On the Trunk Road to History
In 1972 when we moved into our cottage about a mile from the A47, the locals told us that a bypass around the village was being discussed, and 40 years later we are still waiting.
All of us in Norfolk, I feel sure, at some time travel along this road and suffer the frustration of delays caused by slow agricultural vehicles. How often does the irritation turn to sadness when we find the delay has been due to an accident. Tragically the road is marked throughout its length by gaudy ribbons and wreathes, pinned to posts and trees noting that someone sadly lost their life there, a reminder to us all of the need for care.
Recently, on one of my many journeys along the road mostly to Wisbech and Norwich, I began idly to think of it from different points of view.
From the Cambridgeshire border the A47 begins its route through Norfolk with the fen village of Walsoken, its very name oozing with the sound of mud. The name Walsoken is in fact thought to originate from Old English, and means the proximity of a settlement close to a Roman sea wall or defence.
There has been a lot of archaeological evidence found to show Roman occupation in the parish, including a hoard of 300 to 400 Roman coins.
Passing signs for Islington, you might well find yourself humming the tune of the famous ballad “The Lass of Islington” which comes from Norfolk and not the London borough. It is probably best if you don’t sing the bawdy words if you have the children in the car, but you could tell them the tale of Tom Hickathrift, or at least one of the many versions of this man’s story. In one, he is fabled to have been a simple labourer of extraordinary strength. In some tales he is a giant; in others he slays a giant who had terrorised the local people of the marsh at Tilney. At the church in Walpole St Peter there is a dent in the ground, where it is said a cannonball landed after he threw it to scare away the devil.
Crossing the Great Ouse near King’s Lynn, the road originally ran along the Wisbech road to the South Gate. W A Dutt wrote in King’s Lynn with its Surroundings 1905, an early travel guide:
‘Like the coaches a century ago I will start by the London Road which, when I have passed by the cemetery, will soon bring me to the little hamlet of Hardwick, and a point where I shall leave the London Road and enter upon that leading direct from Lynn to Swaffham. It is a pleasant road, by which I soon leave the low lands around the town and find myself on more breezy uplands, while on the left the views open out across the picturesque valley of a small stream which has its source at Gayton. Sweet scents from the roadside gardens, where old fashioned flowers abound, mingle with the fragrance of sweetbriar in the hedges and lush grass in the valley’.
It doesn’t sound much like my journey from Lynn, battling through the traffic, braving the Hardwick roundabout and travelling up Constitution Hill.
But earlier travellers had their difficulties too. Robberies were being perpetrated on the turnpike between King’s Lynn and East Winch and PC Bocking one of the very earliest recruits to the police force joining in 1840, was posted to a large district round Lynn, embracing East Winch, Middleton, Bilney, Runcton and Narborough. to put a stop to them. He seldom wore a uniform, and like many others of his class, usually had on a velveteen jacket, and might have been mistaken for a gamekeeper. This was done as a protection to the men themselves, and to enable them to appear in public without attracting notice. Bocking was armed with a short, stout blackthorn stick and a brace of old single barrelled pistols, and carried handcuffs. One night he took up his customary station on the turnpike, and waited. It was then about 8 o’clock and raining. Suddenly a couple of ruffians sprang on him, One received a blow from the blackthorn, and the other was flattened with a blow. The constable fell upon them until they howled for mercy. Believing they had been sufficiently punished, he helped them onto their feet. Then the trio repaired to the roadside tavern and drank each other’s health”.
Although the standard of roads at this time was improving, with the coming of carriage travel, it was obvious that the 1555 Act which compelled the local worthies to maintain roads was now unsatisfactory, and groups of them banded together and formed Turnpike Trusts. The trusts kept the roads repaired in return for a fee. For example, the toll to Narborough from Lynn was one shilling and six pence for a coach and four, a cart pulled by one horse three pence, driving cattle one and three pence a score, or calves, hogs, sheep or lambs sevenpence halfpenny a score.
With the coming of the railways long distance road travel diminished, but local traffic increased. This and the use of larger agricultural machinery led to the road again being in poor repair. As late as the early 1900s local men were employed to hoe out the ruts. But the era of the motor car had arrived and with it a total change in travel.
In 1901 Arthur Russell was charged with driving a motor vehicle at a speed greater than 12 miles an hour on the A47. A witness said he was driving at a terrific rate 20-25 miles an hour he estimated. Mr Russell protested that his car would not go that fast. He was fined £2 with £2.1 .6d costs.
In 1959 George Formby hurrying to Great Yarmouth was in collision with Maurice Bunting at East Winch, both thought the other at fault, Formby spent a week in Lynn hospital and Mr Bunting lost his licence.
But all is not bad. Being forced to slow down, allows us to see what is around us and to admire the sheets of nodding cowslips on the Dereham bypass, and the display of daffodils at the Honingham roundabout cheered the dullest of days – and distracts us from the litter. And I bless who ever had the foresight to plant oxeye daisies along the new verges; they have been a glorious spectacle.
Recently there were yet again demands in the press for the upgrading the road, and after every accident the cry goes up “something must be done”, but apart from bypassing the worst bottle necks nothing has been done, or looks likely to be done in the foreseeable future.