Thames Street, London: Iron Bars In Curb

As you move down Thames Street, London you may notice iron bars set into the curb.

These small inserts were used as wheel stops preventing carriages rolling backwards down the hill that skirts Windsor Castle.

It’s unknown how old these iron bars are, but it possibly dates back to the Victorian era.

They still exist today, although it does look rather precarious to cyclists!

Horse carriages have a rich history in London, once being the primary mode of transportation before the advent of automobiles.

By the 1890s, London had over 2,000 horse buses and 25,000 horses, with stables and a small army of grooms, blacksmiths and saddlers. 

Horse-drawn carriages were once a common sight on the streets of London, used for various purposes including transportation, leisure, and ceremonial events.

One of the most iconic types of horse carriages in London is the hansom cab, a two-wheeled carriage with a high driver's seat and a folding hood, named after its inventor, Joseph Hansom.

Hansom cabs were popular for their manoeuvrability and were often used for short journeys around the city.

Another notable type of horse carriage in London is the open-air carriage, often used for ceremonial events such as royal processions and parades.

These carriages, adorned with ornate decorations and pulled by elegantly groomed horses, added grandeur to important occasions.

The twentieth century saw the gradual decline of horsepower, with horse traffic banned on many streets in London in the 1920s and 1930s, and the motor vehicle replacing horsepower.

Horse buses

In 1828 George Shillibeer, a London coachbuilder, visited Paris where he was impressed by the efficiency of its new horse-drawn bus service.

The following year he imported the idea to London and began operating a single horse-drawn omnibus, connecting the suburbs of Paddington and Regent’s Park to the City. 

This service was revolutionary in being the first conventional bus service, as we understand it today, in London. 

Shillibeer’s omnibus ran to a strict timetable, regardless of whether it was full. 

It picked up and set down passengers anywhere along the route and fares could be paid on board, unlike the short-stage coaches, which had to be booked in advance.

The omnibus was pulled by three horses and carried 22 passengers, who sat inside protected from the weather.

The fares of sixpence and one shilling were less than those charged by hackney cab and short-stage coach.

Even so, travelling on Shillibeer’s omnibuses was not cheap, and they were used mainly by the middle classes. 

The service proved very popular and other operators set up in fierce competition.

Soon there were 90 omnibuses on the same route, sometimes racing each other to pick up the most passengers.

After many complaints the operators set up an Omnibus Association, with Shillibeer as Chairman, to regulate the busy route.

The operators realised that the number of passengers was limited so the Association agreed to reduce competition by restricting the number of omnibuses to 57, running at 3-minute intervals, with inspectors to enforce the new rules.

The Association was London’s first coordinated attempt to provide a regular bus service. 

In 1832 the monopoly of the hackney carriages was removed, allowing horse buses to operate in the City.

Within two years there were 620 licensed horse buses in London. 

By 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition seeing an influx of visitors to London, this total had more than doubled and the number of routes had increased to 150.

Service intervals varied from 5 to 20 minutes in inner London to an hour or longer in the suburbs. 

In the early 1830s, operators introduced new buses that could be pulled by just two horses, increasing manageability in London’s narrow streets.

The first double-deck buses were built in the late 1840s, providing outside seats offering cheaper travel. The ‘knifeboard’ bus had a single seat fitted lengthways on the roof reached by iron rungs.  

The 1880s saw the introduction of a new design, the ‘garden seat’ bus, which had forward-facing seats and a curved staircase at the rear, making boarding easier.

Other refinements were added later, but the horse-drawn bus remained largely unchanged throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century.

Development of the horse bus was ultimately limited by the load that a pair of horses could pull. 

Horse trams

One way of increasing the number of passengers that could be carried was to run the vehicle on rails set into the road.

By pulling a carriage on steel rails, friction was reduced, making it much easier for a pair of horses to pull a heavier passenger load, thereby increasing profits.  

In 1861 an American, George Train, ran the first trams in London along three demonstration lines in Bayswater, Victoria and between Westminster Bridge and Kennington.

The experiment was not a success. The residents of these affluent areas had little need for public transport and objected to the noise of the trams.

Also, the rails jutted up from the road, greatly inconveniencing other road users.

Whilst potential benefits had been demonstrated, after only a few months the lines were removed. 

Nine years later, in 1870, London’s first tram service began between Brixton and Kennington, on steel rails laid flush with the road surface.

Being able to carry more passengers than a bus whilst using the same number of horses meant that trams’ fares could be dropped to 1d per mile (1p per 4km).  

This, together with early morning workers’ tickets at half price on the railways, brought public transport within the reach of many more working people for the first time.

It enabled them to live further out from their workplaces in the crowded city centre. Travelling at 6mph (10 kph), trams were also slightly faster than horse buses, which managed 4mph (6kph). 

There were disadvantages to the horse tram.

As with horse buses, hills posed a problem and where an extra horse could not succeed cable haulage was employed, as on Brixton and Highgate Hills.

The installation and maintenance of rails caused immense disruption, sometimes closing off streets.

Derailments were a hazard, and trams often dominated the centre of narrow roads, crowding out other road users.

However, horse trams provided Londoners with a cheap, efficient and reliable public transport network. 

The London County Council saw the social benefit of building links to new housing estates, and the provision of cheap workmen’s fares was an important part of their policy.

With this in mind, they compulsorily purchased many of the horse tram routes in the 1890s. 

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