There were two coaches, "The Lady Hilda" and the "Premier";
they were painted yellow and carried outside, four in front, four behind,
and several others on the top, while inside there was room for six.
Wardell helped to make the present railway, and has worked for fifty-five
years as a platelayer on the line. He remembers Will Turnbull of Whitby
who used to act as guard on the railway coach, and in the same capacity on
the stage-coach from Pickering to York. He made the journey from Whitby to
York and back daily, the coach running in conjunction with the railway
coach; the two drivers were Mathew Groves and Joseph Sedman.
Gas, which must have been a perpetual wonder to the village folk when they
came into Pickering, made its appearance in 1847; but even at the time of
writing the town is only illuminated from the 10th of August until the end
of April, and even in that period the streets are plunged in darkness at
11 p.m. The drainage of the town was taken in hand to some extent about
fifty years ago, and the pestilential ditches and sewers that existed to
within thirty years of the present time have gradually disappeared. Then
between thirty and forty years ago the great spring in the limestone at
Keld Head was utilised to give the town a water-supply, and thus the wells
and pumps were superseded. Before the Local Board came into being about
half a century ago, piles of timber were allowed to lie in Eastgate, and
generally one may imagine the rather untidy quaintness so strongly
characteristic of the engravings that illustrate country scenes in that
period.
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