The old roads were alive with multifarious travellers, and in 1911, an old contributor to a Worcester paper looked back with nostalgia:
'The cycle and the motor car have in some measure restored life to our highways, but our modern vehicles cannot invest the roads with the particoloured charm which they once possessed. Journeying and marketing and trade are necessities now as they were of old and the only difference is the lines on which they proceed. The country squire no longer goes to London in his family coach, with coachman in bright attire on the box. The High Sheriff and his javelin men do not meet Her Majesty's Judge on the City border. The coach and four does not break upon the quiteude of the village with the guard's sonorous note. The village carrier's cart is still with us, but the heavy wain, which, protected by a powerful dog, carring folk and heavy goods between large towns, has long disappeared. The packhorse does not bring salt from Droitwich, or take fish to Malvern. The pillioned pony, with mistress riding home from market cannot be seen even in the Northern Dales. The small Welsh farmer does not drive his flock of turkeys through the Herefordshire lanes in the hope of getting a better market for them in Worcester, or elsewhere than his own market town. Military companies may march from one centre to another, but uniforms are drab and changes have reduced the length and number of marches'.
