Transcriber’s Notes Hyphenation has been standardised. Footnotes were moved to the ends of the text they pertain to and numbered in one continuous sequence. [Illustration: GOING TO BURY FAIR. _From Engraving, A.D. 1750_.] EARLY CARRIAGES AND ROADS BY SIR WALTER GILBEY, Bart. ILLUSTRATED London VINTON & CO., Ltd., 9, NEW BRIDGE STREET, E.C. 1903 _The use of carriages, coaches and wheeled conveyances have had an intimate relationship with the social life of English people from an early period in history._ _Many instructive books have appeared on the subject of carriages generally, but these have been for the most part written by experts in the art of coach and carriage building._ _In this publication, attention has been given to the early history of wheeled conveyances in England and their development up to recent times._ [Illustration] _Elsenham Hall, Essex._ _April, 1903._ CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction 1 First Use of Wheeled Vehicles 2 Badness of Early Roads 3 Saxon Vehicles and Horse Litters 4 Continental Carriages in the 13th and 14th Centuries 8 Conveyances in Henry VI.’s Time 11 “Chariots” First Used on Great Occasions 12 First Use of Carriages: called Coaches 13 Coaches in France 15 Coaches First Used by Queen Elizabeth 16 Duke of Brunswick, 1588, Forbids Use of Coaches 20 The Stage Waggon 21 The Introduction of Springs 23 Steel Springs Introduced 24 The First Hackney Coaches 26 Excessive Number of Coaches in London 28 Hackney Carriages and the Thames Watermen 30 Hackney Carriages a Nuisance in London 32 Licensed Hackney Carriages 33 Coaches with “Boots” 35 Carriages in Hyde Park 38 Coach and Cart Racing 40 Regulations for Hackney Carriages 41 Pepys on Carriages 43 Glass Windows in Carriages 45 Improvements in Carriages 47 Pepys’ Private Carriage 50 Carriage Painting in Pepys’ Day 52 The First Stage Coaches 54 Objections Raised to Stage Coaches 56 Seventeenth Century High Roads 62 Hackney Cabs as a Source of Revenue 66 Manners of the Cabman 69