I90 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



house of call for the Uxbridge stages. It vanished 

 Ions a^o, and those who seek it will only find on 

 its site the Oxford Music Hall and Eestaurant — 

 bearing a different number, for the street was re- 

 numbered in 1881. The " Boar and Castle " was a 

 large, plain, stucco-fronted house, with its name 

 Avrit large across the front in raised letters. 



As for the " Old Bell," another of these start- 

 ing-points of the TJxl)ridge coaches, it was" pulled 

 down in 1897. It stood on the site of Gamage's, 

 in Holborn, opposite Petter Lane. Of another 

 Uxbridge house, the " Bull," a few doors away, 

 the sign, the figure of a ferocious black bull, very 

 properly chained and fastened by a secure girth, 

 still exists on the frontage, l)ut " Black Bull 

 Chambers," a set of grimy modern " model " 

 dwellings, noAV occupy the coach-yard. The " Bell 

 and Crown," afterwards "Bidler's," next Furnival's 

 Inn, has been swept away to help make room for 

 an extension of the Prudential Assurance Offices, 

 and the "New Inn," 52, Old Bailey, has given 

 place to warehouses and the premises of a firm 

 of wholesale ncAVsagents. Away westward, tlie 

 Uxbridge and other short stages called at the 

 " Green Man and Still," at the corner of Argyll 

 Street, Oxford Circus, and at the " Gloucester 

 Wareliouse," near Park Lane. The last-named 

 was rel)uilt forty years ago, l)ut the " Green Man 

 and Still " was only demolished in Pebruary 1901. 



The time taken over tlie eighteen miles 

 between the City and Uxbridge was three hours. 

 To Hichmond in 1821, when short stages ran 



