Bridget Flanagan, trustee of the Great Ouse Valley Trust, describes how coaching inns facilitated the stagecoach boom in Huntingdonshire.

Routes and roads naturally follow valleys, and here along the Great Ouse Valley in Huntingdonshire, we have one of the oldest routes.

Ermine Street, once a major Roman road between London and York left London via Royston and crossed the Great Ouse at Huntingdon.

(Image: Michael Humphrey)

The Great North Road travelling north via Stevenage (now the A1) was developed during the 17th century; it converged with Ermine Street (which then became known as the Old North Road) at Alconbury Hill.

Travel by road was vastly improved from the late 17th Century when turnpike trusts oversaw road repairs and maintenance – in return for the payment of tolls.

During the 18th Century, stagecoaches were introduced – so called because the teams of four or six horses were changed every 10 or 12 miles (‘stages’), which enabled travel for long distances at speed.

In 1754, the journey time for the London to Edinburgh mail coach was advertised as 10 days in summer, 12 days in winter. By 1832 the fastest journey was timetabled at an extraordinary 42 hours 23 minutes.

To achieve such speed, coaching inns along the route were developed. This involved considerable organisation, resources and 24-hour scheduling.

The inns were the equivalent of today’s motorway service stations. They needed to feed, stable and rest the unharnessed horses, and then provide a new team for the onward journey.

The passengers (as well as the drivers and guards) required meals, refreshments, and overnight accommodation if they were on a journey of several days.

At the height of stagecoach travel in the early 19th century, some 20 coaches a day passed through Eaton Socon. The coaching inns, and all their provisioning services, brought a boom of economic activity to both Huntingdon and St Neots.

Many of the old coaching inns remain – all with their large, gated archway which once lead to the courtyard and stabling.

They include: The George and The Lion at Buckden; The White Horse at Eaton Socon; The Falcon at St Neots; and The Fountain and The George at Huntingdon.