The Windsor Landau: The Victorian Taxi That Refused to Disappear
Built in 1860. Passed from coachman to coachman. Returning to Windsor in 2027.
Some carriages are preserved in museums. Others disappear as the world changes around them.
But one remarkable Victorian Landau survived because generations of Windsor coachmen continued to care for it.
For more than a century, it was part of the town’s working horse-drawn taxi trade. It witnessed the arrival of the motorcar, the decline of the old carriage ranks and the changing lives of the people who drove it.
And remarkably, it survived them all.
From a Victorian Gentleman to the Windsor Taxi Rank
The story begins in 1860, when the Landau was built by John Marston’s carriage works in Birmingham for Sir Daniel Gooch of Clewer Park, Windsor.
With its elegant body, inward-facing seats and distinctive folding roof, it was a prestigious carriage, designed for private travel.
In 1890, Sir Daniel’s son sold the Landau into Windsor’s licensed Hackney carriage trade, where it began a very different working life with coachman Daniel Chapman.
Twenty years later, in 1910, Chapman passed the carriage and licence to Joby Cooper.
And so began the remarkable chain of custodianship that would help preserve it for generations.
The Coachmen Who Kept It Going
As motorcars gradually replaced horse-drawn taxis, Windsor’s carriage trade became smaller and smaller.
By the 1960s, only three licensed horse-drawn operators remained.
Among the Landau’s later custodians was George Paget of Eton Wick, a well-known local character whose working life extended from the carriage trade to rag-and-bone collecting and involvement with the Carry On films.
The carriage subsequently passed to my father, John Seear, in the 1970s, continuing its remarkable working life within Windsor’s licensed carriage trade.
These were not simply owners of an antique vehicle.
They were working horsemen who understood its purpose, maintained its traditions and kept it in service when the world around them had largely moved on.
The Carriage I Grew Up With
For me, the Landau has never been just a historic carriage.
It was part of my childhood.
I remember the horses, the coachmen and the working days in Windsor. I remember Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II pausing to speak with the coachmen.
And I remember my father driving the Landau with so many of our family horses, along the familiar routes of the town and estate.
Those are not stories I discovered in an archive.
They are memories of the world I grew up in.
A Remarkable Survival
The Landau remained in licensed Windsor Hackney carriage service until its retirement in 2009.
It was subsequently entrusted to specialist coachbuilders for restoration and preservation, with guidance from the Royal Mews leading to its protected storage.
Its survival represents something quite unusual.
A Victorian carriage that began life in private ownership became a working town taxi, passing through successive generations of coachmen while the trade itself changed almost beyond recognition.
The carriage endured because people continued to accept responsibility for it.
Returning to Windsor in 2027
We are now preparing for the Landau’s return to Windsor in 2027. Last in town in 2009.
It is an opportunity to share not only a beautiful piece of Victorian craftsmanship, but also the lives of the coachmen, horses and families who kept it working.
Mid Restoration - stripped back to her bones before being carefully restored by master craftsman.
Alongside its return, we are working towards greater recognition of Windsor’s historic horse-drawn Hackney carriage trade, including a commemorative plaque marking the Thames street Hackney carriage rank still in use today.
Because this history belongs not only to the people who preserved it.
It belongs to Windsor.
And in 2027, we hope to begin its next chapter.
