Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

and Warwickshire carriers, including those from Feckenham Forest, made regular
journeys to the capital, where certain public houses were used as termini. 299
Shortly after the Restoration the accounts of the Throckmortons of Coughton
Court reveal payments to at least a dozen different people for transporting all manner of
goods, especially building materials. Many of those who received payment for carriage
may have been farmers, carpenters or masons, whose carts, wagons or teams were
commissioned for specific journeys. At least two of these part-time carriers also ran local
public houses, a trend that is noted in later periods too. Although the demand for regular
carriers was not yet as great as in later centuries, ‘Bolton the carrier’ undertook a variety
of trips, ranging from the ‘carriage of goods to London’ to ‘drawing 15 thrave of straw’
for the thatcher, for whom he also acted as assistant. 300
Perhaps the Beoley-based ‘wagoner’ transported goods between Birmingham and
this zone along the old Roman road, Icknield Street. 301
Also of importance were the links
with Alcester and other local market centres, such as Stourbridge, (gateway to the Black
Country), where the Throckmortons’ malt was sold and their pit-coals purchased. 302
One
can imagine a regular stream of carts and wagons taking agricultural produce, wood and
charcoal to the Black Country and returning with iron, nails and coal.
Local tradesmen could also use the service of the Stourbridge carriers, who
traversed this zone en route to the capital where they arrived every Friday, starting the
299 H. Gwilliam, in his manuscript ‘Coach travel and turnpike roads in Worcestershire’, (WoRO, ref.
388.110942449), p. 226, quotes The Carriers’ Cosmography of 1637 which states that Feckenham Forest
carriers use the Crown at High Holborn and the Queen’s Head in St. Giles in the Fields.
300 WaRO, CR1998/LCB/26, 40, Throckmorton MSS, (accounts for 1670s and 1660s). James Bo(u)lton
also ran a pub. Another ‘carrier’ called Darby is also mentioned in the 1660s.
301 WoRO, marriage licence of William Barton, Beoley, wagoner, 1668. The term ‘wagoner’ is ambiguous,
sometimes referring to carriers and sometimes to farm wagoners.
302 WaRO, CR1998/LCB/40, Throckmorton MSS.
311