Up the Hill, Down the Vale

 

In olden times
horsepower was measured 
by teams of four-footed steeds.
Fueled by hay, barley and oats,
horses once provided people
with dependable transportation
pulling wagons and coaches
over impressive distances
and sometimes challenging terrain.

In our modern times
horsepower has come to mean
something different,
a number defined by engine size
and noxious fuels.
Motorized wagons and coaches
can now carry people farther and faster.
Yet the thrill of travel
still comes down to geography.

Today I present a trip to a remote and exotic place
that has always attracted visitors curious about
its beautiful scenery and warm hospitality,
and one especially steep road.

This colorized postcard shows the Lynton & Minehead Coach at the Ship Inn in Porlock, England. Four white horses are hitched to a handsome stagecoach with at least ten, maybe twelve passengers perched on top. They are stopped outside a celebrated coaching inn at the small village of Porlock in Somerset, England situated on the southern coast of the Bristol Channel. It is about 1½ miles from the sea, though a thousand years ago it was right on the water. The village is about 17 miles east of Lynton and 6 miles west of Minehead. 

I found this postcard when I was looking for another card to add to an order from a postcard seller in Britain. I've always been fascinated by how people used to travel before the age of the automobile and photo postcards of British horse-drawn coaches are not common to find from American postcard dealers. As I soon discovered though, there are hundreds of similar postcards of Porlock's Ship Inn that are all nearly nearly identical except for the the color of the horses. For centuries the narrow road outside the inn has forced photographers to stand in about the same place in order to fit the coach and horse in the camera frame.

This postcard was sent from Weston-super-Mare on 16 October 1907 at 9:15 PM.

Just to wish you a

very happy birthday

&   many of them

Love from

        Mab

The Shipp Inn is situated on the A39, the main road into and out of the village. Unseen behind the photographer, the landscape ascends to Exmoor, a hilly open moorland, now a national natural park, that covers much of west Somerset and north Devon in southwest England. The road to Lynton goes up Porlock Hill which is infamous as the steepest A-road in Britain, (the A signifies a primary roadway in the UK, B roads are minor and for local traffic.) From the Ship Inn the A39 climbs 1,300 ft (400 m) in less than 2 miles (3.2 km) with a gradient of 1 in 4 (25%) in many places. 

In this postcard's bird's eye view, we see a horse-drawn coach filled with people descending the hill. It looks like there are two wagons but I think they are linked together with the second one acting as a brake. The road takes a sharp bend at the bottom of the picture where there is a small space for an emergency pullout. 

This card was sent from Porlock on 26 October 1910 at 7 AM.

                                    I am so awfully sorry we
                        have missed the post this
                        morning.  We forgot to post
                        the letters last night.  How
                        dreadfully sad about poor
                        old Mr Spence  I am so very very
                        sorry a for her too it will
                        be awful for her they were so much
                        to one another.  I am just going to 
                        write to her.  It is not very fine but
                        may clear up later.  Love from 
                                                H. L.

The Ship Inn is one of the oldest hostelries in England with a history going back to the 1400s at least. In earlier centuries it was sea routes and ships, not roads, that really connected people in the British Isles. Porlock, like many fishing villages along England's remote southwest coast, became known for its connection to smuggling and the Ship Inn often served as a haven for black market contraband. 

On this undated photo postcard a coach parked outside the Ship Inn is hitched to six dark horses. The trip from Lynton to Porlock only needed four horses, but for a return going up Porlock Hill, an extra pair was required. Notice the boy, the postillion, astride the front left horse. Even a good driver needed help handling that kind of horse power. To accommodate these coach horses the Ship Inn had a suitably large stable.

This next colorized photo has a coach with four bay horses arriving at Ship Inn. To the right is the stable's hostler ready with a step ladder for passengers to use. There are at least four outside benches atop the coach that look to be between 9 to 12 feet above the dirt road. I don't think there were seat belts. The coach also has an enclosed compartment that presumably was for first class and surely cost extra. 

This card has a postmark of 17 November 1905 at 10 PM from Taunton, Somerset.

Have I ever sent you

this before. Isn't 

it sweet.  It is the

coach we rode on

to Lynton.  Passed

this inn on the 

(?)day.  bid the lo46-

(?)arrone.. Sorry not

have sent it before

                Olive

In the early 19th century more visitors came to Porlock for holidays on the coast or for hunting trips on Exmoor. The road from Lynton to Porlock, that later  became the A39, was first opened in 1843 but the steep hill must have been a deterrent to many tourists and the commercial trade so a few years later an enterprising local landowner decided to build an alternate road and charge a toll. This 4.2-mile scenic route, which offers panoramic views of Bristol Channel, has a lower gradient of 1 in 14 (7%). Surprisingly after it was built most horse-drawn wagons used Porlock Hill instead since it was free. However once motorcars became the new horseless carriages, the toll road proved a good deal as most early automobiles were too underpowered for Porlock Hill's steeper slope.

In this illustration three automobiles and a charabanc, an open-top motor coach for tourists, creep up or careen down Porlock Hill. The road appears to be unpaved with a dirt or gravel surface. The postcard has no postmark but the car styles look early 1920s to me. 

Dear John,

    This is a "bend" on one

of the hills we had to push

our bicycles up.  When

we were at the bottom

an old country man told

us "It be moil–n–arf

long," but we 

had to plod

along for about

3–n–arf miles

before we could

remount the faithful

steeds.  We are at Lawrence's

cottage now and the weather

has brightened up.

It has been hot 

and sunny to-day

Love from us all   Sylvia

P.S.  Please keep these cards for the album.

_ _ _

In this next photo postcard of Porlock Hill a single motor coach with luggage strewn on its top drives up the slope and there are clearly ruts in the road. The hill has been the cause of countless accidents. Along the narrow road there are two escape lanes to handle runaway vehicles that suffer brake failures. This card is postmarked 20 July 1927.

 

My last postcard is another colorized bird's eye-view photo captioned, "The Steep Gradient of Porlock Hill (1 in 4)". The road is paved with center marking lines as two automobiles follow a bus. A house with a front garden is just on the edge of a bend in the road, no doubt serving occasionally as an emergency safety net. 

This postcard was sent from Minehead, Somerset on 9 May 1956 at 8:30 PM to P.C. & Mrs. Rands of the village of Crick in in West Northamptonshire near Rugby. 

Wednesday

    We are having a lovely

holiday & enjoying the 

beautiful scenery.  I think

you will remember this

hill.  We came down it

in the old car but sighed

with relief when we got to the

bottom.  The weather today

is dull & rainy but up to 

now its been warm &

sunny.

            Kindest regards

            B & D Pattison

I have never been to Porlock or Exmoor but I have driven many times in just about every other part of the British Isles. It began many years ago when my bride and I set off from London for a honeymoon trip to the Hebrides off western Scotland. Until that day after our wedding I had actually never driven a car in Britain and I was far more nervous about driving than about getting married. And at the time my wife had never needed to drive car. However she did know the rules of British roads from cycling experience. (Her first driving lesson was behind the wheel of my Toyota truck, manual shift, on Georgia roads.) 

I soon learned several things about British roads. First, as best as I can tell, there are no straight roads anywhere that can go more than 5 or 10 miles without encountering a roundabout. Second, while traffic on motorways can be very fast, on the minor B-roads it is usually very, very, slow. And incredibly narrow. The big island of Britain is approximately 600 miles from the tiptop of Scotland to the southern Channel coast of England but driving that distance is not like an equivalent distance in America. In Britain every route is filled with twists and turns that require an expert navigator to figure out. Fortunately I married one. The beauty of roundabouts is that you can go round as often as you like until deciding which road to take, 

I presently live in western North Carolina, one of the mountainous regions of the United States, where our minor roads are both pretty twisty and often steep. But I can't think of any road that has a 1:4  gradient or is as celebrated on postcards as much as Porlock Hill and the Ship Inn have. I think these charming cards are all about the romance of adventure travel. It's one thing to brag about seeing a beautiful tropical beach or visiting a magnificent palace. But not many people can say I've driven, ridden, or walked up/down Porlock Hill and have the postcard to prove it. 

Promoting tourism is partly about making myths that linger on in collective memory. The original roadmakers in Porlock were probably only trying to save money by eliminating a few switchbacks. They'd be amazed to learn their precipitous road continues to captivate the imagination of British drivers today and still provide a cheap thrill just as it once did for tourists traveling on open stagecoaches. 

Porlock  

by Robert Southey (1774 – 1843)

 

                    Porlock! thy verdant vale so fair to sight,

                    Thy lofty hills which fern and furze imbrown,

                    The waters that roll musically down

                    Thy woody glens, the traveller with delight

                    Recalls to memory, and the channel grey

                    Circling its surges in thy level bay.

                    Porlock! I shall forget thee not,

                    Here by the unwelcome summer rain confined;

                    But often shall hereafter call to mind

                    How here, a patient prisoner, 'twas my lot

                    To wear the lonely, lingering close of day,

                    Making my sonnet by the alehouse fire,

                    Whilst Idleness and Solitude inspire

                    Dull rhymes to pass the duller hours away.

Robert Southey (1774 – 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called Lake Poets, and was Britain's Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Among many things he wrote was the first published story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". He also visited Porlock and probably stayed at the Ship Inn where he enjoyed a pint or two of ale by its fire. 

In our wonderful modern era 
we can experience riding up Porlock Hill
from the comfort of our own computer screen.
Here is Extreme Hill Climb: Exmoor Coaster up Porlock Hill
filmed from the front of the coach by OrsomM.
For a thrill watch out for marker 4:28 when the driver
encounters an oil slick on a steep curve.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where everyone is taking the bus.