EXPERT BIO
PAUL CLAMMER Paul Clammer is a freelance writer and author with over 40 guidebooks for Lonely Planet and the Bradt Travel Guides' book Haiti, the first standalone book for the country in English since the 1980s. He's been travelling to Haiti since 2007, including a year living in Port-au-Prince.
In November 1815, Londoners were treated to one of the grandest exhibitions of craftsmanship the city had seen for some time. 23 state carriages were put on public display in Charles Street, Marylebone. No one who saw them failed to be awed by their magnificence, from the gilt mouldings of the bodywork topped with crowned phoenixes and the finely painted coats of arms on the panels, to the luscious velvet interiors fringed with gold drapery. The carriages, along with harnesses, crimson saddles and silverclawed tiger skin saddlecloths, had cost the coachmakers Crowther and Tapp an estimated £12,000 to make.
"It is to be lamented that more time is not allowed the public," wrote , "to witness one of the grandest specimens of art and elegance ever combined in one piece of work of the kind that has been sent from this country." The same week the newspaper had cooed over a set of satin gowns "finished by one of our fashionable dress-makers" along with pieces from the Prince Regent's own jeweller, cut-glass chandeliers, damask
