Stage Coaches were in general use from the early 18th century for about one hundred and fity years, with coaching inns or what was known as Staging Inns usually spaced some seven miles apart, many offering very basic facilities whilst others had access to a blacksmith, farrier or a wheelwright either on the premises or nearby. Coaching routes through the Cotswolds generally followed the Roman Roads, even though their firm surfaces had long since crumbled to nothing. Broadway was on the main route to London from Worcester and was an important staging point, with as many as forty establishments offering accommodation at one time. Immediately outside the village is Fish Hill, leading steeply up to the Cotswold Edge, which meant that often additional horses needed to be hitched to the coaches.

By 1840, the railways had supplanted coaches as the main means of public transportation over long distances.