On the Buses, Trains and Parish Lanes

The Beginning
In 1856 The Eastern Counties Railway (ECR), which later became part of the Great Eastern Railway (GER) opened a double track railway between Stratford and Loughton. A single-track extension between Loughton and Ongar was added in 1865. Increased usage on the line led to the building of double track between Loughton and Epping. At this point 50 trains operated between London and Loughton each day, with a further 22 continuing to Epping and 14 more to Ongar.

New Works Plan
The London Passenger Transport Board, later to become London Transport (LT) was established in 1933. Between 1935 and 1940 LT and mainline rail companies, with input from the government implemented their New Works Programme. This was a huge scheme, which aimed to, amongst other things, electrify main line track and work together to reduce costs to companies and provide an improved service. - At this point it should be noted that the government did not support the plans to electrify track. Under this scheme the Fairlop loop of the Central line was built.
During the Second World War (1939-45) extensions to the Central line were postponed and service between Ongar and London reduced to seven trains per day.

Post-War Years
In 1946 the Central line extension reached Leytonstone, and in 1947 progressed to Woodford. It finally reached Loughton in 1948. A steam shuttle service continued to run from Loughton to Ongar and a passing loop was put in at North Weald the following year to allow more trains to operate. Following nationalisation of the railways in 1948 individual assets of the main line rail companies and LT were transferred to the control of new executive bodies. The London Transport Executive (LTE) was the inheritor of the former LT assets and as the line from Leyton to Loughton was served by LT trains the track, stations and staff were transferred to them. Questions arose about what was to happen to the service between Loughton and Ongar. The government initially resisted the electrification of the line however, the arrival of new housing in the area allowed electrification of the track through to Epping. The Central line officially reached Epping in 1949. LTE also took control of the branch line to Ongar, and hired the steam shuttle from the Eastern regions railways.
Improving the Branch Line
During the 1950's attempts were made to improve the steam service between Epping and Ongar. It was eventually decided to give the line light electrification: this avoided the need for a sub station at Blake Hall. Modification was made to the rail and signals in 1957 allowing two 4-car trains or one 8-car trains to run on the branch line, however, in practice the short platform length made the use of the 8-car train unworkable. A twenty-minute passenger service was offered between Epping and Ongar, although freight service continued to run on steam.

Decline of the Line
Due to reduced passenger numbers Blake Hall station was closed on Sundays and a reduced weekday timetable implemented from 17th October 1966. In the same year Central line 1962 stock replaced the two 4-car trains on the branch line. Continued decline in passenger numbers led to the decommissioning of the passing loop and signal box at North Weald in 1976, and complete closure of Blake Hall station on 31st October 1981. A reduced service operated on the rest of the branch line. In 1989 an attempt was made to run an all-day service. It was unsuccessful and London Transport closed the loss-making section on 30th September 1994.
1994-2008
Shortly after 1994 a private company 'Pilot Developments' purchased the Epping to Ongar section of the line. Despite assurances that they would run a passenger service within five years of the purchase, no trains ran. In the early part of the new millenium The Epping Ongar Railway Volunteer Society (EORVS) was formed. Initially, this consisted of a small group of enthusiasts, volunteering their time to repair and preserve, damage and wear and tear, to the neglected buildings and track. Working alongside the owners the volunteer group gradually restored the line and station building at Ongar so that trains could run once again and provide a passenger service to North Weald. On 10th October 2004, almost ten years to the day since the line closed, the first EORVS train service left Ongar at 11am. EORVS operated five train services every Sunday until December 2008.
Recent Developments
A change in ownership occurred in 2009. It was decided to cease running trains and to concentrate on improving the track in preparation for reopening with Steam as well as Diesel units. Both Ongar and North Weald Stations have seen huge changes:

ONGAR
The previous Good Yards area (wasteland for many years) has been purchased by David Wilson Homes who have now built a small collection of houses. The Cattle Dock still remains, as does the main station building which has been repainted in GER colours (1900-1930's). On reopening Ongar will be the only operational GER station in GER colours!!
The milk dock is being restored into a bay platform, and just to the north of the old cattle dock will become Platform 1 and will host much improved refreshment and shop facilities in newly restored static coaches.
NORTH WEALD
North Weald is being repainted in LNER / BR (E) (1940's-1960's) colours.

The track height is being corrected for UK standard stock and is being re-laid through the loop as well as into the bay platform making 3 operational platforms at North Weald, which can all be used thanks to the signalling, allowing bi-directional working (trains can arrive / depart from any platform in either direction), as well access to improved siding facilities and enable safer shunting at both locations.

ALL of the essential infrastructure improvements (both track, signalling and rolling stock) will widen the variety and frequency of heritage operations, and is a key part as we work towards our central goal - to once again run trains to Epping; both to preserve our transport heritage and for the wider benefit of the local community in restoring this important link in our transport network.
Like all heritage railways, the Epping Ongar Railway could not operate without our friendly team of volunteers and helpers as well as the local businesses and groups that kindly assist.
Volunteers undertake all the jobs that are essential for the safe and smooth operation of the railway, both the jobs that might first come to mind, as well as many that may go unnoticed, but are never the less essential to making the trains run, whether it is...
Selling tickets
Helping passengers onto the train
Being part of our on-train teams - a guard, train driver, fireman or ticket inspector
Safely signalling trains
Helping out in the shops, refreshment facilities and museum display
Keeping our stations and coaches clean and tidy
Being a bus conductor on our vintage bus to Epping
Caring for and restoring our heritage rolling stock
Restoring and maintaining the stations and gardens
Keeping the track in good order
Managing the vegetation and environmental ecosystems along our beautiful line
Maintaining drains, bridges and structures
Working on keeping the steam and diesel locomotives running that haul the trains
With the huge variety of tasks, the railway can often be likened to a small town - and everyone is welcome and no matter how you choose to help, everyone plays an important part in ensuring the railway can operate trains and our visitors enjoy their visit. Please do not feel apprehensive - we all started from scratch!

HELP WANTED
Do you have memories of using the service between Epping and Ongar? Then the Epping and Ongar Railway are keen to hear from you.

A most distressing accident occurred at Harlow, on Friday night, about seven o’clock. The two-horse coach, on its way from London to the Green Man, whilst turning a corner within a very short distance of that Inn, was upset, and the coachman, John Doye, was killed upon the spot. Mr Church, a respectable farmer, at Matching, an outside passenger, was taken up in a state of insensibility, and expired at the Green Man yesterday morning. Two other passengers were bruised; but a female who was sitting on the back of the coach, and who was thrown into a ditch, escaped without the slightest injury. The cause of the overturning of the coach is not known – by some it is supposed that it came in contact with a post which stands upon the causeway; by others it is thought that the wheels went upon the path, and the sway of the coach, in turning round the corner, overbalanced it, and thus occasioned the melancholy event. A most respectable Jury, of whom Mr Crane, of the George Inn, acted as foreman, sat before R. Bartlett, Esq., coroner, at the Green Man.

After the evidence of several witnesses had been heard, the coroner, in summing up, remarked that the melancholy affair could only be attributed to accident, and as it did not appear that it had resulted from any negligence on the part of the driver, or from the unsteadiness of the horses, in either of which cases it would be their duty to fix a sum as a deodand upon the coach, he concluded they would agree to a mere nominal one. The Jury acquiesced in the opinion of the coroner, and returned a verdict, in each case, “Accidental Death,” – deodand 6d.

Mr Doye formerly drove the Stortford coach. He completed his 30th year on Sunday last, and has left a widow and three children, residing at Bishop Stortford. Several of the Jury who know him spoke of him in highest terms, as being of a steady and obliging disposition. Mr Church has left a widow and nine children. He was a stout made heavy man, and about 58 years of age.

London Transport Steam Locomotive L92 at Ongar Station on the 2nd October 2021.

Epping Railway Station circa 1957. The service on to Ongar continued as a steam shuttle until November 1957.

The Epping Railways Company is not well known. This is not surprising since it never built a mile of railway. There had been, of course, many railway companies remarkable mainly for their lack of achievement but they were more uncommon by the 1860’s. This company’s real interest is that it is a local example of elbowing for position, parliamentary manoeuvring and wasteful expenditure that characterised railway promotion in England generally.

The Act of Incorporation, which received the royal assent on 13 August, 1859 empowered the company to make an extension of the Loughton Branch of the Eastern Counties Railway to Epping and Chipping Ongar and to raise capital of £100,000 in £10 shares with the customary limited liability.

The directors, who were George Parker Bidder (chairman), John Chevallier Cobbold, M.P., E S Cayley, M.P., and George Josslyn, explained the purpose and prospects to the proprietors at the first half-yearly meeting at Epping on 25 February, 1860. Promotion had been supported by the Eastern Counties as a protective measure against a competing line which was threatened from London, avoiding Epping, to Ongar, Dunmow and Bury. When this line was withdrawn the Eastern Counties said the Epping line was intended only ‘as a foil’ and should be abandoned. The Epping promoters therefore carried their Bill through Parliament against the opposition of the Eastern Counties.

The directors held out the prospect of a highly remunerative line, arising from the beauty of the locality, the close proximity to the metropolis and the ‘fertile and populous district beyond Ongar.’ The estimated cost from Loughton to Epping was between £52,571 and £54,571 for construction and land not including the, always considerable, item of parliamentary and legal expenses. The company’s own common seal was duly approved.

The conflict with the Eastern Counties involved the Epping men in expensive courses. Faced with a refusal to co-operate they deposited a Bill, as a protective measure, to obtain independent connection to Fenchurch Street by a line to the Barking extension of the Tilbury Line; this was the Epping Railways Ilford Bill. They also promoted a Bill to extend from Ongar to Dunmow. Both Bills were opposed in parliament by the Eastern Counties. Negotiations were then begun. The proposal was that the Eastern Counties should come to a fair working arrangement in return for withdrawal of the Ilford Bill, provided the Eastern Counties withdrew opposition to the Dunmow Bill.

The Ilford Bill was accordingly withdrawn. The legal costs had been £1,245. 12s. 11d., the engineering costs about £500. The Ongar-Dunmow Bill was passed since parliament considered the Eastern Counties had no locus standi for opposition, but it never produced a railway. In this case the legal costs were £1,682. 6s. 4d., and the engineering costs about £700.

The end of the conflict came with the approaching amalgamation of the Eastern Counties, Eastern Union and Norfolk companies into the Great Eastern Railway. An agreement between the companies provided that the Epping-Ongar and Ongar-Dunmow lines should be made by the associated companies, the Eastern Counties to deposit five-sevenths of the money required for the Loughton-Epping line. But the Ongar-Dunmow line was to be reconsidered and so it was.

The Epping Company was not quite dead. It had its interests, its assets and, more important, its liabilities to hand on. Its interests were protected by a separate Bill to vest its powers legally in the associated companies, before the proposed amalgamation.

Then, its manoeuvres had been accompanied by other difficulties. In order to dispose of unsold shares it had offered a commission of one-eighth of each share to ‘some of the professional gentlemen of Epping.’

The purchase of land created problems. Notice had been served, in the usual way, on landowners, the chief of whom was the Revd Mr Maitland mentioned by William Addison in Epping Forest as the first clerical lord of Loughton Manor, contracts of sale had been entered into, but the company was not ready or able to pay. And so when the Revd Mr Maitland owners amounting to £9,650 had to be passed with the rest to the associated companies and so to the G.E.R..

Lastly the local people became impatient. They, shareholders and residents in Epping, memorialised the company to start the works. This too was handed on.

In 1863, then, the new Great Eastern Railway inherited from the Epping project firstly legal and parliamentary expenses of £5,029. 10s. 2d., and engineering expenses of £2,525, a total of £7,554. 10s. 2d., of which only £3,414. 11s. related to the line to be actually built, secondly a railway on paper and thirdly a certain amount of local discontent. The Great Eastern became the L.N.E.R. and today the Eastern Region.

This story deals with only quite a small affair but it could be repeated many times over. It is based on the minutes of the Epping Railways Company.

A rare photograph of a 381 bus terminating at Ongar Station. This experimental route extension from Toothill only operated for 14 Saturdays over the winter of 1957/8.

For much of the C.20th our local area was served by a number of London Transport-operated bus routes. The formation of London Transport in 1933 was by the amalgamation of a host of minor operators to create a unified service. Its huge territory stretched from Hitchin (in the north) to Horsham (south) and from Aylesbury (west) to Gravesend (east). The operator’s remit even included Green Line Coach services that enabled one to travel, for instance, between Epping and Windsor without changing vehicles. London Transport bus services were divided into two operating divisions, Central Area (red) buses and Country Area (green) buses, and both types operated in the High-Country area. Consequent to a huge increase in private motoring after the war, few of these services remain.

Our pocket in the northeast segment contained few rural traffic objectives, resulting in a ring of routes on the periphery. In broad terms, these comprised green, country area buses on the north side (route 339, Ongar & Epping via North Weald) and red, central area buses on the other three sides (routes 250, Epping & Romford, and 123/175, Romford & Ongar) which between them served Ivy Chimneys, Theydon Bois, Abridge, Stapleford Aerodrome, Passingford Bridge, Stanford Rivers and Marden Ash. Route 381 (initially Epping & Toothill, with an offshoot to Coopersale) was the only enduring service to penetrate the scattered and sparsely populated rural interior.

Taking the peripheral, central area routes first, the Ongar – Romford service is best remembered as double-deck route 123, later renumbered 175, whilst the Epping service was single-deck route 250. A number of short-working turns were made over the years, usually early morning or late evening, together with an unusual works’ service turn at Stapleford Aerodrome(1941 to 1950; routes 123/175 and 250). Other turns that affected residents locally occurred at Abridge Blue Boar (route 250, from the Epping end), and at Passingford Bridge. The last departure from Ongar was typically around 9.20pm after the war, but in the ‘fifties a special late journey was added to the timetable, when the last northbound 123 turned short at Stanford Rivers White Bear around 11.30pm, a matter of consequence to local revellers.

Services peaked in 1950 but thereafter a decline set in as motor car ownership increased. Frequent tinkering with services occurred, starting in the late 1970s, as London Transport sought economies of operation but invariably with an incremental and sustained reduction in the levels of service operated. The decline was slow but terminal, with the Epping service ceasing to operate in July 1981 and the Ongar service following suit just 17 months later in December 1982. Subsequent provision dwindled to next to nothing.

Locally, two services were inaugurated by London Transport: route 250 (Romford and Epping) and 250A (Romford & Ongar). Both routes operated daily, including Sunday. Indeed, trade tended to be heavier on Sundays than on weekdays, since it was the day of the week for ‘going out’ or visiting family. The 250 varied little down the years, the biggest change occurring after thirty years’ operation when, on 18th November 1964, the route was converted to one-person operation having previously employed both driver and conductor. At the same time, these single-deck buses were fitted with doors and saloon heating. After more than forty years, starting 8th January 1977, the route number was changed to 247, but the Epping-Collier Row element of ‘new’ service was withdrawn by London Transport just 4½ years later on 25th July 1981.

The story of the Ongar service is much more convoluted. Previously route G6 (details of operation are unknown), route 250A (Ongar, Four Wantz & Romford, Rainham Road) was instigated on 3rd October 1934. It employed single-deckers, operating daily out of Hornchurch Garage.
It was relatively short-lived in this guise, being renumbered route 123 with effect from 9th December 1936 and converted to double-deck operation. It kept the 123 number for nearly 22 years. Although not much affecting the High Country area, the route saw changes in termini down the years, being extended to Shelley, Red Cow (from 13.12.39) in the north and to various destinations at the south end of the route. Trade increased steadily down the years. Service intervals on the 123 varied between hourly and two-hourly after the war, depending on the time of day and day of the week.

Also in early London Transport days, and by 3rd October 1934, a third route, number 175 operated locally, from the Romford direction to Stapleford Abbotts Royal Oak, with odd journeys extended to Shelley, Red Cow. More pertinent was a Monday-Saturdays wartime origin (23rd July 1941 until 12th July 1950) prolongation northwards from the Royal Oak to serve Stapleford Aerodrome, where buses terminated by reversing from Ongar Road into Church Lane, Lambourne. Perhaps to disguise the true purpose of these journeys, destination blinds showed ‘ONGAR RD. CHURCH LANE’. Later, post-war, this changed to ‘ONGAR ROAD FACTORY SITE’ and turns in later years actually terminated and turned on the aerodrome site. On 26th November 1958, route 175, previously Stapleford Abbotts Royal Oak & Dagenham Chequers (or Fords Factory weekday peaks) was projected to Shelley Red Cow to fully cover route 123 which was withdrawn. A final northwards extension from the Red Cow to Cripsey Avenue started on 9th October 1963, marking the maximum extent of the 175 through the district.

Starting on 18th July 1970, the Ongar part of the service was cut back to Passingford Bridge, resulting in a ‘new’ Ongar (Cripsey Avenue) & Romford Station route, the 175A. Sadly, for those reliant on the service, its new incarnation was accompanied by a significant reduction in service which comprised a mere six journeys each way, Monday to Friday, only five on Saturday and none on Sunday. The route was withdrawn fewer than 3½ years later when it was renumbered 247B starting 8th January 1977. It was converted from crew-operated double decker to one-man single deck operation at the same time, and the service reduced yet further. It ran Mondays to Saturdays only consisting four MF return journeys (the first of which turned at Passingford Bridge) and five on Saturdays (an afternoon journey of which turned at Passingford Bridge). Strangely, the route converted to one-man double deck operation on 31st January 1981 though six months later it was reduced to a Wednesday, Friday and Saturdays only service. It was a case of death-by-a-thousand-cuts, and the service finally ceased on 4th December 1982.

The northern peripheral route, nominally Epping & Ongar and, at times, to Brentwood and Warley has operated in two main guises. Under London Transport auspices the extremities of route 339 were once Epping & Warley, but in 1963 it was extended from Epping to Harlow. Short working journeys were quite numerous; Tyler’s Green Talbot and Ongar Two Brewers at the western end, and Pilgrims Hatch Rose & Crown, Coxtie Green White Horse and Ongar Station at the eastern end of the route. This arrangement pertained until at least 1975. A peculiarity meant that route 339, operationally, was deemed by reasons of geography to be a special case, and fares were actually set by the Eastern National Omnibus Company which operated competing route 260 in the Brentwood area. Later operation of the eastern section of route was transferred to Eastern National (whose former garage site in Brentwood is now occupied by the Sainsbury superstore), and thereafter Ongar Two Brewers formed the eastern limit of the 339.

Until the late C.20th, all routes were operated as commercial services, with no outside financial support. As a result, passenger reductions (lost to car ownership) led to service reductions and the virtual loss of all routes except along the Epping-North Weald-Ongar corridor.

Starting 4th January 1982, the former 339 route became the 201 (Ongar & Buckhurst Hill, via Epping). This was in association with the decimation of the Epping-Ongar tube line that was reduced to a peak hours only service, and railway season tickets were valid on the Epping-Ongar section of bus route. This arrangement only lasted about 3½ years, until 24 May 1986, when, as part of the Essex County Council tendering process, the route was takeover by West’s Coaches. In modern times, the Harlow & Ongar Two Brewers via Epping route has been operated as route 420 by Trustybus with generally alternate buses operating a truncated Harlow & Tyler’s Green Talbot service, route 420A

A remarkable service, double-deck route 392, once operated between Epping & Theydon Mount. The route ran from Epping Garage, along High Street to Epping Green, thence via Stonard’s Hill and Fiddlers Hamlet to serve Hill Hall. Its Theydon Mount terminus is presently unknown; it may have terminated at North Lodge, leaving passengers a footslog of over half a mile to reach Hill Hall, or the service may indeed have traversed the estate’s private road to deposit its passengers on the doorstep. The service was established to suit war needs, though the dates of introduction and cessation are not known.

Finally, route 381 – the only bus route to truly penetrate the rural hinterland, had a chequered existence in its twenty-odd year period of operation. On Tuesday, 30th August 1950 (the previous day being a Bank Holiday), following several years’ lobbying by Theydon Mount parish council and perhaps others, London Transport established a single-deck bus route running between Epping Garage and Toothill, via Mount End. Monday – Saturday, five return journeys were operated, two in the morning for schools and shoppers, one around midday (shoppers) and two in the afternoon (shoppers and schools). The bus used was a 20-seater single-decker in red livery. The bus was repainted green in May 1953 but in October the same year it was replaced by a bus of larger, 26-seat capacity. From this time (if not before) no conductor was carried, it being the driver who was responsible for collecting fares and issuing tickets. Bus stops were notable by their absence, at least between Epping and Toothill. Intending passengers simply hailed the driver anywhere along the route. The 381 route was well patronised in its late ’fifties heyday with full loads and standing passengers. This justified, for a while, the type of bus used later still, in the ’sixties, which had even greater capacity, and it was this type which saw service to the end.

A companion service was an offshoot of the Toothill route, diverting at Fiddler’s Hamlet to Coopersale Street, where it terminated at the Theydon Oak, being later extended to Coopersale Common Garnon Bushes. This original ran as a 399,(Coopersale Street & Hertford) later briefly re-routed and renumbered 372, (Coopersale Common & Welwyn Garden City) before being integrated with route 381 (or 381A; there were permutations in its later years). Coopersale patrons enjoyed a reasonably good level of service; the last bus arrived after 10pm (in 1959) and there were even a handful of Sunday journeys.

In an attempt to maintain viability in an era of declining patronage, the operator experimented with route variations down the years. This resulted in the Toothill and Coopersale routes being extended beyond Epping variously to Roydon, St Margaret’s and Harlow. A remarkable experiment took place in the winter of 1957/58 (October to January) when on Saturdays, two journeys were extended from Toothill via Stanford Rivers, Little End to Ongar Station. Sadly, it was not a success, and the experiment ceased after only fourteen Saturdays.

In its final years, patronage dwindled to virtually nothing, with the Toothill bus, especially, trundling around the country lanes almost always empty. It was no surprise, then, when the last London Transport-operated 381 ran on Friday, 7th August 1971. Thereafter, the 381 led a fitful existence with a number of different companies operating various permutations of services. The last Toothill service ran in 2018, when the 381 which operated between Harlow and Toothill via Coopersale and Blake Hall was cut back to operate between Harlow and Coopersale Piazza. This service is operated by Ugobus at time of writing, and it is heartening to note the level of service is not far short of London Transport levels of fifty years ago (though there is no service on Sundays).

Also, in modern times, some small semblance of former route 381 has been resurrected as part of a heritage bus service associated with and complementary to the Epping-Ongar preserved railway. When operating, usually at weekends, this route now embraces North Weald and Blake Hall before joining its former line of route at Toothill. It operates via Banks Lane instead of Mount End, this being the only deviation from the original route.

In 1858 the Epping Railways produced a plan to extend the existing Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) from Loughton via Epping to Ongar. This was granted Parliamentary approval in 1859. However nothingwas done until 1862 when the line was finally built by the Great Eastern Railway. The line eventually opened to passengers and goods on the 24th April 1865, as a single line (with a passing loop at Epping). The Chelmsford Chronicle reported that the first train out of Ongar left
‘amid the cheers of a huge crowd of spectators with the cadets of the Ongar Grammar School firing a volley of shots into the air to celebrate the event.’

The line was used for the transport of milk, some 5000 milk churns a week which were brought into Ongar, Blake Hall and North Weald by horse and cart from farms in the surrounding area. There were two trains a day to London for this purpose.

Before World War II, plans existed for London Transport to take over the branch as an extension to the Central Line from the terminus at Liverpool Street. The war delayed matters and so it wasn’t until September 1949 that London Transport took over the branch line and then only as far as Epping. Electrification of the single line section from Epping to Ongar took place in 1959. In the intervening period British Rail Eastern Region operated it as a steam hauled shuttle service.

The line was losing money from the 1960’s and although in 1976 Essex County Council offered to pay 25% of the line’s annual loss if a morning and afternoon only peak service was operated. The losses continued and London Underground Limited decided to close the line on the 30th September 1994.

Staff at Ongar 1911.

It is interesting to see how many staff worked on the railway at this time.

Station Master: Matthew Proust, aged 47 years.

Booking Office Clerks: Archibald Amos Houchin, aged 29 years and Walter George Holt, aged 44 years. Salary £28s.0d per week.

Lad Clerk: Percy Charles Gilbert, aged 15 years. Salary 8s.0d per week

Signalmen: William Hoppitt, and Frederick Robinson. Their salary was 21s.0d per week.

Foreman Porter: Walter William Heard, aged 56 years. Salary 22s.0d per week.

Porters: C. Adams, and Tom Ashman. Salary 12s.0d per week.

Passenger Guards: George Robinson, aged 52 years, John F. Pearce, aged 46 years and Mr. Vale. Each earned 29 shillings per week.

Goods Foreman: Harry Barnard, aged 31 years. Salary 21s.0d per week.

Leading Goods Porter: William Monk, aged 31 years. Salary 19s.od per week.

Goods Porter: William Judd, aged 31 years. Salary 18s.0d per week.

In addition the 1911 Census also shows the following staff:

Engine drivers: Benjamin Stains, aged 48 years. George Povey Harding, aged 63 years and Alexander William Pryer, aged 36 years.

There were also 2 trainee firemen, a foreman platelayer and a platelayer.

To London

The Stortford Coach at 5p.m.
The Fakenham at 8a.m.
The Norwich Coach at 9a.m.
The Cambridge “Times” at 10a.m.
The Cambridge Coach at 2p.m.
The Bury Coach at 11p.m.
The Swaffham Coach at 8 p.m.
The “Magnet” from Norwich at 4a.m.
The Norwich Mail at 5a.m.
The Walden Coach at 2p.m.
The Harlow Coach at 9a.m.
The Thetford Coach at 9a.m.
The Dunmow Coach at 9a.m.

From London

The Thetford Coach at 9a.m.
The Fakenham at 8a.m.
The Cambridge Coach at 12a.m.
The Bury Coach at 4p.m.
The Cambridge “Times” at 5p.m.
The Norwich Coach at 6p.m.
The “Magnet” to Norwich at 8p.m.
The Swaffham Coach at 8p.m.
The Norwich Mail at 10p.m.
The Walden Coach at 12p.m.
The Harlow Coach at 6p.m.
The Stortford Coach at 5p.m.
The Dunmow Coach at 9a.m.

(From an Almanac published by Mr Griffith, printer & stationer of Epping. Essex)

In 1750 a coach ran through Chipping Ongar 3 times weekly and in 1764 the Ongar ‘Crown’ landlord sponsored a ‘New Machine’ to run from Fyfield through Ongar to London. One of these 2 coaches soon ceased, the other continued for nearly the rest of the century.

In addition there were 2 Epping coaches, each performing 2 journeys a day, making the total number of coaches to and from Epping 25 a day. Each coach driven by four horses, called at a particular inn, where the horses would be stabled.

The coach guard played a series of particular calling notes when arriving at the inn. There were also post horses, many of them used by travellers to ride to the Newmarket races.

Other horses were required for the yellow post chaises then in use, as well as for the coaches kept by a number of local county families. These were usually equipped to carry the family and their luggage long distances, so would be drawn by a four-in-hand. Epping by the 1790’s was served by coaches making 46 journeys a week.

Purely local services did not develop until end of 18th Century and then only on a small scale.