On Sunday week Mrs Joseph Anscombe, Bates and Thomas Norris, Jnr, were proceeding to Newick in a basket chaise, for which the horse was too tall and a trap too low, and the shafts, besides, too short.

They had three runaway concerns in consequence, going downhill. In the first they broke the reins , but made this right turn after a time. In the second the wicker 'machine' was overturned, and Mr Norris fractured his shoulder. Mr Bates received severe contusions on the hands and face, and Mr Anscombe a dos a dos abrasion.

The third was less serious to life or limb, as they were all on foot; but the horse bolted again, smashed the chaise against a fence, parted the wheels and body, and, arriving at Newick, ran up to the Bull Inn and was secured.

The gentleman afterwards returned home in a hired and more secure trap, and on Thursday the remains of the basket chaise was sent to Cuckfield, very much dilapidated.

Source

Sussex Advertiser - Saturday 22 June 1867

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000257/18670622/004/0002

Illustration

Thomas Rowlandson, The Runaway Coach, ca 1791, courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:47407

Thomas Rowlandson, 1756–1827, British, The Runaway Coach, ca. 1791, Watercolor, pen and black ink, gray ink, and graphite on moderately thick, moderately textured, cream, wove paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B2001.2.1156 Public domain image.