Travel guides were not new, but the speed and relative cheapness of railway travel quickly opened up a new demand. George Bradshaw, the Manchester cartographer, had a similar idea at this time and his guides and timetables became more famous.
Drake's technique is to describe the scenery and the outlying villages as he journeys from London to Birmingham and throw in a few interesting facts. It is still a rural world he sees. Bletchley is almost non-existent and Water Eaton, Newton Longville and Fenny Stratford appear to be more significant.
One interesting little nugget is his reported description of the Denbigh Hall Inn as a "Tom and Jerry shop". Today we associate Tom and Jerry with the Hanna-Barbera cartoons but in Victorian England the phrase came from two characters in a once popular novel and the phrase slipped into common use for a period at least.He makes assumptions about his readership that could not be made today. There are several allusions in the text that assume a classical education and a knowledge about history, literature and religion. I have provided footnotes to explain where I can.
Drake’s Description of Bletchley
In taking a survey of the outstanding scenery from this station, Bletchley appears close to the line on the left. On the extreme left, Drayton Parslow can be distinguished, and a little in advance of it is the village of Newton Longville. More distant is Whaddon Chace and Hall, in which Queen Elizabeth was entertained by Arthur Lord Grey; and in which Spencer, the poet,[1] who was secretary to that nobleman, frequently resided. The village of Whaddon contains 889 inhabitants, and is celebrated as having been the birth-place of Richard Cox, one of the principal composers of our English Liturgy, and also as having given to ViIliers, the celebrated favourite of James I. and Charles I., his first title, namely, that of Baron.
On the right of the station, and standing on a gentle eminence, at a distance of rather more than a mile, is the little market town of Fenny Stratford. This place takes its distinguishing appellation from the nature of the ground by which it is surrounded. In 1665, it was almost depopulated by a plague, and it has not yet recovered from its effects. It at present contains 635 inhabitants, who are chiefly supported by travellers and lace making.
Continuing our survey from the Bletchley station, the village of Water Eaton is seen on the right, in the foreground; and on the richly wooded hills which rise beyond, the three Brickhills are still discernible. In the beautiful vale beyond these hills, and, of course, invisible from the railway, stands the healthy town of Woburn. This town is about six miles from the station, and occupies a gentle eminence on the main road from London to Leeds. It is surrounded with plantations of evergreen, and consists of four broad and handsome streets, which intersect each other at right angles, In the centre of the town is a noble market house, erected by the Duke of Bedford, in the Tudor style of architecture. The church was erected by the last abbott of Woburn, and being nearly covered with ivy, has a remarkably beautiful appearance. In the immediate vicinity of the town is Woburn Abbey, the seat of his grace the Duke of Bedford. It occupies the site of an ancient Cistercian Abbey, and is surrounded by a noble and extensive park; but to attempt to describe all the splendid adornments of this magnificent seat, - the statues, paintings, galleries, and columns, - the noble Ionic entrance, the artificial lake, the miniature temple, and all the other valuable works of art, which unbounded wealth and refined taste have collected together, - would be very inconsistent with the brevity required in a Road Book. We will, therefore, here conclude our survey, and suppose ourselves again bounding with the fleetness of the mountain roe along our iron pathway.
After rapidly sweeping through a cutting, we cross the London road by a stupendous iron bridge, which has a most noble appearance from below, and come to what was formerly known as the Denbigh Hall station. Here, for several months after the first opening of the railway, the trains were accustomed to stop, and the traveller had to adopt the ancient methods of conveyance, for the performance of the next thirty-eight miles of his journey. To describe in all its seriocomic reality the scene which this now secluded spot was wont then to present, would require the pen of a Washington Irving. Luggage lost, tickets missing, coaches overfilled, and a thousand other disastrous occurrences, altogether formed a spectacle which we would defy the most sorrowful disciple of Heraclitus[2] to view without a smile. All the busy multitudes however, that so lately thronged this spot, and rendered it a scene of intense animation, have now vanished, like the fabric of Mirza's vision[3]; and as we rapidly sweep by, and look in vain for some tokens of animation, we are reminded of the feelings which travellers have had while sitting on the ruins of some ancient city. The building called Denbigh Hall, respecting which it is very probable our reader may have formed the same conception as ourselves, and imagined it to be the august mansion of some illustrious grandee, is nothing but a paltry public house, or “Tom and Jerry shop,"[4] as we heard an indignant fellow-traveller contemptuously style it, which has taken the liberty of assuming this magnificent appellation. Tradition ascribes the origin of the name to the circumstance of Lord Denbigh having been compelled to tarry here for a night, through an accident happening to his carriage; and also informs us that his lordship left some property to his host in return for the kindness with which he had been entertained; but whether this story is deserving of credit, or has merely been invented for the amusement of the visitors at this Denbigh Hall, we pretend not to say. After leaving this ci-divant [5]station, and passing through a cutting three quarters of a mile in length, we perceive on he left the church of Loughton, and also that of Shenstone, which is a very good specimen of the Norman style of architecture. Close to the line on the right is the village of Bradwell, where was formerly a priory of Black Canons[6], founded in the reign of Stephen, and of which the abbey, transformed into a farm house, may still be seen standing on the left of the line. A short cutting, which is crossed by a bridge handsomely faced in a rustic style, brings us to Wolverton station.
[1] Edmund Spenser (1552- 1599) best known as author of The Faerie Queen.
[2] Heraclitus was an ancient Greek philospher, circa 500 BC. He held a low opinion of humankind’s ability to organize it own affairs.
[3] A reference to the Persian poet Iraz Mirza, a contemporary of Omar Khayyam.
[4] The phrase first makes its appearance in a novel by Pierce Egan's Life in London (1821) and describes a hot drink made of rum and brandy or whiskey, beaten eggs, sugar, water or milk, and nutmeg, after two characters in the story. The context here is disparaging.
[5] Should be spelled ci-devant, a French phrase meaning an office holder of former glory. In other words Denbigh Hall station had former importance which has now passed.
[6] Black Canons were Benedictine Monks.
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