[Gutenberg 58909] • The Hastings Road and the "Happy Springs of Tunbridge"

Excerpt from The Hastings Road and the "Happy Springs of Tunbridge"

The road to Hastings is measured from what, in these times, seems the unlikely starting-point of London Bridge, and is identical with the Dover Road as far as New Cross, where it turns to the right and goes through Lewisham, the Dover Road continuing by Deptford and Blackheath.

Few would now choose such a starting-point for a journey to Hastings, but there is reason in most things, and when this road was first travelled there was a very special reason for this choice. London Bridge was, until 1750, the only bridge that crossed the Thames between London and Putney, and the sole way to the southern counties therefore lay through Southwark.

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