My reminiscences of Hatchett's are of the later revivals of road coaches; the days of old "Jim" Selby, the famous coachman who, though everybody called him "old," died a comparatively young man. His grey hair and his jolly, fat, rosy face gave him an appearance of being older than he really was. Those were the days when the late Lord Londesborough and Captain Hargreaves, Mr Walter Shoolbred, Captain Beckett, Baron Oppenheim and Mr Edwin Fownes were well-known whips, and when "Hughie" Drummond, and the host of other good fellows and lively customers in whose veins the red blood flowed in a lively current, who drank old port and despised early hours, were the men about town. "Hughie" Drummond taking old "Jim" Selby out to dinner after the arrival of the "Old Times" from Brighton and changing hats with him, which generally took place early in the evening, is one of my remembrances of Hatchett's. And many a time have I split a pint with "Dickie-the-Driver," the oldest in standing amongst my friends, then not the least lively of the young fellows, before climbing up on to the coach at Hatchett's to go down to the Derby. For many years eight of us, always the same men, went down by coach from Hatchett's on Derby Day, always with "Dickie" driving out of London and the last stage on to the downs, and our gallop down and up the hill on the course was a really breakneck performance.
It was from Hatchett's that "Jim" Selby started on his celebrated drive with the Brighton coach, "Old Times," to Brighton and back, for a wager of a thousand pounds to five hundred against his accomplishing the journey in eight hours. On the coach were: Selby himself, driving; Captain Beckett, whom we all called "Partner"; Mr Carleton Blyth, who still sends yearly from Bude his greeting of "Cheero" to his old friends; Mr "Swish" Broadwood, Mr "Bob" Cosier, Mr A. F. M'Adam, and the guard. Harrington Bird's picture of the coach during the galloping stage, with the horses going at racing pace, gives an idea of how Selby drove on that day when he had a clear road. The coach reached the "Old Sip" at Brighton, having done the first half of the journey in just under four hours; stayed there only long enough to turn the coach round and to read a telegram from the old Duke of Beaufort, who was most keenly interested in the revival of coaching, and who was a very good man himself on the box seat—and then started again for London, reaching the White Horse Cellars ten minutes under the stipulated time and forty minutes within the record. I was one of the men amongst the crowd that gathered to see the return of the coach and to cheer old "Jim" Selby, who brought his last team in no more distressed than they would have been doing their journey under ordinary circumstances. How highly respected Selby was by all coaching men was shown by the long string of stage-coaches, every coach on the road having suspended its usual journey, which followed his body to the grave.
In those days the bill of fare at Hatchett's was roast beef or boiled mutton and trimmings; duck and green peas, or fowl and bath-chap. There was an inner sanctuary then called "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which was the bar parlour, into which only the most favoured patrons of the house were admitted, and Miss Wills, the manageress, used to keep any unruly spirits very much in order.
When Hatchett's was rebuilt and changed its name it changed hands very frequently, though the White Horse Cellars always remained a restaurant. The Cercle de Luxe, a dining club, at one time occupied the upper floors of the building, and then it became the Avondale Hotel, with M. Garin as manager and M. Dutruz as chef. Since then the rooms have been put to many uses, and are now, I see, once again in the market.
It is the memory of what Hatchett's and the White Horse Cellars have been in their old days—memories that haunt me like the sound of a horn afar off on one of the great roads—that makes me disinclined nowadays to eat a French dinner in what was a home of good English fare; and whenever I lunch or dine in the White Horse Cellars to-day I always, for the sake of old times, order a plate of soup, a mixed grill and a scoop from the cheese. The three-and-sixpenny dinner of to-day is, I have no doubt, a good one, and Mr Stump, the present manager, is most courteous and anxious to oblige. I look at the menu when I am in the restaurant, but for the old sake's sake I keep as close to the meals of old days as the resources of the establishment allow me to do.
The White Horse Cellars of to-day is a modern, up-to-date restaurant, below the level of the ground, though the ventilation is so excellent and the lighting arrangements so good that one never has the sensation of being in a cellar. Half-way down the staircase, just where the little picture gallery commences, a door leads into a buffet. One's great-coat and hat are taken at the bottom of the stairs, and then one enters quite a lofty room with a groined roof, and with cosy nooks and various extensions of the bigger room, which, I fancy, have been thrown out under the side-walk above. The walls of the restaurant are of cream colour; the ornamentation is in the style of Adams, and there is deep rose colour in the arches of the roof. Many mirrors reflect the vistas and give the rooms the appearance of being more extensive than they really are: a string band is perched up in a little gallery; there are palms here and there, and a bronze galloping horse in a recess does something to recall the old horsy days of Hatchett's.
There are many little tables, each with its pink-shaded lamp, in this restaurant, and it has a chic clientele, the "Nuts" of to-day appearing to patronise it just as much as the bucks and the bloods, the swells, and the "whips" of the last two generations used to. I see pretty actresses sometimes dining at Hatchett's, and it is a very cheerful restaurant in which to take a meal. It is, I believe, always crowded at supper-time, and the Glorias, the two excellent dancers who appear earlier in the evening on the Empire stage, dance the Tango, at midnight, in and out of the little tables.
But to me the charm of the White Horse Cellars is that I can live again in memory, when lunching or dining there, those joyous days of youth and fresh air, when a jolly coach-load used to start from before its door for a day of delight in sitting behind good horses driven by a good whip, listening to the music of the shod hooves and the guard's horn, receiving a greeting from everyone along the road, and feeling that no king on a throne is happier than a man riding behind a picked team on a good coach. Motor cars have their uses and their pleasures, but they seem to have killed the fuller-blooded joys that came with coaching.