THE " OLD BELL" 7,1, 



was sold for £11, GOO, tiiid the liouse demolished, at 

 the close of 1897, although its structural stability was 

 unquestioned, and the place a favourite dining and 

 luuclieon house. Twenty-one coaches left that old 

 house daily in the full flush of the coaching age ; 

 amonof them two Cheltenham coaches, the coaches to 

 Faringdon, and Abingdon, Oxford, Woodstock, and 

 Blenheim, all of which went by the Bath Road so 

 far as Maidenhead, where they branched off via 

 Henley. In addition, there was the stage which ran 

 twice a day to Englefield Green, branching off at 

 Hounslow. The "Old Bell" could, indeed, claim the 

 credit of beino- the last actual coachino;-house in 

 London, for it is only a few years since the last 

 three-horsed omnibus was discontinued that ran be- 

 tween it and Amersham, in Bucks. When the 

 Metropolitan Railway extension reached that place, 

 the conveyance, of course, became quite unnecessary, 

 and the last remote echo of the genuine coaching age 

 died away. 



VI 



The Bath Road is measured from Hyde Park 

 Corner, and is a hundred and five miles and six 

 furlono-s in lenoth. The reasons for this beino- 

 reckoned as the starting-point of this great highway 

 are found in the fact that when coaches were in their 

 prime, Hyde Park Corner was at the very western 

 verge of London. Early in the eighteenth century 

 Londoners would have considered it in the country ; 



