THE EXETER ROAD 



147 



tiful cathedral. I shall content myself however with 

 remarking that the town has been besieged more times 

 than I can remember ; that Perkin Warbeck, one of 

 the many claimants who troubled Henry VII.'s diges- 

 tion, was in 1497 led through the picturesque streets 

 clothed in chains as in a raiment ; and with that I shall 

 pass on to the inns of this terminus of the great western 

 road, and to the coaches and the great coachmen who 





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7'A(.' George Inn, Axminster. 



The Half Moon, Exeter. 



haunted them. For I have not yet touched upon 

 the coachmen on the Exeter road, and yet they were 

 mighty men in the land. 



The principal coaching inns at Exeter then were the 

 Old London, and the New London, and the Half Moon, 

 kept by a Mr. Stevens who immortalised himself by 

 putting on the celebrated Telegraph, which used to 

 leave Exeter at 6.30 A.M., breakfasted at Ilminster, 

 dined at Andovcr, and reached Hyde Park Corner at 



L 2 



