Portsmouth, at four o’clock in the Afternoon; having travelled 74 Miles in 10 Hours.”

AN EXTRAORDINARY SCENE ON THE PORTSMOUTH ROAD. By Rowlandson.