Her Majesty's Mails

The information respecting the routes taken is especially interesting, because it serves to show that even at this early period arrangements were made with great circumspection, and that some of these early routes existed, with only trifling modifications, down to the present century, and to the time of railroads. The route from London to Berwick is shown by the lists of posts (or stages) laid down between the two places in the fifteenth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign. They run as follows:--1. London; 2. Waltham; 3. Ware; 4. Royston; 5. Caxton; 6. Huntingdon; 7. Stilton; 8. Stamford; 9. Grantham; 10. Newark; 11. Tookesford (Tuxford); 12. Foroby (Ferriby); 13. Doncaster; 14. Ferry Bridge; 15. Wetherby; 16. Bouroughbridge; 17. Northallerton; 18. Derneton (Darlington); 19. Durham; 20. Newcastle; 21. Morpeth; 22. Hexham; 23. Hawtwistle; 24. Carlisle; 25. Alnwick; 26. Belford; 27. Berwick. For three centuries, therefore, the High North Road took in all these posts with the exception of Tuxford. A considerable diversion, it will be noticed, was made at Morpeth towards the west, in order to take in the then important towns of Hexham and Carlisle; but it is more probable that the direct post-road continued north through Alnwick to Berwick, and that the west road was only a kind of cross-post. There were no less than three post routes to Ireland in this reign, and all of them were used more or less.