It's always interesting to see how many countries are represented among the lorries that park up overnight in Brigg - near the old Lidl store. Tonight we parked up just the other side of the dividing wall with Tesco - right next to a lorry from Zeebrugge. What's interesting is how they find out about the free overnight stop available in a small market town in North Lincolnshire. Word of mouth? Email? The internet? Perhaps there's some forum or specialist website advising truckers where best to park up for a few hours' well-earned kip. We've pondered before on Brigg Blog about the amount of money all these visiting truckers might spend during the time they are in town. Enterprising Victorians would have been round offering trays of whelks, muffins, hot pies and other refreshments. A business opportunity for someone today?
If you are wondering a bit about the headline, we should point out that the truckers won't be drinking anything stronger than cordial during a week on the road.
'Enterprising Victorians' and 'Truckers'. ol' Nige!
ReplyDeleteIt's true that Victorians amended the time/distance equation with their developments of canals, roads and railways - but Victorian truckers!
Before the Industrial Revolution, the average distance between relatively important settlements (ie villages) was about 9 and half miles.
This was the practical distance that drovers could drive livestock in a day. The difficulty of crossing the terrain - ie being hilly, boggy - affected the distance between villages - but on average one got a village - after 4 and half mile a hamlet (a couple of houses), from where another village was 4 and half miles distance.
The footprints of this Medieval landscape still exists, but the introduction of the motor-car for the masses has disguised this earlier settlement pattern.
It's a bit like an acre - the area of average land an average plough horse could plough in one day.
A furlong - 220 yards - was the distance that an average horse could plough and average furrow in one pull without a rest and 8 furlongs made an acre.
Anyway, where do we find whelks in the Ancholme to sell to the truckers. If I'm not mistaken whelks are sea-water crustaceans. True, South Ferriby is just over 8 miles away, but any Victorian whelk-seller would have had to walk over 16 miles to flog his shell-fish to rather futuristic truckers who probably fancy a McDonald's Big Mac instead !!
'Enterprising Victorians' and 'Truckers'. ol' Nige!
ReplyDeleteIt's true that Victorians amended the time/distance equation with their developments of canals, roads and railways - but Victorian truckers!
Before the Industrial Revolution, the average distance between relatively important settlements (ie villages) was about 9 and half miles.
This was the practical distance that drovers could drive livestock in a day. The difficulty of crossing the terrain - ie being hilly, boggy - affected the distance between villages - but on average one got a village - after 4 and half mile a hamlet (a couple of houses), from where another village was 4 and half miles distance.
The footprints of this Medieval landscape still exists, but the introduction of the motor-car for the masses has disguised this earlier settlement pattern.
It's a bit like an acre - the area of average land an average plough horse could plough in one day.
A furlong - 220 yards - was the distance that an average horse could plough and average furrow in one pull without a rest and 8 furlongs made an acre.
Anyway, where do we find whelks in the Ancholme to sell to the truckers. If I'm not mistaken whelks are sea-water crustaceans. True, South Ferriby is just over 8 miles away, but any Victorian whelk-seller would have had to walk over 16 miles to flog his shell-fish to rather futuristic truckers who probably fancy a McDonald's Big Mac instead !!
'Enterprising Victorians' and 'Truckers'. ol' Nige!
ReplyDeleteIt's true that Victorians amended the time/distance equation with their developments of canals, roads and railways - but Victorian truckers!
Before the Industrial Revolution, the average distance between relatively important settlements (ie villages) was about 9 and half miles.
This was the practical distance that drovers could drive livestock in a day. The difficulty of crossing the terrain - ie being hilly, boggy - affected the distance between villages - but on average one got a village - after 4 and half mile a hamlet (a couple of houses), from where another village was 4 and half miles distance.
The footprints of this Medieval landscape still exists, but the introduction of the motor-car for the masses has disguised this earlier settlement pattern.
It's a bit like an acre - the area of average land an average plough horse could plough in one day.
A furlong - 220 yards - was the distance that an average horse could plough and average furrow in one pull without a rest and 8 furlongs made an acre.
Anyway, where do we find whelks in the Ancholme to sell to the truckers. If I'm not mistaken whelks are sea-water crustaceans. True, South Ferriby is just over 8 miles away, but any Victorian whelk-seller would have had to walk over 16 miles to flog his shell-fish to rather futuristic truckers who probably fancy a McDonald's Big Mac instead !!