Coaching Inns were the motels of the Regency period. They were also the gas stations, the gas being horses. At this moment, I am writing a Coaching Inn scene, so I thought I'd share what an Inn of the period would look like.

In Southwark, London, there remains a Coaching Inn existing since the 1500s. After a fire destroyed most of the area, the inn was rebuilt in 1676 and this is the building that remains today, owned now by the National Trust and operating as a restaurant.

Coaching Inns were built around a central courtyard where the coaches entered and the teams of horses were changed. Fresh horses were contracted for the Royal Mail, but some could be leased by private individuals. Inns provided rooms for travelers to spend the night and a public room or tavern where food and drink were served. Private dining parlors could also be procured.

In the George Inn, the public rooms were on the street level and the bed rooms were above.

When I visited the George Inn in 2003, I took a photo of a photo of the Inn in 1880. The wing that is most easily seen in this photo was pulled down when the Great Northern Railroad used the Inn as a depot.

But in the George's heyday, it was a bustling, busy place. Shakespeare visited the Inn, and Dickens was known to have frequented its Coffee room. Dickens mentions the Inn in Little Dorrit.

You can just about see the Inn's sign in the first photo. It is of St. George slaying the dragon. Before there was widespread literacy, signs like this identified the inns and other buildings as well.

Any time I write a scene about an inn, you can bet something memorable will happen there and most of the time that means a love scene!

In your travels what sorts of memorable things have happened to you in motels or hotels….besides the romantic things, that is!

I can think of two things: 1. When I was in junior high and our family was traveling, I dared my sister to jump into the motel pool with her clothes on and she did! 2. When traveling with our adult daughter she took in a stray cat that happily spent the night in her room. Luckily, it ran off in the morning or we might have added a cat to our collection!

Next Monday at Risky Regencies I'm having a guest blogger. Victoria Vane aka Emery Lee will be blogging about her erotic Georgian novella, A Breach of Promise. She'll be giving away one free download of the novella.