In Unfamiliar England: A Record of a Seven Thousand Mile Tour by Motor of the Unfrequented Nooks and Corners, and the Shrines of Especial Interest, in England; With Incursions into Scotland and Ireland. — John Shaqi
In Unfamiliar England: A Record of a Seven Thousand Mile Tour by Motor of the Unfrequented Nooks and Corners, and the Shrines of Especial Interest, in England; With Incursions into Scotland and Ireland.Murphy, Thos. D. (Thomas Dowler)
History
In Unfamiliar England: A Record of a Seven Thousand Mile Tour by Motor of the Unfrequented Nooks and Corners, and the Shrines of Especial Interest, in England; With Incursions into Scotland and Ireland.
Murphy, Thos. D. (Thomas Dowler)
Great Britain -- Description and travel
Beyond Newmarket the road to Bury St. Edmunds is quite as fine, and
no doubt this splendid highway is largely responsible for the intense
antipathy to the motor car in the former town. However, one would
hardly expect Newmarket to be wildly enthusiastic over the horseless
carriage, for this ancient burg contests with Epsom for the position
of chief horse-racing town in England--a proud distinction it had
held for some centuries before the motor snorted through its streets.
Another cause for the grief of the townsmen was the complaint of owners
of high-bred horses that the motors jarred upon the nerves of the
spirited animals to their great detriment, and naturally enough the
citizens sympathized with their patron saint, the horse, against his
petrol-driven rival. And thus it was that when we entered Newmarket
we were met by the Motor Union scout, who cautioned us to observe
rigidly the ten-mile limit or we would more than likely share the fate
of a half dozen of our brethren the day before--a journey to police
headquarters. Two months afterwards, when we again passed through the
town, the war was still on, and it was some months later that I read in
the daily papers that after great bitterness on both sides a truce had
finally been reached.
Despite its unfriendliness toward our ilk, we must admit that Newmarket
is quite a modern-looking town, clean and attractive, with many
fine buildings and excellent hotels. It lies in the midst of wide
meadow-lands, much used for horseback sports such as polo and racing.
Royal visits, so dear to the average Britisher, are a frequent event,
and here it is that the King, usually in some new style of hat or cut
of trousers, appears, to set the world of fashion agog.
Well clear of Newmarket and its birds of prey, the most glorious
of roads brought us quickly into the fine old town of Bury St.
Edmunds--and none other in East Anglia has been celebrated by greater
pens; for Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle sojourned at Bury and left
us vigorous records of their impressions. The former set them down
in the story of the trials and wanderings of Mr. Pickwick, and that
honest old gentleman's comment on the town and its famous Angel Inn was
altogether commendatory. It was later--in 1878--when Carlyle visited
Bury, and the description he gave it then is quite applicable today.
He saw "a prosperous, brisk town looking out right pleasantly from
the hill-slope toward the rising sun, and on the eastern edge still
runs, long, black and massive, a maze of monastic ruins." The "Angel"
we found still deserving of the encomiums bestowed by Mr. Pickwick, a
delightfully clean and quiet old inn fronting directly on the abbey
gardens and presided over by a suave and very accommodating landlord.
We were given spacious and well-lighted quarters--we may dwell on
"well-lighted," since we could hardly apply this description, so far
as artificial light is concerned, to more than two or three of the
hundreds of hotels we visited.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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