A hundred years ago, everybody who had occasion for inland travelling was perforce obliged to use the road; that is, unless he preferred a canal boat or barge, and navigable waters lay in the desired direction. Rich people travelled in their private carriage with four horses which were changed every few miles at the posting-houses. Those without means had to content themselves with carriers’ carts or the stage broad-wheeled waggons; a few resorted to dog-carts, then a tiny four-wheeled contrivance actually drawn by dogs. But the great majority of passengers were conveyed in the coaches or mails. In 1825 it was calculated that no less than 10,000 persons were daily on the road in mail-coaches, so closely timed that if a driver were to be ten minutes late in arriving at an important centre many corresponding services would be seriously upset. The average speed, allowing for changing horses, was about ten miles an hour on the fast day coaches.
All this vast organisation had grown up since the time of Queen Elizabeth, when the coach was introduced from France by Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel. Only in her old age would this queen leave her horse for the effeminate conveyance, and the Judges continued to ride on horseback to Westminster Hall, almost until the Restoration. In the year 1672, when there were only six stage-coaches in daily running, a Mr. John Cresset, of the Charterhouse, published a pamphlet urging their suppression on the ground that “These stage-coaches make gentlemen come to London on every small occasion, which otherwise they would not do, but upon urgent necessity; nay the convenience of the passage makes their wives often come up, who rather than come such long journeys on horseback would stay at home. Then, when they come to town, they must presently be in the mode, get fine clothes, go to plays and treats, and by these means get such a habit of idleness and love of pleasure, as to make them uneasy ever after.”
The coaches started on their journey each morning and evening from great inn yards surrounded by tiers of galleries one above the other. Sometimes, as at the Bull and Mouth in St. Martins le Grand, or the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane, there were four stories of these galleries. It is not easy to trace the various steps by which the plan of the coaching inn was evolved from the “corrall” of migrating tribes, who when resting for the night arranged their waggons in a hollow square, with their cattle in the centre. But the idea underlying the coaching inn was a species of fortress entered only by the great archway with massive doors strongly barred at closing time. The bedchambers of the guests all opened into the galleries overlooking the yard. When an alarm was raised each owner of waggons or cattle in the yard could at once hurry out to the defence of his property. Later on, the traveller would be bound to hear the note of the guard’s horn, warning him that the coach in which he had booked a place was preparing to start.
“Heads, heads,—take care of your heads!” is the cry as the Pickwick Club pass on the top of the Rochester coach through the low inn archway. “Terrible place—dangerous work—other day—five children—mother—tall lady eating sandwiches—forgot the arch—crash—knock—children look round—mother’s head off—sandwich in her hand—no mouth to put it in—head of a family off—shocking, shocking!” And it was no invention of the ingenious Mr. Jingle—for the accident actually happened at the White Hart at St. Albans.
Yard of White Hart, St. Albans
Just as the coaching system had reached its highest perfection, the railway came and the coach vanished—more suddenly than the horse vehicle has disappeared from the Strand with the advent of the taxi-cab and motor omnibus. The landlord of the coaching inn and the posting-house found his occupation gone almost as abruptly as the guard and driver. Gone are all the coaching inns of London, although their names survive as receiving offices of the railway carriers. In country towns on the main roads, like Sittingbourne or Godalming, huge forlorn wrecks present their face to the roads converted into shops or tenements. Some of them continue to maintain a precarious existence in country villages like Buckden in Huntingdonshire, scarcely visited by the traveller of to-day, whereas seventy years ago their vast size was often insufficient to accommodate the daily arrivals of guests. They linger on in the hope that motorists may bring them a new popularity. Others, tired of empty rooms and dwindling local trade have retired into private life. At Caxton, on the old North Road, the George, a very large inn of a lonely country village, is now a comfortable private residence, and the old gateway arch would hardly be recognized in the French window opening on the front garden.
Coach Gallery at the Bull, Long Melford
Gone are the old galleried yards. We do not know of one complete instance, except the little disused Coach and Horses in York Street, Westminster, which is neither large nor beautiful. Fragments of galleries exist at the old George Inn in the Borough, where they are in several stories; at the George at Huntingdon; the Golden Lion at St. Ives, and the New Inn at Gloucester; but the finest remaining gallery is at the Bull at Dartford. The Bull at Long Melford owns a glazed gallery, running along the side of the yard next the inn, said to have served to facilitate the loading of luggage on the coaches.