Halloughton Hackneys
Home
About us
Message Board
The Birmingham to Shrewsbury Run
On Thursday 11th October the Monarch road coach, sign written as a coach on the old London to Holyhead road, left the Old Crown at Digbeth Birmingham. The Old Crown is a genuine old coaching inn and the Lord Mayor of Birmingham came to see us off. It was to our knowledge the first time a coach and horses had left Birmingham in at least 150 years.
After a warming punch we headed straight out into the heavy traffic of Britains second city.
Day 2 began early, as on Thursday, Rod, Chris and Paul shared the driving, and after 28 miles brought us to Wellington. We stayed in a genuine old coaching inn now renamed the Orleton Arms, but known to the weary travellers of yesteryear as The Falcon.
The Hackneys were as fresh as the day they had started after 70 miles
in three days no mean achievement, and a great testament to the breed.
The Monarch
The horses were magnificent anyone who says Hackneys are difficult to handle should have seen them totally ignoring the traffic. They coped with three lane islands, traffic lights, lorries you name it the only hint of a shy came when one of those revolving adverts decided to change as we were stood alongside it in a traffic jam. By lunchtime complete with the BBC who had come along for the ride we had made the racecourse at Wolverhampton where we had lunch. After 24 miles we finally reached our own stables, marking the end of day one.
Photo Gallery
Bill took the first two stages of the final day leaving Paul to take the ribbons for the final pull into Shrewsbury and the infamous Lion Hotel. Radio Shropshire had been keeping their listeners aware of our progress during the day, so there was a large crowd waiting to welcome a coach and four back to the busiest coaching inn outside of London, Paul was determined that we were going straight in under the old arch though one or two of us hoped that he had got the measurements correct. We flew under the arch
with only one hat being brushed and when the
Town Crier officially welcomed the “Monarch” to
Shrewsbury, there was not a dry eye in the house.
You are viewing the text version of this site.
To view the full version please install the Adobe Flash Player and ensure your web browser has JavaScript enabled.
Need help? check the requirements page.
