After last Friday’s piece on postage and sombre statements, I had a few questions regarding the concept of posting inns during the Regency. Remember posting of letters could be completed at posting inns, and mail bags could be exchanged at posting inns, etc. Posting letters locally in a village was also possible and addressed at the bottom. So here goes . . .

There is no set answer to this. Inns/hotels varied from country hedge taverns with a room or two to let through village inns through coaching inns to high-end London hotels like Grillon’s. Even the posting inns varied. Those close to London that served many mail and stage coach routes were large with enormous stables while those near the ends of the routes were much smaller. If one has ever stayed in period inns in England, he will discover the premises vary considerably. But coaching inns were only found along coaching routes. Other places would have inns if there was a need for overnight accommodations to suit merchants/peddlers. 

A Hedge Tavern might be described as [from a comment on the post Pubs of Wonderful London on Spitafields Life website] “…Other old words for what we now call a pub are: mug-house, cupping-house, victualling house, pot house, pot shop, peg-house, tippling-house, red lattice (from where the pub chain’s name Slug and Lettuce comes from – see this old post of mine), diversory (or deversary) and change-house (a Scottish word). A lust-house was a tavern with a beer garden (from the Dutch and German Lust meaning pleasure). A night-house was a tavern that stayed open all night, as did a night-cellar, which was usually a more disreputable establishment. A shoful was a lower-class tavern, and the prefix hedge-, as hedge-inn, hedge-tavern or hedge-alehouse was used contemptuously to mean ‘third-rate’….”

A post on Hops & Hosteiries, Stamford tells us tells us something about the inns about that area and what went on in each. “… At the turn of the 19^th century, Stamford stood in an ideal position on the Great North Road; virtually halfway between London and York. The waiting rooms in the George for coach passengers travelling north and south were named York and London. By coach and horses it was about sixteen hours to Stamford from the capital, the same to York. Mail and goods needed to be delivered too. Stamford was a natural stopping-off point for travellers and coaches to overnight. In the so-called golden age of coaching, the town would have been vibrant with travellers going up and down this key highway, as can be seen in the only Stamford Turner painting, disgorging outside the Bull and Swan. Dozens of coaches passed through each day, breaking their weary journey. Some travelled to and from local towns, others long distance. They had exotic names such as Tally Ho, High Flyer, Perseverance, and Red Rover. Passengers needed food and lodgings, so did coachmen and servants. Horses needed rest, hay and water. Wheels would need fixing, horseshoes replacing by blacksmiths, repairs to coaches and tackle.

“It is estimated 75% of the local population were involved in the coaching and carrying trade or peripherals and this legacy is reflected in names such as Horseshoe Lane, Foundry Arms, Coach and Horses, Horse and Groom, the Ostler, lately the Black Bull, and the Waggon and Horses in St Martin’s – scene of the demise of Mr Daniel Lambert. There were many pubs of that name and indeed of Dan himself. These were in London. Wealthy travellers stayed at the four great Stamford coaching inns, the George, Crown, Blew Bell and Black Bull.” This information deals with the posting inns along Great North Road. AGAIN, posting of mail is different from posting inn open purely to let rooms. I prefer the idea of a “coaching inn” rather than a “posting inn.”

A coaching inn likely had a counter where patrons could check in before being showed to their rooms — I’ve seen these located in entrance halls and tucked away behind the bar. These places also had a private parlor or two that could be hired by patrons. Smaller inns rarely had private parlors. Hedge taverns were not places any upper class person would choose to stay and likely had no counter at all. People would ask the barman for a room. The high-end hotels around Mayfair ran much as they do today.”

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Shannon Donnelly has a blog post on Lost Letters – http://shannondonnelly.com/2010/05/29/the-regency-post-a-pity-weve-lost-letters/

Posting inns were just that –places contracted to handle local post. So one would go to a posting inn, or one would go to the local main center of his/her village, since there was often a post master there. Local post masters:

-handled posting of letters (no packages)

-kept horses for the post

-oversaw local deliveries (generally by foot or horseback)

All stamps were hand stamps, or postage cost was hand written on the letter. The One Penny Black–the first stamp–comes in in 1840.

You could NOT get a sheet with it marked PREPAID. However, you could–if you knew your local MP or were friends with a lord–get them to FRANK a sheet. All Members of Parliament were allowed to frank their letters–sign them to send them free in the post.

To see what all this looks like:

Google “prepaid stampless covers”

And “franked stampless covers”