West Country Mails at the Gloucester Coffee House, Picadilly

West Country Mails at the Gloucester Hotel and Coffee House, at 77 Piccadilly on the corner of Berkeley Street (the site of today's Berkeley Hotel) - T Dale was the proprietor. Next door are "Boone - Hat maker" and "Joseph Miller - Fish Salesman and at Billinsgate [sic]". The first mail coach service, to Bath, was started by General John Palmer in 1784 from the neighbouring inn yard of the Three Kings, and in Regency times these hostelries, together with Hatchett's on the corner of Dover Street, provided the main west country services. In the print, one mail coach is going to Poole, another to Exeter, a third has no visible destination. A small cart being loaded and drawn by a pony is labelled "Thomas Ince & Co, Bell & Crown, Holborn - Traveller - Fast Coach - Exeter". Another such, from W J Waterhouse, gallops by with a driver and man in uniform and top hat with a (hunting) horn.