A Cock and Bull story

This weekend I was some 50 miles north of London in a town on the old Roman road of Watling Street (now the A5) called Stony Stratford. Until the coming of the railways it was an important coaching town, with its heyday in the 18th century.

'Travellers on these coaches were regarded as a great source of current news from remote parts of the country - news which would be imparted in the town's two main inns, The Cock and The Bull. The two establishments rapidly developed a rivalry as to which could furnish the most outlandish and scurrilous travellers' tales. Hence a 'Cock and Bull' story.'
(Stony Stratford Online, History)

The Cock and The Bull are still in business, with their signs hanging over the street. I stayed in a crooked-floor first floor bedroom up some narrow, twisted stairs and facing the High Street in The Cock. As a stopover for stagecoaches, I wondered whether how stage passengers and other travellers would have found The Cock two hundred years ago. Might they have slept in the same bedroom as me?
Only a few yards up the street is The Bull. At one time there were 50+ inns. Cars drive slowly through the centre of traffic-calmed Stony Stratford today but I tried to imagine the town packed with horses and horse-drawn vehicles.