A dogcart (also dog-cart or dog cart) is a two-wheeled

horse-drawn vehicle A horse-drawn vehicle is a piece of equipment pulled by one or more horses. These vehicles typically have two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have mostly been replaced by auto ...

pulled by a single horse in shafts, or driven

tandem Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which two or more animals, machines, or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. ''Tandem'' can also be used more generally to refer to any group of persons or objects w ...

. With seating for four, it was designed for sporting shooters and their

gun dog Gun dogs (gundogs) or bird dogs are types of hunting dogs developed to assist hunters in finding and retrieving game, typically various fowls that are shot down on the wing (in flight). The term hunting dog is broad and includes all breeds and s ...

s, with a louvred box under the driver's seat to contain dogs. It was developed in the early 1800s to afford more seating than the gig, which seats only two. Seating is two back-to-back crosswise seats, an arrangement called ''dos-à-dos'' from French. There is a hinged tailboard which lowers slightly and, supported by chains, acts as a footrest for the rear-facing passengers. Some dogcarts had a mechanism to slide the entire body forward or rearward along the shafts to help balance the weight for the horse. Other names for specific or regional designs of dogcarts include Battlesden cart, Bent panel cart, Bounder, Country cart, Essex trap, Farmer's dogcart, Going-to-cover cart, High dogcart, Hurdle cart, Leamington cart, Malvern cart, Moray car, Newport Pagnell cart, Norfolk cart, Norfolk shooting cart, Nottingham cart, Oxford bounder, Oxford dogcart, Pony dogcart, Ralli dogcart, Sliding bodied dogcart, Surrey cart, Tandem cart, To-cart, Whitechapel cart, Worcester cart, and Worthing cart.

Dogcart phaeton

A dogcart phaeton is a four-wheeled vehicle pulled by a single horse in shafts, or a pair of horses with a carriage pole. The dogcart phaeton seats four people and is arranged as two back-to-back crosswise seats, called dos-à-dos, with two people facing forward and two others facing the rear. Though the word ''cart'' generally means a two-wheeled vehicle, the name ''dogcart'' stuck when the body style was mounted on four-wheeled phaeton undercarriages. Other names for specific or regional designs of four-wheel dogcarts include Alexandra dogcart, Continental dogcart, Eridge car, Four-wheeled Ralli car, French Derby cart, Malvern dogcart, Martin's dogcart, and Village phaeton. File:The county families of the United Kingdom; or, Royal manual of the titled and untitled aristocracy of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland (1860) (14577445289).jpg, Four-wheel dog cart Image:Dos-a-Dos Style Carriage.jpg, Alexandra car, an American version of dogcart phaeton with dos-à-dos seating and a cut under for the forewheels File:1850 Break Dog-cart, Château de Chenonceau photo 1.jpg, Dogcart phaeton

In literature

Frequent references to dog-carts are made by Sir

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...

in his writings about fictional detective

Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes () is a Detective fiction, fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "Private investigator, consulting detective" in his stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with obser ...

,Dogcart - Things in "Speckled Band".
Melançon Enterprises and by many other

Victorian writers Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian litera ...

, as they were a common sight in that era. In Os Maias, the protagonist, Carlos, makes use of a dogcart "in great style" to move around Lisbon.

References

{{Horse-drawn carriages, state=expanded Carriages Carts

Dogcart phaeton

In literature

See also

References