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“The originals were bloody and holey,” said Richard James, who was playing the part of an ostler looking after the horses.

Encouraged by a fashion for things English under the restored French monarchy and by growing unemployment at home, thousands of workers - bricklayers, ostlers, servant-girls and governesses - were trying their luck across the channel.

He could not drop any lower at the Dolphin, unless he went out to the stable yard and sat with ostlers and fly-drivers in the taproom beneath the arch.

One of the "Imperial" ostlers took the horse's head, said "All right, Mr. Garden," and John Willie descended and walked.

She rode quietly down the yard, called for the ostler, dismounted, shook her trousers down, and addressed the man in as off-hand a manner as if she were a real groom.