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This famous ride was immortalised by the poet William Cowper in
the early 1780s in a poem  entitled
“The Diverting History of John Gilpin”, showing how
he went further than he intended and came safe home again. According
to the poem, John and his family intended to go to the Bell at Edmonton
(not far from their home) to celebrate their 20 years of marriage.
The family were to go in a chaise and pair with John Gilpin following
on a horse borrowed from a friend. All went well until the horse
bolted and John with bottles of wine strapped to his back could
not stop it until in Ware, where its owner lived (Gilpin House).
As the horse flew past the Bell at Edmonton, John’s wife told
him he had arrived.
“But yet his horse was
not a whit,
Inclined to tarry there,
For why? his owner had a house
Full ten miles off, at Ware.”
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