As turnpike roads made travel more comfortable in the eighteenth century, roadside inns had to provide more services for coach teams as well as refreshments for the passengers. Previously they would have catered for travellers on horseback, or jaggers with their packhorse trains, but by the mid-century they might need stabling for 80 horses, as well as feeding a dozen hungry passengers. Older inns such as The Holly Bush (above) had to expand, while others were developed at strategic locations, like the Peacock at Oakerthorpe, which is at the junction of two turnpike routes (its website claims it is 11th century, which seems unlikely). As the name suggests, this hostelry was once owned by the Duke of Rutland, as was the Peacock at Rowsley: this bird being the family crest.

The heyday of the coaching inn was in the early nineteenth century, when mail coaches joined stage coaches on the roads, and most towns were on the coaching network. This was almost always run from an inn, where seats on board could be booked. These new or expanded inns must have been major employers: horses had to be changed every 10-15 miles, so ostlers and stable lads were needed in the yard to harness the teams, while indoors maids, cooks and waiters served the diners, who had to be fed quickly, before the coach set off again. Dickens provides a lively description of his ideal inn, The Marquis of Granby, in The Pickwick Papers. Oddly, although Dickens sets this perfect pub near Dorking, the Marquis of Granby is a title used by the Manners/Rutland family:

The Marquis of Granby in Mrs Weller’s time was quite a model of the roadside public house of the better class – just large enough to be convenient, and small enough to be snug. On the opposite side of the road was a large sign-board on a high post, representing the head and shoulders of a gentleman with an apoplectic counternance, in a red coat with deep blue facings, and a touch of the same blue over his three-cornered hat, for a sky. Over that were a pair of flags; beneath the last button of his coat were a couple of cannons; and the whole formed an expressive and undoubted likeness of the Marquis of Granby of glorious memory.

The Old Bell (above) is a rare example of a coaching inn which has more or less survived, although its facade is now covered in fake half-timbering. Claiming a date of 1650, the drawing shows the elaborate iron sign hanging over the entrance, which led to the stable yard. Most coaching inns had a similar pattern, often with an arched entrance and balconies around the yard, where bedrooms were located. Burdett’s map of Derbyshire (1791 edition) shows all the parks and mansions of the gentry, but only four inns: The Brown Bear near Alderwasley, The New Inn near Quorn, the New Inns (sic) on the Ashbourne to Buxton turnpike, and the New Inn at Hardwick Hall (this last in Nottinghamshire, but still on the map!) Clearly a random collection, but suggestive of the growth of the inn business at that time, especially near the great houses, such as Kedleston. But by 1850 most roadside inns were in decline as the railways took their passengers, and we rely on the nostalgia of Dickens to imagine the lost glories of their golden era.