Coach road

“ Road travelling is as much a thing of the past as "pigtails," and if it were not for the few coaches running in the summer from Hatchett's and other places in London, the shape of such a thing would be forgotten by most people. As it is, those give but a slight notion of what a long coach used to look like when commencing its journey of 150 or 200 miles. ”

“ The coach was one of the vehicles of the new fashion—the fashion of public conveyances driven, for the entertainment of themselves and of the public, by gentlemen of leisure. On the Derby day all the coaches that start from the classic headquarters—the "White Horse," in Piccadilly—and stretch away from London toward a dozen different and well-selected goals, had been dedicated to the Epsom road. The body of the vehicle is empty, as no one thinks of occupying any but one of the thirteen places on the top. ”

“ One is, that an old-fashioned coach, perfectly noiseless, drawn by horses through which you can see the moonlight, haunts the highroad at intervals and flies through the gloomy forest road we have christened of late years Lost Man's Lane. ”

“ The stage-coach passengers sat glum and nervous,—each suspecting his fellow,—with their money in their boots, their watches in the lining of [Pg 70] their hats, and other light valuables secreted in unlikely parts of their persons, in the fond hope that the fine fellow, mounted on a mettlesome horse, and bristling with weapons, who would presently bring the coach to a stop in some gloomy bend of the road, might be either too unpractised or in too great a hurry to think of those very obvious hiding-places. ”

“ The “classic” age had not arrived, and bad roads, ill-made coaches, and poor horses, combined with long hours of driving to render travelling quite dangerous enough, without the highwaymen’s aid. Coachmen drove long distances in those days, and sometimes fell asleep from sheer weariness—a failing which did not conduce to the safety of the passengers. But the old coach-proprietors did not do the obvious thing—make the stages shorter and change the coachman more frequently. ”

“ Every man that horsed a coach, seeing now was the shearing time for the public, ere the now building railway was opened, strove to make as much as possible ere he closed his yards, sold his stock, broke his coach up for firewood, and took himself off the road. ”

“ Behind their prosperous-looking fronts are the vast stable-yards, approached from the High Street by yawning archways that “once upon a time” admitted the coaches, and whence issued the carriages and post-chaises of a by-gone day; now echoing with the rumble of the omnibus that plies between the town and the railway-station, laden chiefly with the sample-boxes of enterprising bagmen. But in that “once upon a time,” whose chronology finally determined and came to an end in the ’40’s, there was a superabundance of coach traffic here. ”

“ It is a pretty sight to see a team of coach horses at a roadside change prepared and turned round, each one listening anxiously for the horn which proclaims the arrival of the coach, and the commencement for them of a ten-mile stage, which may have to be done perhaps in fifty-two minutes, with a heavy load, woolly roads, and the wind behind. ”

“ This unbounded admiration and approval do not at all deteriorate from the merits of the well-appointed four-horse coaches leaving Piccadilly every morning (Sundays excepted) , as there is as much difference between a stage-coach and a four-in-hand as there is between a mirror and a mopstick.
Horses for a road-coach should have sufficient breeding to insure that courage and endurance which enable them to travel with ease to themselves at the pace required, and if they are all of one class, or, as old Jack Peer used to say, “all of a mind,” the work is reduced to a minimum. ”

“ A little way on, down the Borough High Street, the coachman was obliged to suddenly pull up the horses to avoid running over a gentleman on horseback, whose horse had bolted into the middle of the road. The sudden strain on the pole, already, it seems, splintered in the affair with the dray, broke it off. It fell, and became entangled with the legs of the wheelers, who became so restive and infuriated that attempts were made to put on the skid; but before that could be done the coach overturned. ”

“ To revert to the subject of Irish coaching which, as I have said before, was of the wildest and most primitive description, before the great mail contractor monopolised nearly every road in the country, conveying both mails and passengers on cars in a manner much better suited to the taste and habits of the people.
What the original coaches lacked in neatness they made up in pace. It was no uncommon thing to see a team brought out to attach to a coach, one blinded with a rubber, two with twitches on their noses, and the fourth having his leg tied up till the moment of departure. ”

“ There was not too much physical exertion, endurance, or skill required on the road to Brighton, which was only fifty-two miles in length, and already possessed a better surface than most roads out of London; and, moreover, it was a road peopled from beginning to end with fashionables, before whom the gentleman-coachman could display his prowess. It was then pretty generally recognised that coach-driving was a poor sport if the ease and grace of the performer could not be displayed before a large and fashionable audience. ”

“ You look down the long perspective of Oxford Street, the gas-lights mournfully reflected on the wet pavement, and can discern no speck in the road to encourage the belief that there is a cab or a coach to be had—the very coachmen have gone home in despair.329 The cold sleet is drizzling down with that gentle regularity which betokens a duration of four-and-twenty hours at least ”

“ It would kill a man in a week to drive as far as I do, if he did not do as I say.”
186 When it became clear to coach-proprietors that a coachman could drive a longer distance when his body was not racked so intolerably, they provided springs, and risked the remote chance of coachmen going to sleep on the box.
Another reform, humane to the horses and directly productive of increased speed and efficiency on the road, was the introduction of shorter stages. ”

“ We do not stop to inquire if the coach was built in Oxford Street, Park Street, Piccadilly, or Long Acre; whether the harness was made by Merry or Gibson; whether the team had [Pg 8] cost a thousand guineas or two hundred pounds, but we say that the display of the whole stands unequalled and unrivalled by the rest of the world. ”

“ PARK DRAG Body painted dark olive green, green gear. Interior trimming is in green leather; exterior trimming is in tan cord.
The park drag resembles the road coach but is a lighter vehicle and is intended for four-in-hand driving by the owner-coachman for his own amusement and that of his friends.
The Coaching Club of New York each year sponsored Meets for their members. Sometimes these drives occupied an hour or so and the coaches returned to point of departure and there separated; on other occasions the coaches went to some out-of-town place for lunch or dinner and returned independently. ”

“ The London "'bus men" do have their pole chains very slack, and they are right, because their horses are continually falling upon the slippery streets, and it gives them room to struggle and get up again with little danger of breaking the pole; but this does not apply to road work, and there, if the pace is very fast, it is dangerous from its tendency to make the coach rock.
I am always puzzled when I see coachmen driving with the present fashion of long coupling reins. What good can they see in them? Here again the 'bus men, who I suppose set the example, have reason on their side. ”

“ All these vehicles were low hung, for the heavy body, slung by massive leather braces from the upright posts springing from the axletrees of front and hind wheels, was too responsive to any and every rut and irregularity of the road to be placed at the height to which the coaches of a century later attained.
In the excessive jolting then incidental to travelling, the body of a coach swayed laterally to such an extent that it would often swing, in the manner of a pendulum, quite clear of the underworks. ”

“ The old man’s knowledge of the requirements necessary to make both man and horse comfortable, acquired for him a just reputation, and tourists (especially with their own horses) frequently made the Coach and Horses their headquarters from which to make expeditions into the country. Two fast coaches changed horses, up and down, daily, serving as antidotes to the usual dulness of a country inn.
Some years ago I was making a “drag-tour” through that part of the country, and, one of my wheelers having picked up a nail, I was compelled to halt for some days at the Coach and Horses. ”

“ It goes round the spurs of hills staggering fearfully, and makes us, who are two only, stagger as bad as the road and worse. There are two ways to arrange for traveling safely over rough regions: one is to make the road good, the other to make the coach strong. They prefer the latter course here, or rather the diligence company do that for the preservation of their custom and coaches. So you have no fears, how much soever you are knocked about, that the coach will be knocked to pieces. It is made to stand, and it will stand. ”

“ Coming down the hill from the Green Man the horses became restive, the coachman lost his command, and immediately the whole set off at full speed. In turning a corner the coach upset, being heavily laden outside. Out of sixteen persons only one escaped without a leg or arm broken, and four are not expected to survive. The coach was literally dashed to pieces. The inside passengers were more lacerated than those outside, owing to the coach being shattered to pieces and their being dragged along the road for fifty yards. But little hopes are entertained of a Major M'Leod—a very fine young man ”

“ Coachmen were of somewhat similar opinions. “Lord! sir,” said Hine, coach-proprietor and coachman on the Brighton Road, in 1831, who was, much against his will, obliged to accelerate his coaches in order to keep pace with newcomers, but did not relish the necessity, “we don’t travel half so comfortably now as we used to do. It is all hurry and bustle nowadays, sir—no time even for a pipe and glass of grog.” Not comfortable for the coachmen, who sadly missed their wayside, and often wholly unauthorised, halts. ”

“ Another instance of the fascination of coach-driving is to be found in the case of “Old John,” who drove a pair-horse coach from Exeter to Teignmouth and back daily, a distance of forty miles, for a period of eighteen years, without [Pg 37] missing a single day. At last, being half-teazed, half-joked by his fellow-whips into taking a holiday, he reluctantly consented to do so. Being much at a loss how to spend “a happy day,” and enjoy his leisure to the full, he at length decided upon going to the coach-office and booking himself as a passenger on the opposition coach to Teignmouth and back. ”

“ If, however, with a heavy load, and upon a smooth hard road, a wheel must be locked, it should be that next a ditch, or other dangerous part. In going down hill, a coach always strikes on the side on which the wheel is not locked. The coachman should therefore keep as much as possible on that side of the road on which the wheel is locked: by crossing the road, if he meet or have to pass any thing, the coach will not strike; and by holding that way, at any time, it will prevent overturning. The coach naturally strikes in a direct line from the perch-bolt. ”

“ The Balloon was therefore a godsend to coach-proprietors who, in naming their conveyances after it, succeeded for a while in reviving an outworn figure of speed, and thus again suggested the idea of their coaches gracefully navigating the empyrean, rather than painfully staggering along the rutty roads.
The “Defiance” coaches bring us closer to the great Augustan era of smart coaches and great emulation along the road. The earliest coach of this name was put on the Leeds and Hull road in 1784, and became the parent of many more. ”

“ The rambler who, for old association or other reasons, should trace the forsaken coach-road running almost in a meridional line from Bristol to the south shore of England, would find himself during the latter half of his journey in the vicinity of some extensive woodlands, interspersed with apple-orchards. ”

“ The passenger booked by this history, was on the coach-step, getting in; the two other passengers were close behind him, and about to follow. He remained on the step, half in the coach and half out of; they remained in the road below him. They all looked from the coachman to the guard, and from the guard to the coachman, and listened. The coachman looked back and the guard looked back, and even the emphatic leader pricked up his ears and looked back, without contradicting. ”

“ With the introduction of this sporting and irresponsible element, racing between rival coaches—and not the mere conveying of passengers—became the real interest of the coachmen, and proprietors were obliged to issue notices to assure the timid that this form of rivalry would be discouraged. A slow coach, the “Life Preserver,” was even put on the road to win the support of old ladies and the timid, who, as the record of accidents tells us, did well to be timorous. ”

“ It pursues its route fairly enough, just as a coach from London to Brighton will get safely to its destination notwithstanding the fact that it has to swerve a little from its path whenever it meets other vehicles on the way, or when the coachman wishes to avoid a piece of the road on which stones have been freshly laid down. ”