  The “Bear” was the principal inn at Maidenhead in the coaching era, and owed much of its prosperity to the unwillingness of travellers who carried considerable sums of money with them to cross Maidenhead Thicket at night. They slept peacefully at the “Bear,” and resumed the roads in the morning, when the highwaymen were in hiding. MAIDENHEAD THICKET Maidenhead Thicket is really a long avenue lining the highway two miles from that town. It is a beautiful and romantic place, but its beauties were not apparent to travellers in days of old. The sinister reputation of the spot goes back for hundreds of years, and may be said to have arisen from the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, when Reading Abbey was despoiled. To that Abbey had resorted many hundreds of poor, certain of finding relief at its gates, and when its hospitality had become a thing of the past, these dependents simply infested the neighbourhood, and either begged or stole. As a chronicler of that time quaintly said: “There is great stoare of stout vagabonds and maysterless men (able enough for labour) which do great hurt in the country by their idle and naughtie life.” In those times the Hundreds were liable for any robberies committed within their boundaries; and in 1590 the Hundred of Benhurst, in which Maidenhead Thicket is situated, had actually to pay £255 compensation for highway robberies committed here. In fact, Maidenhead Thicket had for a long time an unenviable In later years a farmer, whose name was Cannon, was stopped one night on driving from Reading market. Two footpads compelled him to give up the well-filled money-bag he carried with him, and then let him go, consumed with impotent rage at his helplessness and the loss of his money. Suddenly, however, he remembered that he had with him, under the seat of the gig, a reaping-hook which he had brought back from being mended at Reading. That recollection brought him a bright idea. Turning his gig round, he drove back to the spot where he had been robbed, by a back way. As he had supposed, the ruffians were still there, waiting for more plunder. In the dark they took the farmer for a new-comer, until he had got to close quarters with his reaping-hook, which they mistook for a cutlass. The end of the encounter was that one footpad was left for dead, and the other took to his heels. The farmer searched the fallen foe and found his money-bag, together, it was said, with other spoils, which he promptly annexed, and drove off rejoicing. MAIDENHEAD THICKET. After these tales of derring-do and robustious encounters, the story of the road becomes comparatively tame as it goes on and passes through Twyford and Reading. THE “BELL AND BOTTLE” SIGN. “BELL AND BOTTLE” At the western end of Maidenhead Thicket, where, lying modestly back from the road, stands one of the innumerable “Coach and Horses” of the highway, the gossips of the adjacent Littlewick Green foregather and play bowls on the grass. Then comes Knowl Hill, where an old sign, swinging romantically from a wayside fir tree, proclaims the proximity of a curiously named inn, the “Bell and Bottle.” What affinity have bells for bottles, or bottles for bells? “What,” as the poet asks (in quite a different connection), “is Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?” But perhaps the original innkeeper was something of a cynic, and thus paraphrased the well-worn conjunction, “Beer and Bible.” Unfortunately for the inquiring stranger, the origin is “wrop in mistry.” Down below Knowl Hill, past a chalk quarry on the right, is yet another inn—the neat and pretty “Seven Stars,” to be succeeded at the hamlet of Kiln Green by the “Horse and Groom,” gabled and embowered with vines, and facing up, not fronting, the road, in quite the ideal fashion. What the country here lacks in bold scenery it evidently gains in fertility, for the gardens of Kiln Green are a delightful mass of luxuriant flowers. The five miles between Twyford and Reading exhibit the gradual degeneracy of a country road approaching a large town; as regards the scenery, that is to say. The quality of the road surface remains excellent, and the width is generous—a circumstance probably owing to the especial widening carried out so far back as 1255, in consequence of the dangerous state of the highway, which was then narrow and bordered by dense woods wherein lurked all manner of evildoers. Three miles from the town, and continuing for the length of a mile, is a pleasant avenue of trees. The deep Sonning Cutting on the Great Western Railway is then crossed, and the suburbs of Biscuit Town presently encountered. |
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