Josef wrote:Lucky Poet wrote:Good stuff, Anorak.
There's a part of Dickens' The Uncommercial Traveller that's always stuck with me, where he describes the coaching inns in provincial England at the point where they were just about to finally keel over and die out due to the railways. Worth a read, as I recall, though not quite so gun-laden as some of what you've posted. Surprisingly humorous, considering Dickens' reputation.
Whit!
Dickens is one of the funniest writers in the English language. You're probably just in the huff because of the way he described
walking down Leith Walk to the Post Coach departure yard.
Here, I just said that's his reputation; I don't necessarily agree with it. Even if he was rude about Leith Walk.
Anorak wrote:This article describes the construction of a by-pass in Gateshead c.1800 to create “a comparatively convenient passage for carriages of the heaviest burden”
I've somehow never quite got to grips with their symbol for 's' in those old documents, as that one made clear. "An afcent almoft impaffable..." Oh fod off and ftop making me feel fo ftupid. Affaffins!
Anyhow, a nice old document. Apparently the Bottle Bank was largely demolished for the Tyne Bridge in the 1920s, and the rest of it went in the last decade; the easier street from the old bridge, with its feveral fhops, became known as Church Street.
