Tally Ho for a quick change

QUESTION Tally Ho Corner and Crooked Billet are odd place names in London. What is their origin?

Tally Ho Corner is in the centre of North Finchley. The name has been linked to the area since at least 1830. It’s been claimed that it comes from the Tally Ho Coaching Company, which had stables there, but there is no documentary evidence that this company existed.

The other theory, which has more substance, is that it was the first place where horses were changed for the Birmingham Tally Ho! coach service.

This would leave The Saracen’s Head inn on Snow Hill, Holborn, Central london, at 7.45am, and arrive at the Swan Hotel in Birmingham 11 hours later, having travelled 110 miles.

Horses pulling a heavy load, such as a stagecoach, would need to be replaced every ten miles. That was called a stage, hence the word stagecoach.

Each coach was driven by a coachman and backed up by a guard who sat at the rear of the coach with his brass horn. The coaches carried a dozen or more people. The four inside passengers paid twice as much as those seated on top.

The Tally Ho pub was built in 1927 where Ballards lane in the west meets the High Road (Great North Road) in the east, replacing the Park Road Hotel.

as for the term ‘tally-ho!’, it was the 18th-century huntsman’s cry to alert others that the game had been spotted. It is thought to derive from the French taiaut cry used in deer hunting (1660s).

Richard Evans, Falmouth, Cornwall. THE Crooked Billet is a common name for a pub. It means a bent log or branch. This dates to the time when pub signs were often physical objects, thus the crooked billet was a branch hung outside, rather than a sign.

Louise McNair, London SW9.