"The Manchester down-mail reached St Albans, and getting off the road into a hollow, was upset. The guard returned to London in a post-chaise and four horses with the bags and passengers."
"About a mile from St Albans, on the London side, a chariot without horses was seen on Tuesday nearly buried in the snow. There were two ladies inside, who made an earnest appeal to the mail-guard, whose coach had got into a drift nearly at the same spot. The ladies said the postboy had left them to go to St Albans to get fresh cattle, and had been gone two hours. The guard was unable to assist them, and his mail being extracted, he pursued his journey for London, leaving the chariot and ladies in the situation where they were first seen."
"The Devonport mail arrived at half-past eleven o'clock. The guard, who had travelled with it from Ilminster, a distance of 140 miles, states that journey to have been a most trying one to both men and cattle. The storm commenced when they reached Wincanton, and never afterwards ceased. The wind blew fresh, and the snow and sleet in crossing Salisbury Plain were driving into their faces so as almost to blind them. Between Andover and Whitchurch the mail was stuck fast in a snowdrift, and the horses, in attempting to get out, were nearly buried. The coachman got down, and almost disappeared in the drift upon which he alighted. Fortunately, at this juncture, a waggon with four horses came up, and by unyoking these from the waggon and attaching them to the mail, it was got out of the hollow in which it was sunk."
These are some of the reports, written at the time, of the disorganisation of the mail-service in consequence of the snowstorm. Some slight idea of the magnitude of the drifts may be obtained from one or two additional particulars. The mail proceeding from Exeter for London was five times buried in the snow, and had to be dug out. A mail-coach got off the road seven miles from Louth, and went over into a gravel-pit, one of the horses being killed and the guard severely bruised. So deeply was another coach buried on this line of road that it took 300 men, principally sappers and miners, working several hours, to make a passage to the coach and rescue the mails and passengers. Near Chatham the snow lay to a depth of 30 or 40 feet, and the military were turned out to the number of 600 to clear the roads.
THE DEVONPORT MAIL-COACH FORCING ITS WAY THROUGH
A SNOWDRIFT NEAR AMESBURY—27TH DEC. 1836. (From an old Print.)
On the line of road from Chatham to Dover, a sum of £700 was spent by the road-trustees in opening up the road for the resumption of traffic, an official report stating that for 26 miles the road "was blocked up by an impenetrable mass of snow varying from 3 feet to 18 feet in depth."
Between Leicester and Northampton cuttings were made, just wide enough for a coach to pass, where the snow was heaped up to a height of 30, 40, and in some places 50 feet. About a stage from Coventry, near a place called Dunchurch, seventeen coaches were reported to be laid up in the snow; and in other parts of the country a similar wholesale derangement or stoppage of road-traffic took place.
On the 9th January 1837, an official report set forth that "the mail-coach road between Louth and Sheffield had on the 6th inst. been closed twelve days in consequence of the snow, and it is stated that it will be a week before the mail can run." An attempt was made to get the mail forward from Lewes to London by post-chaise and four horses; but after proceeding about a mile from the town, the chaise returned, the driver reporting that it was impossible to proceed, as the main road was quite blocked up with snow to a depth of 10 or 12 feet.