GODALMING 289 



was driven by Chilman, by Dean, and by Scarlet in suc- 

 cession — names well known or remembered in Godalming. 

 It changed horses at Ripley. The horses rested there, and 

 brought the coach back to Godalming in the afternoon. 



Many of the long-distance coaches changed at Guild- 

 ford ; and ran through, or only deposited travellers, in 

 Godalming. After Godalming, the Portsmouth to London 

 coaches, which had already changed at Petersfield on the 

 way up, changed again, either at the 'Mariners' at Ripley, at 

 the ' White Lion ' at Cobham, or at the ' Bear ' at Esher. 



A midnight coach from London sometimes brought 

 gangs of convicts, chained together, bound for Portsmouth. 

 They stopped at the ' Red Lion,' where the men got down 

 and had something to eat, as Godalming is nearly half- 

 way between London and Portsmouth. Three miles to the 

 west, a milestone shows the same figure for mileage on 

 both faces of the stone. 



But oftener the convict coaches would drive into the large 

 yard of the ' King's Arms,' the gates would be closed, and the 

 armed guards would let their charges out for a short rest 

 and some food. These were gangs of prisoners for trans- 

 portation; Portsmouth being then the port of embarkation. 



If the old 'King's Arms' had kept a register of the 

 important people who passed a night, or who stopped 

 there for lunch or dinner, it would have included many 

 notable names — among them those of the allied sovereigns 

 early in the nineteenth century. 



In the Bodleian Library at Oxford is preserved the 



reckoning of the landlord of the ' King's Arms,' when Peter 



the Great and his suite — twenty in all — spent a day on 



the way to Portsmouth. 



2 o 



