The West Country

It was not a safe or easy journey and the fast and famous mail coaches were more liable to accidents than those whose owners prided themselves less on keeping to their schedules. The roads of England were made by the Romans and had been neglected for 1,500 years. Towards the end of the eighteenth century efforts were made all over the country to improve them, but towns and villages were reluctant to give much labour and even the levies raised by the introduction of toll gates did not entirely solve the problem. With the increase of trade early in the nineteenth century, communications had to be improved. Not only coaches but wagon-loads of goods had to be able to pass from Manchester (known as Cottonopolis) to London or from London to Southampton. The gentry wanted to go to fashionable Bath and 22 coaches made the run daily. Among them was the Comet, which can still be seen in Dodington Carriage Museum, near Chipping Sodbury, Avon. This was a crack coach, which travelled to Bath via Marlborough and then on to Bristol.