# In the summer of 1698 she rode more than 1,551 miles across England. She wrote down the ale, the roads and the beds.

*England, 1684–1703*

Celia Fiennes travelled for her health — by coach with her mother at first, later on her own horses with one or two servants — and kept a private journal: what the road was like, what the inn charged, whether the ale was any good. Her own journal puts her in 39 of England's 40 historic counties, all but Monmouthshire. This is that route, and her verdicts.

Marius Comper · 18 September 2026 · from the 1888 edition of her journal

## Where she got to

The journal is not a travel book. It is a notebook kept for relations, with a sum of miles at the end of each summer and whatever she could learn “from jnns en passant”. The 1888 edition is the first printing of the manuscript and the only one that can be read freely today.

The seven chapters below follow the journeys as she herself divides them. The line on the map runs through the principal places she names, in the order her text reaches them; it is a link between stops, not a road. The counties light up as she crosses them.

What she measured, in miles, and what the line measures, in kilometres, are two different things. [The miles](#mile) sets them side by side without mixing them.

## I. From home to Bath, by way of Dorset (undated, the 1680s and 1690s)

- Her own sum: She keeps no sum of miles on these
- Counties reached: Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset
- By way of: Newton Tony, Salisbury, Wilton, Blandford Forum, Poole, Corfe Castle, Swanage, Dorchester, Bridport, Lyme Regis, Stonehenge, Mere, Wincanton, Castle Cary, Warminster, Norton St Philip, Bath

Four loops out of the same village: Wiltshire, the Dorset coast, the plain at Stonehenge, and the road to Bath.

Home is Newton Tony, a Wiltshire village on the bare downs between Salisbury and Andover. Every journey begins and ends there. Her father, Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes, had been an officer in the Parliament's army; her grandfather was the first Viscount Saye and Sele. The early journeys are short and undated, and some of them she makes by coach with her mother: near Brackley a wheel jams between the stones and it takes several men to lift them out. In them she learns the trade: how far a day carries, what can be got out of an inn, what is worth writing down.

The Dorset coast she does as a family tour, house to house: Blandford, Poole, Brownsea Island, where she eats oysters on the spot, the ruins of Corfe Castle, Swanage, Dorchester, Bridport, Lyme. At Seacombe she picks shells off the beach. At Poole she takes a boat. It is the only stretch of the journal in which you can see a woman on holiday.

At Stonehenge she does something nobody else seems to have done then: she counts the stones. She writes that she has counted them often and reaches 91 every time, against the saying then current that they could not be counted twice alike.

Bath is the reason the journal exists at all. The hot waters were the treatment, and she used them for years. She describes everything: what it costs to go in, who leads you, what you wear in the water, how the pump works. It is the first evidence that her eye looks for procedures and prices rather than buildings.

> When you would walk about y^e bath I use to have a woman guide or two to Lead me for the water is so strong it will quickly tumble you down, and then you have 2 of the men guides goes at a distance about y^e bath to Cleare y^e way.
>
> — Bath

## II. The south coast and the Isle of Wight (undated, before 1697)

- Her own sum: She keeps no sum of miles here either
- Counties reached: Wiltshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Sussex, Surrey, Middlesex
- By way of: Newton Tony, Hungerford, Faringdon, Oxford, Abingdon, Newbury, Basingstoke, Alton, Petersfield, Chichester, Arundel, Dorking, Kingston upon Thames, London, Farnham, New Alresford, Winchester, Lyndhurst, Lymington, Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, Newport, Isle of Wight, Cowes, Ryde, Portsmouth, Southampton, Romsey, Bagshot

Two separate rides, joined at London: one out to Chichester, the other to the island and back through Southampton.

The first ride goes by Oxford and Abingdon, where the market cross stops her — the finest in England, she writes — and down to Chichester, a small city with four gates through which you can see clean from one side to the other. She climbs the cathedral tower, two hundred and sixty-odd steps, to look at the Isle of Wight and Spithead.

The second takes her through Winchester and the New Forest to Lymington, where she stands and watches salt being made out of sea water: pans, evaporation, boiling. Then she crosses to the island by boat, past Hurst Castle and the Needles, sees Yarmouth, Newport and Carisbrooke Castle with its forty-fathom well and its ass-driven wheel, and comes back from Ryde to Portsmouth in an hour.

At Portsmouth she goes aboard a ship of the line. Southampton she likes for a practical reason: the town lets no cart in, goods are carried on sledges, and the streets stay clean because of it. It is the kind of observation she makes throughout — not what a place looks like, but how it is kept.

> that is a very neate clean town and the Streets well pitch’d and kept so, by their Carrying all their Carriages on Sleds as they do in holland, and permit no Cart to go about in y^e town
>
> — Southampton

## III. The Northern Journey, May 1697 (May to July 1697)

- Her own sum: “in 7 weeks tyme about 635 miles that we went together”
- Counties reached: Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Lincolnshire, Rutland, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire
- By way of: London, Ware, Bishop's Stortford, Audley End, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Stamford, Stretton, Lincoln, Newark-on-Trent, Nottingham, Mansfield, Worksop, Doncaster, Tadcaster, York, Knaresborough, Harrogate, Boroughbridge, Ripon, Beverley, Kingston upon Hull, Burton Agnes, Scarborough, Malton, Pontefract, Rotherham, Chesterfield, Chatsworth, Bakewell, Buxton, Castleton, Ashbourne, Uttoxeter, Lichfield, Coventry, Warwick, Daventry, Northampton, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St Albans

The first great journey, and the first dated thing in the whole journal: the manuscript heading reads “HERE BEGINS MY NORTHERN JOURNEY IN MAY 1697”. She leaves London through Hertfordshire, stops at Cambridge, where she is entertained at Trinity, and rides up through the fen country to Stamford and Lincoln. In Lincoln cathedral she pulls the clapper of the great bell herself.

At Nottingham she goes sixty steps down into a cellar cut out of the rock and drinks there. At York she stamps a half-crown at the mint. Then comes the part she is really after: the waters. Knaresborough, Harrogate, Copgrove, Ripon — she drinks sulphur springs by the quart, goes into St Mungo's cold well seven separate times, and records the taste, the colour and the effect of each.

She rides on to Scarborough and Hull, comes back through York and drops into the Peak, where she sees Chatsworth half rebuilt and goes into the caves at Castleton and Poole's Cavern by candlelight. At Chesterfield, on a Saturday market day, she buys two fat pullets for sixpence and works out with satisfaction what they would have cost in London.

She comes home by Lichfield, Coventry, Warwick and Northampton. At the end she does her sum: 635 miles in seven weeks, with no mishap. She writes “we went together” — she was not alone.

> I bought my self 2 very good ffatt white (pullings as they Call them) pullets for 6 pence both, and I am sure they were as Large and as good as would have Cost 18 pence if not 2 shill^s a piece in London
>
> — Chesterfield, on market day

## IV. Kent, in five days (autumn 1697)

- Her own sum: “w^{ch} I Compleated in 5 days, and went 184 miles”
- Counties reached: Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, Middlesex, Sussex
- By way of: Ware, Tilbury, Gravesend, Rochester, Sittingbourne, Canterbury, Dover, Deal, Sandwich, Maidstone, Dartford, Greenwich, London, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Goudhurst, Rye, Winchelsea

Dashed: the days at Tunbridge Wells, Rye and Winchelsea. She adds them herself as an aside, “shall Insert something of Tunbridge”, outside the run of five days.

That autumn she does Kent, and this time she keeps the count of days: 184 miles in five. She crosses the Thames by the Tilbury ferry to Gravesend, sees the yards at Chatham where ships of the line were building, and rides to Canterbury.

There she goes into a house with twenty silk looms in it and looks at the paper mill. At Dover she climbs a hundred and twenty steps in the castle tower. At Sandwich she finds a town falling down: you enter by a gate and leave by a gate, and almost everything between them is ready to drop.

She comes back through Maidstone on a Thursday, which is market day. Then she adds, at the end, the pages on Tunbridge Wells, whose waters she has drunk “many years w^{th} great advantage”, and on Rye and Winchelsea. She sets them aside as an aside: they are not part of the five days.

> this is a sad old town all timber building, you Enter by a gate and so you go out of it by a gate
>
> — Sandwich

## V. The Great Journey sets out eastward (summer 1698)

- Her own sum: The first part of the summer's “above 1551 miles”
- Counties reached: Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Northamptonshire, Rutland, Leicestershire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire
- By way of: London, Ware, Bishop's Stortford, Great Dunmow, Colchester, Ipswich, Woodbridge, Saxmundham, Beccles, Norwich, Wymondham, Thetford, Bury St Edmunds, Ely, Huntingdon, Peterborough, Wansford, Uppingham, Leicester, Market Bosworth, Tamworth, Lichfield, Wolseley, Stafford, Derby, Burton upon Trent

The title she gives this summer is “MY GREAT JOURNEY TO NEWCASTLE AND TO CORNWALL”, and underneath it she writes what it actually is: “the account of many journeys into most parts of England”. Not every part. Most.

She sets out eastward. At Colchester she pays dear for the pleasure of eating the oysters where they come from. At Ipswich it is Saturday, market day, and she sees butter sold by the pint, twenty ounces for sixpence. At Norwich she climbs the castle hill and counts the churches.

Then she goes down into the fens. Ely is where the journal loses its manners: she calls it the dirtiest place she ever saw, and her chamber was twenty steps up and still full of frogs and slow-worms. On the flooded causeway before the city her horse makes for deeper water and is nearly lost in a dike.

From Peterborough she cuts west through Uppingham and Leicester to Wolseley in Staffordshire, where she stays six weeks with relations. From there she makes short rides: to Derby, where a supper of shoulder of mutton, bread and beer costs five shillings and eightpence for herself and two servants, and to Burton, and to Stafford.

> but y^e dirtyest place I ever saw, not a bitt of pitching in y^e streetes, so its a perfect quagmire y^e whole Citty
>
> — Ely

## VI. To Chester, the Lakes and Newcastle (summer 1698)

- Her own sum: The second part of the same summer
- Counties reached: Staffordshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, Westmorland, Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire
- By way of: Wolseley, Stafford, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Nantwich, Chester, Hawarden, Flint, Holywell, Liverpool, Prescot, Wigan, Preston, Garstang, Lancaster, Kendal, Windermere, Ambleside, Penrith, Carlisle, Gretna, over the Sark, Longtown, Brampton, Haltwhistle, Hexham, Newcastle upon Tyne, Chester-le-Street, Durham, Darlington, Richmond, Boroughbridge, Knaresborough, Leeds, Elland, Rochdale, Manchester

Two loops out of England: over the Dee into Flintshire, and over the river Sark into Scotland.

At Chester she crosses the bridge over the Dee and leaves England. The mayor of the city sends his son to guide her as far as Hawarden, because the sands are dangerous to strangers. She goes to St Winefride's Well at Holywell, where she watches Catholic pilgrims kneeling in the water, and notes drily that Welsh is spoken there. She fords the Dee on the sands coming back, with two guides.

She rides up through Liverpool — which she sees growing out of a few fishermen's houses into a town built “after the London fashion” — through Wigan, Preston and Lancaster to Kendal and Windermere, where she takes a boat to the island and watches oat clap-bread being made. It is one of the earliest descriptions of the Lakes by somebody who went there.

At Penrith and Carlisle she is in the border country. At Carlisle she pays the dearest reckoning in the journal, and then takes a guide and crosses into Scotland over the river Sark. She gets as far as Addison Bank, some sixty miles from Edinburgh, and turns back.

The road east through Haltwhistle is the worst of the summer. The inn will not have her because her servants got hay elsewhere, and she sleeps in a cottage open to the thatch. From there she comes down through Hexham to Newcastle, where her horse goes down on its nose on the town's stones, then to Durham, Darlington, Richmond, Leeds and Manchester.

> so I was forced to take up in a poor Cottage w^{ch} was open to y^e Thatch and no partitions but hurdles plaistered.
>
> — Haltwhistle, Northumberland

## VII. Home by the west, and out to the end of the land (summer and autumn 1698)

- Her own sum: “it was in all above 1551 miles and many of them Long miles”
- Counties reached: Lancashire, Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Surrey, Berkshire, Middlesex
- By way of: Manchester, Northwich, Whitchurch, Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton, Worcester, Stretton Grandison, Gloucester, Bath, Bristol, Wookey Hole, Wells, Glastonbury, Taunton, Cullompton, Exeter, Chudleigh, Ashburton, Plymouth, Millbrook, Looe, Fowey, St Austell, St Columb Major, Redruth, Hayle, Penzance, Land's End, Truro, Wadebridge, Camelford, Launceston, Okehampton, Topsham, Honiton, Axminster, Dorchester, Blandford Forum, Salisbury, Newton Tony, Winchester, New Alresford, Alton, Farnham, Bagshot, Windsor, London

The way home is the longest stretch of the summer. From Manchester she passes through Northwich, where salt is made, and near Beeston Castle meets the only people in the whole journal she is genuinely afraid of: two men who drop into the road out of a wood, ride one ahead and one behind, and keep shouldering her horse out of the way. She gets clear because the road to Whitchurch is full of people going to market.

Through Shrewsbury, Worcester and Gloucester she comes down to Bath a second time, then to Bristol, into Wookey Hole by candlelight, to Wells and Glastonbury. At Exeter she watches the fulling mills and the dye vats. At Ashburton the best inn is bad. At Plymouth she sees the citadel and the yard.

In Cornwall the roads narrow until only a packhorse fits. At St Austell she eats the first apple pie with custard and clotted cream of her life and never forgets it. Near Tregothnan she decides against going on to the end of the land, because it had rained all night. Next morning she changes her mind.

She reaches Land's End and climbs over the rocks as far as she thinks safe. She drinks good bottled ale there. Then back through Truro, Wadebridge, Camelford and Launceston, into Devon, out at Exeter, down by Honiton and Axminster and home to Newton Tony. From there she still has London to reach, by Winchester and Windsor. At the end she does her sum: above 1,551 miles, and many of them long ones.

> The Lands End terminates in a poynt or Peak of Great Rocks w^{ch} runs a good way into y^e sea, I Clamber’d over them as farre as safety permitted me
>
> — Land's End, Cornwall

## What she wrote down

She does not describe scenery. She describes what she paid, where she slept, what she drank and how bad the road was. The spelling is hers, with the contractions of her day: “ye” is *the*, “wch” is *which*, and “2 shills” is two shillings.

**The ale.** “I bought my self 2 very good ffatt white (pullings as they Call them) pullets for 6 pence both, and I am sure they were as Large and as good as would have Cost 18 pence if not 2 shill^s a piece in London” — Chesterfield, on market day

**The ale.** “here if one Calls for a tankard of Ale w^{ch} is allwayes a groate its the only dear thing all over Yorkshire, their ale is very strong” — Leeds

**The ale.** “Nottingham is ffamous for good ale, so for Cellars, they are all dugg out of the Rocks and so are very Coole. Att y^e Crown Inn is a Cellar of 60 stepps down, all in y^e Rock Like arch worke over your head: in y^e Cellar I dranke good ale.” — Nottingham

**The road.** “Ffrom thence we Came to Dunstable 7 mile over a sad road Called Hockley in y^e Hole, as full of deep slows in y^e winter it must be Empasable.” — The road to Dunstable, Bedfordshire

**The road.** “we passed over one Common of some miles Length on a narrow Causy that a Coach can scarce pass, all pitched with slatts and stones—our Coach was once wedged in y^e wheele in the stones that severall men were forced to lift us out” — The road to Brackley, Northamptonshire

**The road.** “this they do altogether the farther Westward they goe for y^e wayes grow narrower and narrower on to y^e lands end.” — Cornwall

**The road.** “it was a Constant Charge to shoe my horses every 2 or 3 dayes, but this smith did shoe them so well and so good shoes y^t they held some of the shooes 6 weekes.” — Cornwall, at a good smith's

**The bed.** “so I was forced to take up in a poor Cottage w^{ch} was open to y^e Thatch and no partitions but hurdles plaistered.” — Haltwhistle, Northumberland

**The bed.** “bad was the best Inn.” — Ashburton, Devon

**The reckoning.** “so for 2 joynts of mutton and a pinte of wine and bread and beer I had a 12 shilling Reckoning” — Carlisle

**The reckoning.** “My Dinner Cost me 5^s and 8^d, only 2 servant men w^{th} me and I had but a shoulder of mutton and bread and beer.” — Derby

**The food.** “its an apple pye w^{th} a Custard all on the top, its y^e most acceptable entertainment y^t Could be made me.” — St Austell, Cornwall

**The town.** “that is a very neate clean town and the Streets well pitch’d and kept so, by their Carrying all their Carriages on Sleds as they do in holland, and permit no Cart to go about in y^e town” — Southampton

**The town.** “Leverpoole w^{ch} is in Lancashire is built just on the river Mersy mostly new built houses of brick and stone after the London fashion; y^e first original was a few fishermens houses and now is grown to a large fine town” — Liverpool

**The town.** “this is a sad old town all timber building, you Enter by a gate and so you go out of it by a gate” — Sandwich, Kent

**The town.** “I resolved not to goe to that ragged town tho’ there are many good people and a Large meeteing.” — Halifax, which she never saw

## The forty counties

England had forty historic counties, if you count Monmouthshire, which the seventeenth century reckoned English or Welsh as it suited. Her own text puts her in 39 of them. The fortieth is Monmouthshire, whose name appears twice in the whole journal: as the source of the Severn, and as a duke.

| County | What her text says |
| --- | --- |
| Bedfordshire | “Thence to Oxborn and Enter Bedfordshire 13 mile. The duke of Bedfords house we saw w^{ch} stands in a fine parke full of deer and wood, and some off the trees are kept Cut in works and y^e shape of severall beasts. The house” (entering the county, at Woburn) |
| Berkshire | “Ffrom Hungerford to Newbury in Barkshire 7 mile all very deep way, 15 mile thence to Reading in Barkshire flatt way, but y^e vale is heavy sand for 3 or 4 mile. Reading is the shire town, its pretty Large and accomodated for travellers being a great Road to Gloucester” (naming it, while in Newbury and Reading) |
| Buckinghamshire | “Thence to Stony Stratford, so Cross y^e river Aven again 12 mile, and Enter Buckinghamshire. At Stony Stratford w^{ch} is a little place built of stone they make a great deale of bonelace and so they do all here about, its the manuffactory of this part of y^e” (entering the county, at Stony Stratford) |
| Cambridgeshire | “This brought me to the Armitage along 8 mile in all from Ely town, and here I Repass’d the River Lin on a wooden Bridge and so went out of y^e jsland of Ely w^{ch} was in Cambridgshire and Entred” (naming it, while in the Isle of Ely) |
| Cheshire | “I passed over two or three stone bridges Cross Little rivers, so to Norwitch w^{ch} is 14 mile. I Entred Cheshire 3 mile before I Came to y^e town, its not very Large, its full of Salt works the brine pitts being” (entering the county, at Northwich) |
| Cornwall | “Thence to Milbrooke 2 mile and went all along by the water and had the full view of ye Dock yards. Here I entred into Cornwall and soe passed over many very steep stony hills, tho’ here I had some 2 or 3 miles of Exceeding good” (entering the county, at Millbrook) |
| Cumberland | “Here I cross’d one of y^e stone bridges y^t was pretty Large w^{ch} Entred me into Cumberlandshire. This River together with y^e additionall springs Continually running into it all the way from those vaste precipices Comes into a Low place and form a broad water w^{ch} is very Cleer and” (entering the county, at Ullswater) |
| Derbyshire | “Here we Entred Darbyshire and went to Chesterffield 6 mile, and Came by y^e Coale mines where they were digging. They make their mines at y^e Entrance Like a Well and so till they Come to y^e Coale, then they digg all the Ground about where there” (entering the county, at Chesterfield) |
| Devon | “I mostly pass’d through Lanes, I entred Into Devonshire 5 mile off from Wellington, just on a high ridge of hills w^{ch} discovers a vast prospect on Each side full of Inclosures and Lesser hills w^{ch} is the Description of most part of the West. You” (entering the county, at five miles from Wellington) |
| Dorset | “These stony Lanes I passed till I Came to the Great road which Comes from Lime, here I Entred into Dorsetshire and soe went through a Little town Called Maiden Newton eight mile more, and soe thence to Dorchester town 6 mile more; all a fine hard” (entering the county, at Maiden Newton and Dorchester) |
| Durham | “In the Evening I walk’d out at Durham to another part of the town, by another turn of the river along by its Banck, and the river here would meete were it not for a Ridge of a hill runs between, it in w^{ch} are buildings and ascends” (the town: Durham) |
| Essex | “I went to Royston 1 mile, and Epin in Essex 9 mile, thence to Drumford through Lanes and much wood—that part of Essex is full of woods; y^t was 10 mile. Thence to Abnife 14 mile, thence to Tilbery 3 mile w^{ch} is a ffine ffort, a” (naming it, while in Epping and Tilbury) |
| Gloucestershire | “thence to Marlow 3 mile and there Entred Gloucestershire. They are pretty long miles and in the winter deep way, though now it was pretty good travelling its 8 mile beyond to Glocestertown tho’ in most places near London this would be reckon’d 20 miles; you may see” (entering the county, at Gloucester) |
| Hampshire | “Here I staid an hour and then proceeded on to Basenstoke 12 long miles, being my ready road to Chichister, and from Basenstoke to Alton 8 mile and from thence to Petersffield and to Nurstead 11 long Miles, this was in Hampshire so was Basenstoke: here I lay at a” (naming it, while in Basingstoke) |
| Herefordshire | “When we had gone 7 mile, at a Little Parish, you Enter out of Worcester into Herriffordshire and soe 7 mile ffarther to Stretton Grandsorm and new house, my Cos’n Fiennes’s. This is the worst way” (entering the county, at Stretton Grandison) |
| Hertfordshire | “Thence to S^t Albans and so we Enter Hartfordshire 12 mile. There is a very large streete to the Market place, its a pretty Large town takeing all the S^t Juliers and y^t at one End, and y^e other End is S^t Nicholas where is a handsome Church.” (entering the county, at St Albans) |
| Huntingdonshire | “The road is very pleasant to Ffenistanton, 8 miles to Godmanchester, and from thence Huntington 1 mile. We cross the River Lin over a bridge and so Enter Huntingtonshire. This river goes to Lin in Norfolke its a very pleasant Country to travel in in y^e” (entering the county, at Godmanchester and Huntingdon) |
| Kent | “Here is a ferry over to Gravesend where we enter Kent, w^{ch} Lyes just over against it a little snugg town under a hill, the houses little and thick together fitt only for seamen and soldiers y^t are Employ’d in the water or the ffort.” (entering the county, at the Gravesend ferry) |
| Lancashire | “when I attained y^e top where is a great heap raised up w^{ch} parts Yorkshire—and there I entred Lancashire—the mist began to Lessen, and as I descended on this side y^e ffog more and more went off and a Little raine fell tho’ at a Little” (entering the county, at Blackstone Edge) |
| Leicestershire | “Leicester town stands on the Side of a little riseing Ground, tho’ at a distance from y^e adjacent hills it Looks Low, but its a good prospect. It has 4 gates, y^e streetes are pretty Large and well pitch’d, there are five parishes; the” (the town: Leicester) |
| Lincolnshire | “Thence to Colson where Lincolnshire Comes in; 2 mile thence towards Lincoln we go on a fine Champion Country much Like Salisbury plaine, and a Large prospect all round—at a distance you See woods and towns. This is the best part of” (entering the county, at Colsterworth) |
| Middlesex | “I passed the end of Wanstead and Clapham and part of Lambeth having Chealsey College in view and y^e whole Cittys of Westminster and London so thro’ Southwarke over London bridge into Middlesex 10 mile in all from Kingston—this Little journey was 220 mile. Another journey into” (entering the county, at London Bridge) |
| Monmouthshire | The name appears twice: once as the source of the Severn, once for the Duke of Monmouth. Nothing puts her there. |
| Norfolk | “At y^e towns End one passes over the river Waveny on a wooden bridg railed w^{th} timber and so you Enter into Norfolk: its a Low flatt ground all here about, so that the Least raines they are overflowed by y^e River and Lye under water as they did when” (entering the county, at the Waveney) |
| Northamptonshire | “Thence we went to Daventry 3 miles, a pretty large Market town and good houses all of stone and so we Enter into Northamptonshire. To Northampton town is 8 mile w^{ch} opens a noble prospect to y^e sight a mile distant, a large town” (entering the county, at Daventry and Northampton) |
| Northumberland | “At Muneks Hall I Cross’d such another brooke and so out of Cumberland I Entred Northumberland. This is y^e place y^e judges Dine, its a sorry place for Entertainement of such a Company; here the Sherriffs meete them, it being the Entrance of Northumberland w^{ch} is much Like” (entering the county, at Monkshall) |
| Nottinghamshire | “At this we Enter Nottinghamshire and here I met w^{th} the strongest and best Nottingham ale that Looked very pale but Exceeding Clear. Thence to Nottingham town, its 12 mile more and we ffery’d over the Trent w^{ch} in some places is so deep, but waggons and horses ffords it.” (entering the county, at Newark and Nottingham) |
| Oxfordshire | “from thence I went to Laighton Buserd and thence to Whinslow about 12 mile—this is in Buckinghamshire—thence to Broughton in Oxfordshire 17 mile, and staid a weeke and then returned through oxfford Citty 18 mile, and so to London 48 mile more. _A FURTHER” (naming it, while in Broughton and Oxford) |
| Rutland | “From thence we went to Streton 6 mile, a Little house of one Mr Horsman; very good Plantations of trees about it—Stone building. Rutlandshire seems more woody and Inclosed than some others. Thence to Colson where Lincolnshire Comes in; 2 mile thence” (naming it, while in Stretton) |
| Shropshire | “I passed over a Little brooke a mile before I Came to WhitChurch w^{ch} Entred me into Shropshire. This is a Large market town, here are two very fine gardens, one belongs to an apothecary, full of all fruites and greens; y^e other was at y^e Crown jnn” (entering the county, at Whitchurch) |
| Somerset | “On Landsdon hill Summersetshire begins w^{ch} is a very pleasant hill for to Ride on for aire and prospect; I went 3 mile over it w^{ch} Leads to y^e Bath down a vast steep descent of a stony narrow way as is all y^e wayes down” (entering the county, at Lansdown, above Bath) |
| Staffordshire | “From hence to Stafford town is 5 mile—you go by y^e banck of y^e Trent most of y^e way and passing over two Rivers on stone bridges, Called y^e Sore and the Pink w^{ch} both Empt themselves into y^e Trent and so Enter y^e town through a” (the town: Stafford) |
| Suffolk | “At this place I passed over a wooden bridge, pretty Large, w^{th} timber railes of w^{ch} make they build their bridges in these parts; and now I go into Suffolk w^{ch} is not so rich Land as y^e part of Essex I passed through, w^{ch} was meadows and grounds w^{th}” (entering the county, at the road to Ipswich) |
| Surrey | “from whence I went to Dorken in Surry 15 mile, where are y^e best trouts in y^e river w^{ch} runns by Box hill a Remarkable diversion to people that go to Epsum. The hill is full of box w^{ch} is Cutt out in severall walks” (naming it, while in Dorking and Box Hill) |
| Sussex | “Thence I entered into Sussex and soe Chichester, w^{ch} is 12 miles. This is but a Little Citty Encompass’d with a wall w^{th} 4 gates which Casts the two streetes directly across each other and so Lookes through from Gate to Gate, one Streete” (entering the county, at Chichester) |
| Warwickshire | “We ascended a very steep hill to take a view of y^e Country and so Could see Coventry, and were just by Hillingworth Castle on y^e Right hand—much of y^e Ruines of y^e walls remaine still—and so Enter Warwickshire. The town of” (entering the county, at Kenilworth and Warwick) |
| Westmorland | “Thence I went to Kendall in Westmoreland over steepe stony hills all like Rocks, 6 miles to one Lady Middleton, and by some Gentlemen w^{ch} were travelling that way that was their acquaintance, had the advantage of going through her parke, and saved the going Round a” (naming it, while in Kendal) |
| Wiltshire | “thence to Salisbury 18 mile. When I had passed 6 mile I Came through a Gate w^{ch} brought me into Wiltshire and soe over y^e downs to Salisbury and from thence to Newtontony 7 miles. I went from Newtontony to” (entering the county, at Salisbury and Newton Tony) |
| Worcestershire | “We entered Worcester town next day just as y^e Cerimony of the Election was performing, and soe they Declared it in favour of M^r Welsh and S^r John Packington. 4 mile more to this town—from broad water in all is 11 mile. Worcester town” (the town: Worcester) |
| Yorkshire | “thence to DonCaster 6 miles—here Yorkshire beginns and here the Musick wellcom’d us into Yorkshire. DonCaster is a pretty Large town of Stone buildings, the streetes are good, there is a handsome Market Cross advanc’d on 20 steps at Least. The Church is neate and pretty Large, Severall Little Monuments.” (entering the county, at Doncaster) |

Where the note says “entering”, she names the county herself as she crosses the boundary. Where it says “while in”, she names it on the road. Where it says “the town”, she does not name the county, but the town she is describing is in it. Her own county labels are sometimes wrong — she puts Lyme Regis in Somerset and Peterborough in Lincolnshire — so a county name alone is not proof; the anchoring town has to be right as well.

## Her miles and our kilometres

She added up her miles at the end of each summer. Her mile is not the statute mile: she says so herself, “many of them Long miles”, and complains that a northern mile runs twice a London one.

| Journey | When | As she counts it | The line on the map |
| --- | --- | --- | ---: |
| Home and Bath | undated, the 1680s and 1690s | She keeps no sum of miles on these | 440 |
| The south coast | undated, before 1697 | She keeps no sum of miles here either | 660 |
| The north, 1697 | May to July 1697 | “in 7 weeks tyme about 635 miles that we went together” | 1,080 |
| Kent, 1697 | autumn 1697 | “w^{ch} I Compleated in 5 days, and went 184 miles” | 480 |
| The east, 1698 | summer 1698 | The first part of the summer's “above 1551 miles” | 580 |
| The north, 1698 | summer 1698 | The second part of the same summer | 660 |
| The west and Cornwall | summer and autumn 1698 | “it was in all above 1551 miles and many of them Long miles” | 1,100 |

The right-hand column is the length of the drawn line: the great-circle distance from one stop to the next, 5,000 kilometres in all, of which 4,820 kilometres lie on segments her text gives in order. It is a floor, because no road runs straight.

The comparison that falls out is more interesting than either number alone. She counts the 1697 journey at 635 miles, 1,022 kilometres at the statute mile, and the line on the map measures 1,082. She counts the summer of 1698 at above 1,551 miles, 2,496 kilometres, and its three chapters together measure 2,342. Her long miles and our straight lines very nearly cancel each other out.

## How this page was made

Every quotation comes from the 1888 edition, in the Project Gutenberg transcription. Each one is cut out of the source file by a program rather than copied by hand, and the build check fails if any of them no longer matches that file word for word.

The order of the stops is read from her narrative, not from the alphabetical place-list the 1888 editor appended; that list is not an itinerary. The coordinates of the 187 places drawn are read from the matching English Wikipedia articles. The county of each stop is computed from polygons, and the check fails if a stop falls outside the county its data claims.

Emily W. Griffiths's 1888 introduction says “The only actual date mentioned is 1695”, while the journal itself carries the heading “HERE BEGINS MY NORTHERN JOURNEY IN MAY 1697”. Where the editor and the author disagree, this page follows the author.

What this page does not say: she was not alone — she had one or two servants, and of 1697 she writes “we went together”; she never claims to have reached every county, and titles the journal “many journeys into most parts of England”; and there is no evidence that she was the first Englishwoman to do any of it. The *Dictionary of National Biography* of 1885–1900 has no entry for her at all.

### The text

- [Celia Fiennes, *Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary*, edited by the Hon. Mrs Griffiths, London, Field & Tuer, 1888 — the Project Gutenberg transcription, ebook 72156, the only edition of the journal in the public domain](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72156)
- Christopher Morris, *The Journeys of Celia Fiennes*, London, 1947, the fuller modern edition. It is in copyright and was not used: no quotation and no number on this page comes from it.

### About her

- [The English Wikipedia article *Celia Fiennes*, read on 18 September 2026, for the dates of her life and for its own cited sources](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celia_Fiennes)
- [The *Dictionary of National Biography*, 1885–1900. It has no entry for her; she was published only in the *DNB Missing Persons* volume of 1993 and in the *Oxford DNB* of 2004.](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900)

### The map

- [The historic counties: Ancient Counties (December 1921) EW BGC, Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal. Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2021.](https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/)
- [Coastline, rivers and lakes: Natural Earth, 1:10 million, public domain](https://www.naturalearthdata.com/)
- [The hillshading: ETOPO 2022 v1, NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, resampled to 30 arc-seconds](https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/etopo-global-relief-model)
- [The coordinates of the {stops} places drawn are read from the matching English Wikipedia articles through the MediaWiki interface](https://www.wikidata.org/)

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A page by [Marius Comper](https://mariuscomper.uk/en/) · https://mariuscomper.uk/celia-fiennes/en/