The reality of travel for the wealthy in the 1660s is illustrated by Sir George Sitwell’s description of his ancestor’s annual visits to London from Renishaw Hall, at Eckington near Sheffield. This was usually at the end of April, when the roads were again passable:

‘His plans were laid a month or six weeks in advance, and a week or ten days before starting a box or trunk of clothes was sent on by carrier. He left Renishaw at seven o’clock in the morning, attired in a riding suit, top boots, a horseman’s cloak and a ‘mounteroe’ or Spanish travelling cap, of velvet. Pistols were borne in the holsters, for Sherwood was a noted haunt of highwaymen’.

He was accompanied by a footman, dressed in livery, carrying more clothes. It was a four day journey; the first night spent at Nottingham, the second at Harborough, and the third at Dunstable, with an average stage of about thirty miles.

‘In London, Mr Sitwell frequented the Greyhound Inn in Holborn …. and there he paid about eight shillings and fourpence a week for chamber rent and washing, and eighteen shillings and eightpence for hay and corn for his horses. Food and minor expenses came to about £1 6s. 8d. a week.

His stay in London usually lasted about a fortnight, and allowed him to meet family and friends as well as attending to business at his lawyer’s. He was also able to keep in touch with the political world via his cousin, Roger Allestry, an MP. But the fact that this trip required spending eight days on the road well illustrates the reality of seventeenth century life.

Sir George Sitwell, ‘Country Life in the Seventeenth Century’, in ‘Memorials of old Derbyshire’, 1907, Ed. C. Cox