Conditions of carriage

Horse-drawn carriages might often be portrayed as the most genteel and romantic form of transport, but, in their heyday, they frequently left passengers feeling nauseous and uneasy, says Charles Harris

- Charles Harris

I KNOW nothing more delightful than to sit behind two perfectly broken horses or ponies, going well together and well in hand, passing rapidly through the air,’ wrote Lady Georgiana Curzon in 1888. It was not always so. Imagine you woke one morning in 1750 (the year the Jockey Club was founded and Bach died) and felt like going out. At that time, country roads were vestigial and dangerous and urban streets deep in mud and filth. What then? In London, you could call a sedan chair, patented in 1634 by Sir Sanders Duncombe (to the annoyance of the watermen), or perhaps a brouette—a wheeled cabin pulled by one man —or hail a yellow, four-wheeled hackney carriage. There were private vehicles, too, and your bright matutinal mood might prompt a call for your own in which to jostle with the traffic—perhaps an early caleche, a small coach with a collapsible top.

In the century between 1750 and 1850, choice became bewildering. The 8th Duke of Beaufort, a keen amateur coachman, mentioned more than 30 different types of carriage in his 1889 book Driving. Some with two wheels—gig, curricle, cabriolet, chaise, whisky, hansom or sulky (because no room for a passenger)—and some with four: fly, phaeton, sociable (with extra room), britzschka, caleche, barouche, brougham and landau. Between one and four horses might be used. Did you want a roof or folding hood, for weather protection or privacy? Did you value speed, style, comfort, practicality or safety? Should the driver be at the front or back? Would you employ a driver or postilion—or drive yourself? All was possible.