of money was paid "to keep Loughborough people forth of the town"; and the charges incurred in 1641 "in watching to keep the sickness from Leicester which prevails at Thurmaston, Birstall, Whetstone and Oakham," were no less than £46 8s. 7d. The gates and bridges were kept locked and chained. All these measures, preventing travellers from entering the town, must have furthered the use of the thoroughfare lying East of its walls; and the more important inns began to open their doors outside the ancient borough, in the neighbourhood of the present Clock Tower. The advent of the diligence about 1760, and the mail-coach, which reached Leicester in 1785, brought increased prosperity to the large hostelries which lay about that new centre.
The most celebrated of the coaching houses, besides the old White Horse, were the Three Crowns, the Three Cranes, the Lion and Lamb, the Nag's Head, the Golden Lion, the Swan with Two Necks, the Queen's Head, the Lion and Dolphin, and the Bell.
The Three Crowns, which stood on the site of the National Provincial Bank, was built about the year 1726, and was named after the union of the three crowns of England, Scotland and Hanover, which was effected by the accession of George I. It was a large building "extending a long way up Horsefair Street. It was three storeys high, containing about fifty windows, plastered and painted stone colour on the front. Its entrance faced down Gallowtree Gate, and its gateway into the yard in Granby Street. It had a balcony on the front entrance, where addresses were delivered at the time of elections. The sign hung at the corner of the house, bearing on it three crowns, and a sceptre in gilt. The house in Horsefair Street was guarded with posts and rails, and at the end of them was a Town Pump." The Three Crowns was one of the social headquarters of the Leicester Whigs, the other being its neighbour the Three Cranes; while the revolutionary and dissenting spirits used to assemble at the Lion and Lamb, the Bear and Swan, the Horse and Trumpet and the White Lion; although the last inn was selected in 1665 for a banquet that was presented by the Mayor to Captain Bassett, Commander of His Majesty's Own Troop.
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