The Bristol Road (which later became the Bath Road, when that town gained in importance) was used by horses and wagons in the days before the coaching era, but at this time Slough was not significant. It had 3 alehouses in 1577, which was a lot less than the nearby village of Colnbrook.

It was in the late 1500s and early 1600s that coach travel became established, and as trips could take several days it was necessary to have places along the major routes, where people could stop off overnight.

One of these major routes was the Bath Road, and Slough became an important stopping-off point, along with Colnbrook to the east and Reading to the west. The first coaching inns in Slough, the Crown and the Reindeer, were built in 1618, and more soon followed.

The village of Salt Hill also became a significant stopping-off point for coaches, with two inns, the Windmill and the Castle. Both were used at meeting places for the Colnbrook Turnpike Trust, which was set up to maintain the Slough section of the Bath Road (the Trust is covered in a separate article).

By the mid-1600s, the trip from London to Bath took 3 days, but in 1716, when the first daily coaches between London and Bath were started by Thomas Baldwin, landlord of the Crown Inn, the journey time was down to 38 hours. Mail coaches were among the fastest - the first mail coach in England passed through Slough on its way from London to Bristol in 1784.

The increase in travel led to increased opportunities for crime, and Berkshire became an area notorious for highwaymen (see separate articles).

Slough remained an important coaching village well into the 1800s, with over 30 coaches a day passing through in the 1830s, bound for Oxford and Birmingham as well as Bath and Bristol.

However, the coaching era was coming to an end, as preparations began for the building of the railway. 1850 saw the last coach travel along the Bath Road.