The surface of the cliffs was of a very mixed nature, with ledges of stone projecting slightly in places, and from the effect of weathering, landslips, leading at times to inconvenience, were not infrequent. As we knew the nature of the ground we were careful about going near the edge of the top of the cliff, where a precipice or a crack showed danger, but it happened more than once that a bullock or calf, attracted by food to be found amongst the trees or bushes which in some places clothed the slanting upper part, was tempted beyond safe footing, and toppled down to the bottom to its own destruction. On one occasion, on returning from a walk, my sister Georgiana and I, not having noticed a fall from the cliffs, were cut off by one of these slips from any comfortable advance. It was not a case of danger, but a choice between much wet and dirt from Severn mud, or very considerable discomfort of another sort, as the slip had brought down with it brambles, &c., &c., most unpleasant to brave for the sake of dryness. We preferred the wet passage, feeling our way with our feet through the muddy water from one good-sized stone to another, and presently arrived safely above the high-tide level, but to those who did not know that beneath the muddy surface there was a sound footing if sought for, the little episode might have been unpleasant.
PLATE XII.
Royal Mail starting from Old General Post Office, London.
Original lent by Arthur Ackermann & Son, 191, Regent Street, W.
CHAPTER VI
TRAVELLING BY COACH, FERRY, AND RAILWAY
In my early days much of the passenger transit of South Wales and the south-westerly part of England passed over the old Passage Ferry across the Severn from Beachley to Aust, and consequently the coaches all passed our park gates. It was said there were fourteen coaches a day. On this I am unable to offer an opinion, but there were a great number, and amongst them were two mails. The road to the head of the old Passage Pier, from Chepstow, was about three and a half miles in length, and very hilly (going up one ascent, long or short as the case might be, to go down another), with the exception of two lengths of flat “galloping ground.” These well deserved their name, and I can still remember the swing of violent speed at which the high, piled-up vehicle tore past us, causing children and accompanying dogs to allow it a very free passage. The journey was not without risk of disaster, for on one occasion in turning a sharp angle, on the incline of a steep shore-hill, without due care, the coach lurched to the outward side of the curve and made a distribution of its outside passengers on the greensward by our park gates. It certainly would have been a great help in those days if the wish (though not exactly as he expressed it) of the driver of one of the more old-fashioned of the coaches could have been carried out, and “a little akyduct” made to convey the road from the top of one hill to the next, thus avoiding the dangerous descent.
The view from the tops of the coaches as they galloped along the flat road at the summit of the Severn cliffs down to the Ferry pier was very beautiful. On one side was the Severn, a mile wide at the narrowest, with the red Aust cliffs opposite, the Sedbury cliffs above; and, in the distance, about thirty miles away up the river, the hills, near or beyond Gloucester, could be faintly seen. On the other side, about a field or two from the road, was the lowest part of the Wye at its point of juncture with the Severn, and the noble estuary itself opening out from about four miles width till it was lost to view in the distance of the Severn Sea.
TIME-TABLE ILLUSTRATING THE METHOD OF TRAVELLING 200 YEARS AGO.
The Old Passage, though probably as well managed as was reasonably possible, was, in many respects, a most inconvenient necessity. On one occasion, while fourteen passengers were crossing in a sailing boat, every living thing, except one dog, perished in mid-transit. It was on a stormy Sunday in September, 1838, and the boat was heavily laden with horses as well as the passengers. How the accident happened was never known. One of my brothers had been watching the boat from our cliffs, and on looking again, after a minute or so, she was gone. The conjectural cause of the disaster was that one of the horses had become unruly. The assignment of the disaster to a judgment for travelling on Sunday, may be looked on as a state of feeling very desirable to be removed by changing times, which have brought a larger charitableness and greater common sense.