Why Rural Rides?

Rural Rides was the name given by William Cobbett to an account of his series of journeys on horseback across much of southern England in the years between 1821 and 1830. Cobbett was a countryman – he was born at Farnham in Surrey in 1763 and spent much of his life farming at Botley in Hampshire – as well as a leading radical newspaper publisher and politician. He was deeply distrustful of the findings of a government commission on agriculture, and decided to find out for himself the state of things in the countryside. His Rural Rides were the result. They first appeared as a series of reports in Cobbett's own periodical The Weekly Political Register and were later published as a book.

Cobbett particularly chose to go on horseback and to keep away from the main roads:

“my object was, not to see inns and turnpike-roads, but to see the country: to see the farmers at home, and to see the labourers in the fields; and to do this you must go either on foot or on horse-back. With a gig you cannot get about amongst bye-lanes and across fields, through bridleways and hunting-gates; and to tramp it is too slow, leaving the labour out of the question, and that is not a trifle.”

written at Chilworth,
near Guildford, Surrey
Wednesday, 25th September, 1822

If Cobbett were alive today and repeating his travels, I think he would have chosen to use a bike, for that would be the ideal way for him to see today's countryside. And although motorways and trunk roads with their service areas and Happy Eaters may have taken over from the turnpike-roads and their coaching inns, Cobbett would still recognise the quiet country lanes, the byways, and bridleways which he travelled then and which we travel now.

Cobbett's Rural Rides has been in print almost continuously since it was first published and a paperback version is available today. You can order the book by clicking on the link below. Richard Ingrams has recently written a very readable biography of Cobbett, The Life and Adventures of William Cobbett, which is available in both hardback and paperback. Click on the appropriate link below for details.

Updated: 22 October 2006