Bygone Salisbury this week shows a painting which contains the caption “In the early 19th century an elderly woman named widow Ridout started a carrying business known as the Coombe Bissett Express between Coombe Bissett and Salisbury.

Her equipage was a tilted covered cart drawn by her famous donkeys Jack and Jane.”

Apparently these two donkeys were appreciative beer drinkers and on each of their journeys stopped at the Fox and Goose at Coombe Bissett, and the Royal Exchange at Salisbury where they drank a pint of beer apiece from mugs kept for their use.

They also shared the kitchen with their mistress who lived in a flint and chalk cottage next to the post office which, like the Royal Exchange, no longer exists although the Fox and Goose is still going strong!

This historical account is drawn from Mr William Wagg who remembered his father telling him about the express when he was a boy back in 1912. “My father knew Mrs Ridout when he was a boy in service with the vicar at Coombe Bissett about 1890.

He used to tell me tales about the old lady and her donkeys. He said they always had some beer at the Fox and Goose, the Anchor and Hope and the Goat Inn where they were stabled while in Salisbury.

Frank Brooks,* a Salisbury artist best known as a portrait painter, recalled that he used to meet Mrs Ridout by Harnham Bridge as she was leaving the city, and that she walked so slowly he was able to walk backwards to draw her.

*Frank Brooks died at Christchurch, Hants, aged 83 in 1937.

One of his best pictures is that of King Edward VII which he painted for Salisbury and can be seen in Salisbury Guildhall.