of a great municipal awakening in Pickering, an
awakening that unfortunately could not distinguish between an insanitary
sewer and the obsolete but historic and quite inoffensive stocks; both had
to disappear before the indiscriminating wave of progress.

[Illustration: The Shambles at Pickering. A sketch plan and elevation
drawn from details given by old inhabitants.]

In October 1846 the railway between Whitby and Pickering, that had been
built ten years before for a horse-drawn coach, was opened for steam
traction, and although this event is beyond the memories of most of the
present-day Pickeronians, there is still living in the town a man named
Will Wardell who is now seventy-seven, and as a boy of twelve acted as
postillion to the horse railway. Postillions were only employed for a
short time, the horse or horses being soon afterwards driven from the
coach.

As a rule they employed one horse from Pickering to Raindale, where there
was a public-house; then two to Fenbogs, and one to Bank Top above
Goathland. If the wind were fair the coach would run to Grosmont by
itself, after that one horse took the coach to Whitby. If more than one
horse were used they were yoked tandem; five were kept at Raindale, where
Wardell lived. 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