THE GREAT ROAD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18759, 12 January 1923, Page 6

THE GREAT ROAD

FROM THERE TO NOW. GHOSTS OF ROMAN COHORTS. ANCIENT STREETS SUFFERING FROM NEGLECT. Roads are the beginning of civilisation. Their dust is the true dust of ages, and every speck of it has a tale, declares R. D. Peek in the Manchester . Guardian. Ghosts of Roman cohorts swing along them, their packs on their backs and their arms slung easy, singing the foolish soldier-songs of those days. Ihe contours of tho country tell of their resting places, even whore they are not graven in tho names of the town and villages along the highway. Then came the binds oi savage Briton and Cell, avoiding the Road, except io cross it, as a thing of evil and the work of the stern men ol departed Romo. But later they too fell under the spoil of the Road and used it, though dimly and without the understanding of its making. Trains of packhorses, great men on horseback with servants riding behind, poor men and women on foot., and pilgrims added to its dusty spectres. Then came the coaches, lumbering and slow, until the late eighteenth century and the enterprise ot Palmer restored tho Road to its Roman gfotry. All the life of England sped along it, and noble and graceful towns like Stamford rose and wore busy on its borders. Then cam© the railway amd the decline of the highway, it was used by eccentric walkers, a few old-fashioned folk who like to ride on horseback, and the traffic of the countryside, but groat ladies no longer demanded powder and patches at ■ Stilton, nor did the critical taste of their gallants exist to maintain the quality of tho wine m the Georges and Angels and Whit© Horses of England. Terrible things called Railway Hotels came into being, tlie old houses decayed, and even the cycling fever of the late nineteenth century failed to help the Road. Cycles were thin, norrow-ohested tilings, there was no state nor presence about them, and (heir lack of baggage capacity prevented their doing aught for the Road but to make a. few houses famous as starling or finishing places for the breaking of records. Perhaps the fact that one cannot break records on port or claret, or even beer, had something to do with _ it, but in any case the lemonade and high-tea establishments gained more from the cyme than did the old houses, with their forty bedrooms, all damp, and their stabling for sixty, all empty but for the thin descendants of the fat rats who once flourished among their corn bins. But, some twenty-odd years ago, sumo German and French engineers took pity on ihe old roads and coaching inns of England. They evolved tho beginning of tho motor and handed it on to the men of Coventry and Birmingham. “Take this,!’ they said. “Work on it.” “Have your rich men spend money and time on it. Let your womenfolk desire St, and your journals write of it, and parlaps you may fill tho Road with life again, and make the Red Lions rampant, with " new pride and the White Horses leap over their signboards with youth.” And the Wolseleys and Rovers and Sunbeams and Talbots wrought at it (to say nothing of Mr Ford and Mr Buiok and Mr Overland) till they, with /the help of tho TVust House, a scattered few of tha old inn-keeping families and the county councils, brought the Road buck to its place. Not only the great roads, the Roman roads, and the Saxon streets, but also Hi© cross-roads and the little side-roads and tho crazy Essex and Sussex lanes which rejoice in sign-posts pointing in five directions, with only three names among tho five, and all probably correct 1 (The true reason that the Germans never landed in England was that their High Intelligence Department examined Essex and decided that Mesopotamia was simpler.) These little roads also became great and beloved of adventurous motorists, who made vows to travel from Barnett to Barnard Castle over lanes and by-roads and never to touch the Great Road except to cross it. But stretches of the old highways were still overlooked, Much of Ickniold Way is now a wide, grassy lane between high hedges, with a not of berries and bird life, deserted except for parties of linesmen (that middle-aged innovator the telephone wire is still faithful to the old roads) and bands of gipsies and tramps, who find its solitude a pleasant place from which to work the main road half a mile away. Their resting-places are marked by burntout fires, rusty (incans, and discarded rubbish and clothing. Even that haughty aristocrat of roads Wat ling street has suffered from neglect. Twelve miles from the Fosse Way crossroads there is a curious little triangle where a side road suddenly becomes great and tho old road fades "into a grass-grown avenue and disappears into a field, though its outline is still visible through the turf. Five miles further on it re-appears as a lane, and later it is rejoined by tho new road, to continue its sweep to the northwest. The error, eloquent enough on a map, becomes a crime when actually seen, and on© wonders what nineteenth-century railway land deal was responsible. All of which what wo said or thought during a three weeks’ study of maps in anticipation of a long-promised dash to ihe north by the Great North road. Time was scarce, and, while in no way record breaking, it was to be a swift reviving of old memories, a lightning leisure among the ghosts, with full evenings of our nightly resting places. And tho Road waa good to ns. It unfolded its shining ribbon before us. and never tired. It ploughed up hills regardless of gradients, in the Roman fashion. It twisted needlessly and delightfully amongst trees and little villages like a true English road, and it ran swiftly and evenly over the low country in the manner of Telford and Macadam. It showed us all its beautiful places, and beguiled us with history and tho names of great men. In the end it behaved like a true road and tho friend of weary travellers. It took us to a red-roofed cottage with an old lady who took in travellers if they were not V> particular! They were not! Th® beds were a little hard, the bathroom was primitive, tho windows either wouldn’t open or had never been made to shut. But there was a large fire in tile low kitchen, where we demolished thick and melting slices of home-cured and a disgraceful number of eggs. The old lady told us of tho busy Road, and how good it waa in making her independent of her son in Birmingliam except for the rent and a bit of help in the winter. Testers, mechanics, delivering new cars, and drivers of motor lorries were her trade, but she confessed to ouite a lot of gentlemen's trade, and also sne bad RollsRoyce parties! The bill, which, we settled overnight, was hardly decent, and we addfd something for the sake of tho Road. And just as we had rearranged the lumps in tho mattress to suit our -particular shape there was a knock at th© door, and tho old Indy peered in with a suspicious looking bottle, a. jug of hot water, and a glass. “Would the gentleman like a nightcap,” she said. She found the gentlemen on the Road sometime© liked a nightcap, and it was nil tho way of friendship! It was! And after w© had adjusted the nightcap we turned over and chuckled. Good old Road, it had not forgotten !