1-239-607 - The London Archives (City of London)/Heritage Images

Interior view of Johnson's Pedestrian Hobbyhorse Riding School in the Strand, Westminster, London, 1819. Fashionably dressed men riding hobby horses at a riding school at 337 Strand, London. The 'Hobby Horse' or 'Dandy Horse' was the forerunner of the bicycle and was invented by Baron von Drais in France in 1817. It was introduced the following year to England by Denis Johnson, a coachmaker of Long Acre London, who described it as a 'Pedestrian Curricle'.