Where can you ride in a stagecoach?

[Egg Centric]

Is there anywhere in the world (preferably close to home) that offers stagecoach travel, or something like it? I wouldn't count the tourist horses and carriages at places like Blackpool or Central Park in this - I want to travel in a proper enclosed coach at high speed for an entire day and make it a significant distance (e.g. London - Stamford).

I cannot imagine I'm the only person interested in doing this so it's surprising I haven't found anyone offering it yet. The closest thing I can find is horse drawn gypsy caravan hire. Not quite the same, is it?

 

[Taunton]

Knotts Berry Farm, Los Angeles, a Disneyland Los Angeles competitor which features on the Old West USA in part; a bit more simplistic and folksy, I've always liked it.

Butterfield Stagecoach Horse Ride (HD Driver POV) - Knott's Berry Farm - YouTube

Although completely a tourist event, it's a good one. I regret you all have to sing "Oh, The Deadwood Stage is a-coming on over the Hill" at the end.

As this is a rail forum, at 3:00 in the video you will see the D&RGW Railroad "Galloping Goose" they have there as well, it's a real one from the 1930s which they have, it's been the subject of past posts on here.

Now, regarding travel "all day", I was involved in a small recreation of a stagecoach from Taunton many years ago. It was the 200th anniversary, or something, the coach had been obtained from .. wherever, likewise the horses were trucked in, we all had to wear early Victorian clothing, top hats and everything, liaison with the police who preceded the coach - and all for about 5 miles along the road. Started from the Castle in Taunton, had to pull in about every mile to let the traffic pass. It was a huge hoopla to organise.

The best account of old days coach travel conditions, without a doubt, is the well-known novel "Tom Brown's Schooldays", which has an extended, fascinating, and doubtless accurate description of travel by coach from London to Rugby, just before the railway opened (we all read it before aforementioned re-creation). I've mentioned this here before.

 

[snowball]

The best account of old days coach travel conditions, without a doubt, is the well-known novel "Tom Brown's Schooldays", which has an extended, fascinating, and doubtless accurate description of travel by coach from London to Rugby, just before the railway opened (we all read it before aforementioned re-creation).

which can be read online, as a web search will show.

 

[BayPaul]

Not quite the same thing, but there are a few horse-drawn narrowboats in this country, which have reasonably long public trips - in Tiverton, Llangollen and Kennet and Avon Canal, possibly also elsewhere.

 

[Steddenm]

There are some in Killarny, Co Kerry, Ireland that will take you from the town centre to the big manor House a few kms out of town.

 

[eastwestdivide]

How about over the Gotthard Pass in Switzerland?
see https://www.gotthardpost.ch/en/
and https://www.gotthardpost.ch/en/journey

A bargain at 680 Swiss Francs (£545 at time of writing).

Typical Swiss tidiness: when I saw it, there was a man in a van following behind, equipped with a shovel for the inevitable waste products.

 

[Factotum]

Not quite the same thing, but there are a few horse-drawn narrowboats in this country, which have reasonably long public trips - in Tiverton, Llangollen and Kennet and Avon Canal, possibly also elsewhere.

On every CRT canal that I have walked there are notices prohibiting horses

 

[Shimbleshanks]

I fear that you are about 150 years too late. There was a vogue for recreating the great days of the mail coach era in the late Victorian period to the early 1900s with people undertaking long journeys of the kind you describe, calling at suitable inns en route to partake of sumptuous food and drink, possibly far removed from the reality of what was actually on offer when coaches were in their prime.

It only goes to show that nostalgia for yesterday's transport is nothing new. Of course, setting up long distance coach trips was all a lot more doable in the days before the internal combustion engine arrived on the scene and made life dangerous and unpleasant for horse-drawn travellers.

Quite a few replica coaches were built to satisfy this demand; indeed, many of the old coaches preserved in museums today are these rather than originals from the late 1700s or early 1800s. I suppose you could drag one of these out of retirement and find a few suitable nags. That would leave the problem of a suitable traffic-free route. It would need to be something reasonably long distance but substantial enough to accommodate a coach and four. Maybe a disused rail route that has been turned into a cycle path?

There is also the equestrian sport of driving coach and fours; I believe the late Prince Philip was a fan. Is that still an Olympic event?

 

[AndrewE]

Not quite the same thing, but there are a few horse-drawn narrowboats in this country, which have reasonably long public trips - in Tiverton, Llangollen and Kennet and Avon Canal, possibly also elsewhere.

There is a brilliant description of a journey on a horse-drawn fly-boat to London(?) along the Thames and Severn Canal - including shooting "staunch locks" - in one of the early Hornblower novels.
A

 

[BayPaul]

On every CRT canal that I have walked there are notices prohibiting horses

The tow paths need to be kept in good condition in the locations where boats are towed by horses, to avoid getting in a tangle.
I followed the Tivertonian along the Grand Western Canal a couple of weeks ago, and a very elegant form of transport it is too!

 

[IanXC]

The Streetlife Museum in Hull has a simulator...

 

[Calthrop]

Knotts Berry Farm, Los Angeles, a Disneyland Los Angeles competitor which features on the Old West USA in part; a bit more simplistic and folksy, I've always liked it.

Butterfield Stagecoach Horse Ride (HD Driver POV) - Knott's Berry Farm - YouTube

Although completely a tourist event, it's a good one. I regret you all have to sing "Oh, The Deadwood Stage is a-coming on over the Hill" at the end.

Now, regarding travel "all day", I was involved in a small recreation of a stagecoach from Taunton many years ago. It was the 200th anniversary, or something, the coach had been obtained from .. wherever, likewise the horses were trucked in, we all had to wear early Victorian clothing, top hats and everything, liaison with the police who preceded the coach - and all for about 5 miles along the road. Started from the Castle in Taunton, had to pull in about every mile to let the traffic pass. It was a huge hoopla to organise.

Did they -- cf the Knotts Berry Farm experience -- make you sing the stage-coachers' song of defiance, from the era in Britain shortly before total eclipsing by the railways? --

Here's to the dear little damsels within,
Here's to the swells on the top, sir;
Here's to the music in three feet of tin,
Here's to the tapering crop, sir:
Let the steam-pot hiss till it's hot --
Give me the speed of the Tantivy trot.

 

[John Webb]

There is a brilliant description of a journey on a horse-drawn fly-boat to London(?) along the Thames and Severn Canal - including shooting "staunch locks" - in one of the early Hornblower novels.
A

It's in "Hornblower and the Atropos". It tells how he and his family traverse the Thames and Severn canal, then relatively new, and then pass down the Thames until they reach Brentford. Here they transfer to a boat with two oarsmen to travel down to Deptford.

Back to the OP's query, I recall there is (or was?) a place close to the Peak Forest station at Darley Dale which had a wide range of horse-drawn carriages available. But it's a decade or two since I visited it, so can't recall the name.
Additional Information: It was still open 4 years ago, possibly connected to the "Red House"?

 

[Taunton]

I fear that you are about 150 years too late. There was a vogue for recreating the great days of the mail coach era in the late Victorian period to the early 1900s with people undertaking long journeys of the kind you describe, calling at suitable inns en route to partake of sumptuous food and drink, possibly far removed from the reality of what was actually on offer when coaches were in their prime.

I think it was accurate. In the Tom Brown's Schooldays novel described above, the meals, described in detail, served at the intermediate coach houses on the overnight run from London to Rugby were obviously a highlight. Hughes, writing at the time, was doubtless very familiar with the situation. Stagecoach travel was very expensive, and only for the considerably wealthy.

 

[AzureOtsu]

you can ride stagecoach at bognor regis

 

[Gloster]

There must be a number of stagecoaches retained for use as props in all the period TV dramas that keep turning up on the box. Whether they are owned by TV companies or (more likely) a specialist supplier that could hire them out when not booked for another crinoline crusher, I know not.