A Carriage Back in TIme

In a quiet corner beside the train station, the carriage museum offers visitors a unique gateway into the past. This small museum was something of a surprise.  Maybe we tend to forget that there are a number of specialized and unusual hobbies in the world, and one of them is collecting and restoring horse-drawn carriages and sleighs.

Once inside the museum, we were pleased by the size and scope of the place. There were high ceilings, polished wooden floors, and soft lighting that created a pleasant atmosphere. The scent of aged leather and varnished wood reminded us of the richness of the 18th and 19th centuries. Each carriage stood like a sculpture, carefully preserved and displayed with consideration to its position and lighting.

The museum’s layout was basically chronological, beginning with wagons and progressing through ornate carriages. The earliest exhibits showed us simple wooden carts used for farming and trade. These vehicles were probably the backbone of rural life. 

Moving further into the exhibits, we noticed a change when elegance and money entered transportation. The barouche, the landau, and the phaeton—names we had only met in literature—appeared in full scale.  I think our favorite was a great, enclosed sleigh with a handy compartment in the back for carrying your brace of pistols, just in case the highwaymen turned up--which apparently they did.

Beyond the visual finery, the museum offered some gentle educational content. We were especially interested to learn how carriage design influenced the way early automobiles were put together.  It seems that many car manufacturers began as coachmakers, and the transition from horse-drawn to motorized vehicles was not abrupt, but it was a gradual adaptation of existing parts.

The museum also honored the labor behind the luxury. Photographic panels detailed the work of blacksmiths, wheelwrights, upholsterers, and stable hands.  The backdrop was impressive. In addition, we could see pictures of some of the presidents and important visitors who had visited the area on the National Road.

Visiting a carriage museum is more than a historical excursion—it’s an invitation to appreciate the artistry that shaped the way we get from place to place. In our age dominated by speed, these carriages remind us of a time when travel was probably not only inconvenient and dangerous but also deliberate and elegant.