EACH time I start to plan an article I take it for granted that I will get into my car, move quickly and not have to pay tolls.

This set me thinking about what life was like before the age of the car.

Most of us did not travel much apart from on foot, while those with money had their own coach and horses.

They had to travel on very rough roads and the good roads had to be paid for.

The money was collected at Toll Houses and many of those still exist and are either museums or private houses.

I found a photograph of the Lomax family coach outside the now demolished Bolton Hall at Bolton-by-Bowland.

Later fare-paying passengers could travel on well-organised coach roads and on the route were well established coaching inns.

Coaches like cars, were built to specifications and this applied to railway coaches when steam locomotives became the main method of travel.

It is interesting to note that the gauge of railway lines were the same dimensions as the old road coaches.

In the early days road coaches were just placed on to rails.

When it comes to travelling to enjoy the countrysde, the driving force was without doubt the railway.

This trend was accelerated when the working hours were reduced in the 1870s and 1880s which gave more time for leisure.

It is no accident that rambling and naturalists' clubs were set up during this period.

I love my jaunts and each time I travel I look out for old toll houses, historic coaching inns, old milestones and ancient, and now seldom used roads.

For more than 30 years I have been collecting photographs of these old coaching days.

How lucky we are to be able to Drive and Stroll with so much ease.

The way forward might be to drive less and stroll more, but nobody in their right mind would deny us the freedom to travel.