Gloucester to Bristol coaching route in C18th

[Jon Shaw]

Hi - my first post on this site.

As I understand it, in the late C18th there were three regular coaching routes from Gloucester to Bristol. One of these, route IX, shows the major places pulled through as:

Whitminfter after 7.5 miles
Cambridge after 11 miles
Cam after 13.75 miles
Durfley after 15.25 miles

all straight forward so far, but then it becomes a puzzle as the next landmark is:
Tortworth after 17.75 miles ( this cannot be Tortworth but could possibly refer to reaching the edge/start of the Tortworth estate land back then)
Crumhall after 23.5 miles
Rangesfworth after 26.75 miles
Acton after 28.25 miles
Winterborn after 30.75 miles
Hambrook after 32.25 miles
Stapleton after 34.75 miles
Briftol after 37.75 miles

So 8.25 miles from Dursley to Cromhall. I cannot work out how that is in anyway possible if the route is out past Kingshill to Sandpits, the Yew Tree and out towards Nibley - nor can I make that work via the top of Whiteway Hill. The only way I can seem to make it work is if the route is Woodmancote, up Nunnery Lane, across to Warren Hill, bear round to Ivy Cottages, across over to Nibley Green , down to Wick, through Michaelwood, over the Little Avon and up into Tortworth. Googlemaps makes that 8.3 miles.

I can't make the distance reconcile via North Nibley/Charfield and if the coach pulled through there I would have thought that at least one of these villages would have been listed as on the route. But the gradients via the Nunnery Lane route!!! Does anyone know the route of the stage coach?
Kind regards
Jon Shaw

[dursleyglos]

Hi Jon
Thanks for the post. I'll take a look at the route when I can. Stinchcombe Hill was used as part of a coaching route. Where are you getting your existing information from?
Andy

[Jon Shaw]

Hi Andy - many thanks for your reply. The source of the information can be found using the link below
I think Route IX is shown on about page 96 or thereabouts:-

http://tinyurl.com/kk6xdkr

or

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tXZb ... ol&f=false

Compared with the Nunnery Lane route I guessed at, Google maps has it as pretty much the same distance that way using the Cotswold Way up May Lane and down through Park Wood using the footpath.

I assume the Bell at the top of Long Street was the coaching inn and if so perhaps the point from which coaching distances to and from Dursley were measured.

I was merely browsing the material because I was reading a book that mentions the Boothall Inn that stood for centuries in Westgate Street (demolished in living memory to extend Shire Hall) and when researching I found the record of the coaching routes - with the Boothall Inn being the starting point for a number of these including Route IX via Dursley.
Kind regards
Jon