] The locals could probably not even tell you how far it was in distance or time. Since they had no watches. How did people measure time? By looking at the sun probably.

Well, these are just guesses (on a break from work too). Villagers had a church in their village or nearby. The church bells would ring at certain times, and between the distinctive rings (particular bells, number of rings, whatever) and the position of the sun, a villager could probably figure out whether it was mid-morning or later in the day. There was the sun too (except on days where there was no sun). I expect that between the two - the bells and the sun - most villagers could tell the time reasonably accurately (to within an hour or so).

In London and other large towns, there were the watchmen, of course at night.

[See Linden's message January 25, 2002
I have cantered around town sans watch (broken or forgotten under my pillow) and while I have had to stop and ask for the time on occasion - to check on a particular bus or something - I have generally been reasonably accurate to within the hour when the sun was up. And I am not a particularly good keeper of time without my watch....

And a post on >modern church bells.

There isn't a lot in the archives about how ordinary people told time, as opposed to ships and the like.

Shinjinee