3-082-359 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Coaching on the Isis at Oxford, 1895. 'Every neighbourhood has been displaying lately its own special "winter effects." Barometers and thermometers have been read as diligently as the daily paper, and the compilers of local history have proudly added another page of records about the severe cold. Wherever possible, events have taken place as extraordinary as the weather. For instance, there has been, as shown in one of our Illustrations, coaching on the Isis. Not that "coaching" with which undergraduates are familiar, nor the coaching connected with the historic Boat Race, but the driving of a coach and six on the river Isis. Mr. James Porter, who four years ago drove his coach and four down mid-stream, repeated this feat three or four times recently. His horses were specially shod with steel-spiked shoes. The Mayor of Oxford was a passenger on one of the occasions. This pleasurable and unusual experience caused as much interest and excitement as if all the passengers had been on a switchback'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.