Tuesday, April 19, 2011

royal horse drawn carriages


It's 10 days to go before the big day when people around the world will sit in front of their TVs to watch Kate and William get hitched.  And horses will get hitched onto the Royal Carriage for it.  So here is a horse-drawn carriage stamp issue, not from the UK, but from Thailand, and info from Thailand Post:

Horse-drawn carriages were introduced to Thailand during the early Rattanakosin Period. However, they were not very popular due to their high cost so they were used only by kings and high ranking members of the royal family. After returning from the state visit to Europe in 1897, King Chulalongkorn had Chao Phraya Devesvongvivat (M.R. Lan Kunjara) and Phra Nithespanich, the Siamese Consul to Singapore, acquire horses from abroad to draw the royal carriages. After that horse-drawn carriages were widely used and they became even more popular in the reign of King Vajiravudh.

The popularity of carriages started to decline in the reigns of King Prajadhipok and King Ananda Mahidol because horses were expensive to acquire and maintain. Motor cars replaced carriages because they were convenient and easier to take care of and, ever since, hores-drawn carriages have hardly been used.

The carriages that appear in the stamps are those used in the reigns of King Chulalongkorn and King Vajiravudh; they are vehicles without canopies, semi-hoodes carriages, carriages with canopies and hooded carriages.

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