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The run down carriage in inaccurate colour scheme before the restoration began.

Last Post - Britain's last Royal Mail carriage, that bizarrely once survived an attack by a lion outside Salisbury, has been saved for the nation.

The 200-year-old horse-drawn carriage harks back to the golden age of the Royal Mail when crowds gathered along the route to see the lightning-quick service thunder by.

The restored four horse coach was known as 'Quicksilver' as it was the fastest in the land on its regular 21 hour run from Devonport, Devon, to London.

But the red and black wooden wagon went down in history for an extraordinary incident involving a lion in the English countryside in 1816.