The Brighton Road

y Croydon, Redhill, Horley, Crawley, and Cuckfield, and is (or is supposed to be) 51? miles in length. Of this prime route-the classic way-t

ranches off and, instead of going through Cuckfield, proceeds to Brighton by way of H

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ey Heath, East Grinstead, Maresfield, Uckfield, and Lewes; some fifty-nine miles. This is without doubt the most picturesque route. A circuitous way, travelled by some coaches was by Ewell, Leatherhead, Dorking, Horsham, and Mockbridge

ces on the way quite as important to the old waggoners and carriers as anything at the end of the journey. They set out the direction, and roads, when they began to be improved, were often merely the old rou

y belongs to the ten miles between Reigate and Crawley, originally made as a causeway for horsemen, and guarded by posts, so that wheeled traffic

not only the first road to be made, but the last to maintain toll-gates on the way to Brighton, the Reigate Turnp

ondon to Sutton was declared to be "dangerous to all persons, horses, and other cattle," and almost i

e. In 1755 the road (about ten miles) across the heaths and downs from Sutton to Reigate, was authorised, and in 1770 the Act was passed for widening and repairing

n's Common and Burgess Hill remodelled in 1780, and the road from South Croydon to Smitham Bottom, Merstham, and Reigate was en

Reigate, through Redhill, to Povey Cross. Finally, sixty yards were saved on the Reigate route by the cutting of the t

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carriers came to and went from the Borough High Street; but the Corinthian starting-point in the brave old days of the Regency and of George the Fourth was the "White Horse Cellar"-Hatchett's "White Horse Cellar"-in Piccadilly. There, any day throughout the year, the knowing ones were gathered-with those green goslings who wished to be thought knowing-exchang

The original "Cellar" was a queer place. Figure to yourself a basement room, with sanded floor, and

ver, the newly-established Royal House of Great Britain, whose cognizance was a white horse. Abraham Hatchett first made the Cellar famous, both as a boozing-ken and a coach-office, and removed it to th

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nd waggons decorated with laurel, conveying company of the most varied description. Here was to be seen the dashing Corinthian tickling up his tits, and his bang-up set-out of blood and bone, giving the go-by to a heavy drag laden with eight brawny, bull-faced blades, smoking their way down behind a skeleton of a horse, to whom, in all probability, a good feed of corn would have been a luxury; pattering among themselves, occasionally chaffing the more elevated drivers by whom they were surrounded, and pushing forward their nags with all the ardour of a British merchant intent upon disposing of a valuable cargo of foreign goods on 'Change. There was a waggon full of all sorts upon the lark, succeeded by a donkey-

nions of his in every sort of excess-the Barrymores, to wit, named severally Hellgate, Newgate, and Cripplegate, the last of this unholy

is companion, who is new to London l

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ithout an opportunity of ascertaining whether or not these alterations were best suited to his high notions or exalted taste; from which, in a short time, he was induced, either by inclination or necessity, to take a small lodging in an obscure street, and to sport a gig and one horse, instead of a curricle and pair, though in former times he used to drive four-in-hand, and was acknowledged to be an excellent whip. He still, however, possessed money enough to collect together a large quantity of halfpence, which in his hours of relaxation he managed to turn to good account by the following stratagem:-He distributed his halfpe

uess, equally certain of success; and his lordship declaring he had a large stock of halfpence by

(as well he might) nearest to the number. The consequence was an immediate alteration of his lordship's residence and appearance: he got one step in the wor

n their way many curious itinerants, whose trades have changed and decayed, and are now become nothing but a dim and m