Exeter and the far West of England were the last strongholds of the coaching interest. The Great Western Railway was opened to Exeter on 1st May 1844, and up to that time over seventy coaches left that city daily for London and the cross-country routes. Nor did coaching languish towards the close. On the contrary, it died game, and, until finally extinguished by the opening of the railway, coaching on the old road between London and Exeter was a matter of the utmost science and the best speed ever attained by the aid of four horses on a turnpike road. Charles Ward, the best-known driver of the old ‘Telegraph’ Exeter coach, driven from his old route, retreated westwards and took the road between Exeter and Devonport, retiring into Cornwall when the railway was opened to Plymouth on 1st May 1848; but not before he had brought the time of the ‘Telegraph’ between London and Exeter down to fifteen hours.
The ‘Half Moon’ is the inn from which the ‘Telegraph’ started at 6.30 in the morning, breakfasting at Ilminster, dining at Andover, and stopping for no other meal, reaching Hyde Park Corner at 9.30 P.M. It was kept in 1777 by a landlord named Hemming, who had a very good understanding with the highwaymen Boulter and Caldwell, and doubtless with many another. There is a record of those two knights of the road being here, one of them with a stolen horse, when a Mr. Harding, of Bristol, being in the yard, recognised it. ‘Why, Mr. Hemming,’ said he, ‘that is the very mare my father-in-law, Mr. James, lost a few months ago; how came she here?’ To which the landlord replied, ‘She has been my own mare these twelve months, and how should she be your father-in-law’s?’
‘Well,’ replied Harding, ‘if I had seen her in any other hands, or met her on the road, I could have sworn to her.’ Boulter and Caldwell were at that moment in the house at dinner, so the landlord took the first opportunity of warning them.
For the rest, Exeter is still picturesque. It possesses many quaint and interesting churches, placed in the strangest positions; while that of St. Mary Steps has a queer old clock with grotesque figures that strike the hours and chime the quarters. The seated figure is intended to represent Henry the Eighth, and those on either side of him men-at-arms, but the local people have a rhyming legend which