The Road is Long….

Come with me on a journey long ago. A coach and four strong horses, jolts and judders its way down the Great North Road.  Next stop is Morpeth, a fair market town, and there will be time to stretch your legs there. The coach stops at The Queen’s Head, a fine establishment with good fayre to revive the weary traveller. You are hopeful of a slice of their famous meat pie, as you breakfasted long before the sun rose, and your packed bread and cheese was gone by the time Belford was reached. Can you hear the horse hooves drumming? The drivers’ chatter above the crack of the whip and rumble of wheels? Can you smell the sweat of the horses? Can you taste the dust in your throat? Pull that thick travel coat tightly around you now, as even the expensive purchase of a cushioned seat inside the carriage, does not stop the cold northern winds from clawing at your bones. And your destination, still many miles down the hard open road, is Newcastle upon Tyne.

Catalogue reference B/DAT/9/2/ is a collection of carriage licences and permits covering the period 1812 to 1834. They provide a tantalising glimpse into the vast industry of passenger coaches and carriages that traded up and down the Great North Road. They are evocative of a time where steam was yet to mobilise the traveller and the horse and carriage was the principal means of movement between towns.    

The licenses were issued by a Mr Robert Thorp, Distributor of Stamps for Northumberland,  to run passenger services along the Great North Road between Berwick upon Tweed and Newcastle upon Tyne, taking in stopping points at Alnwick, Belford, Felton and Morpeth.  Those applying for license to run a carriage tended to be innkeepers, with a vested interest in bringing coach trade to their door. The document shown is the carriage license issued in 1834 to Mr. Joseph Henderson, innkeeper of Morpeth, to run a service between Morpeth and Newcastle upon Tyne on a Tuesday and a Saturday. Pigot’s Trade Directory of 1834 identifies Joseph Henderson as the proprietor of The New Phoenix Inn in Morpeth. Like the The Queen’s Head or The Black Bull, well beloved of more modern Morpethians, The New Pheonix Inn was one of many inns in Morpeth that thrived as a coaching hub in the Georgian era. Whilst the New Pheonix Inn is long gone, New Pheonix Yard still exists off Bridge Street in Morpeth, suggesting Mr Henderson’s establishment had a prime location for coaching, opposite the then newly built Telford Bridge over the River Wansbeck (built 1831).

The Great North Road that these travellers would have known is all but gone now, by-passed and built over in the ever-demanding needs of the motorcar. But atmospheric snippets of it are still to be found in our county back lanes. Across the hedge from the A1, just south of where Stannington Vale crosses the Blyth, is Shotton Lane. Where this old road skirts the grounds of Blagdon Hall, it very much retains the character of The Great North Road – a narrower, windier, greener route than the adjacent modern arterial road that replaced it. So perhaps….if you go there and listen carefully, hidden within the roar of passing traffic……you might just hear the gallop of horses, the rattle of carriage wheels or the crack of a coachman’s whip.