Coaching inn

Just as with roadhouses in other countries, although many survive, and some still offer overnight accommodation, in general coaching inns have lost their original function and now operate as ordinary pubs.

Some English towns had as many as ten such inns and rivalry between them was intense, not only for the income from the stagecoach operators but for the revenue for food and drink supplied to the passengers.

Chockerup Inn in Western Australia is one example: it was abandoned when the Great Southern Railway opened in 1889, replacing the coach route between Albany and Perth.

A pair of coaching inns along Watling Street in Stony Stratford are claimed to have given rise to the term "cock and bull stories".

The claim is that stories by coach passengers would be further embellished as they passed between the two hostelries, "The Cock" and "The Bull", fuelled by ale and an interested audience.