OLD COUNTRY INNS of ENGLAND Uniform with This Volume INNS and TAVERNS of OLD LONDON
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Country JO! l\\v\5J byHenry> . OLD COUNTRY INNS OF ENGLAND Uniform with this volume INNS AND TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON Setting forth the historical and literary associations of those ancient hostelries, together with an account of the most notable coffee-houses, clubs, and pleasure gardens of the British metropolis. By HENRY C. SHELLEY With coloured frontispiece, and 48 other illustrations L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. The Chequers, Loose HENRY P. MASKELL EDWARD W, GREGORY With THE AUTHORS BOSTON L. C. PAGE & COMPANY MDCCCCXI PREFACE " WHY do your guide books tell us about nothing but Churches and Manor Houses ?" Such was the not altogether unjustifiable complaint of an American friend whose motor car was undergoing repairs. He was stranded in a sleepy old market town of winding streets, overhanging structures and oddly set gables, where every stone and carved beam seemed only waiting an interpreter to unfold its story. In the following pages we have attempted a classification and description of the inns, which not only sheltered our forefathers when on their journeys, but served as their usual places for meeting and recreation. The subject is by no means exhausted. All over England there are hundreds of other old inns quite as interesting as those which find mention, and it is hoped that our work may prove for many tourists the introduction to a most fascinating study. Thoughtful men, including earnest Church- men such as the Bishop of Birmingham and 906604: vi Preface the Rev. H. R. Gamble, are asking the question whether the old inns should be allowed to disappear. The public house as a national institution has still its purposes to fulfil, and a few suggestions have there- fore been included with a view of showing how it might easily be adapted to modern social needs. CONTENTS CHAP. PAG.i I. MANORIAL INNS ..... 1 II. MONASTIC INNS 14 III. THE HOSPICES 29 IV. THE RISE OF THE TOWNS . .41 V. THE CRAFT GUILDS AND TRADERS' INNS 56 VI. CHURCH INNS AND CHURCH ALES . 67 VII. COACHING INNS . .... 81 VIII. WAYSIDE INNS AND ALEHOUSES . 96 IX. HISTORIC SIGNS AND HISTORIC INNS . 112 X. SPORTS AND PASTIMES . .135 XL THE INNS OF LITERATURE AND ART . 148 XII. FANCIFUL SIGNS AND CURIOUS SIGNBOARDS 160 XIII. HAUNTED INNS 181 XIV. OLD INNS AND THEIR ARCHITECTURE . 195 XV. THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER . 209 XVI. THE NEW INN AND ITS POSSIBILITIES . 220 XVII. INN FURNITURE 237 XVIII. THE INNKEEPER . .256 XIX. PUBLIC HOUSE REFORM 272 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE CHEQUERS, LOOSE . Frontispiece THE KING'S ARMS, HEMEL HEMPSTEAD . x THE SPREAD EAGLE, MIDHURST . 8, 10 THE BULL, SUDBURY . .19 PIGEON HOUSE AT THE BULL, LONG MELFORD . 21 YARD OF THE WHITE HORSE, DORKING . .27 THE WHITE HART, BRENTWOOD .... 42 THE SWAN, FELSTEAD . .51 THE BRICKLAYERS' ARMS, CAXTON ... 61 THE GOLDEN FLEECE, SOUTH WEALD ... 63 PORCH, CHALK CHURCH, KENT . facing 67 CHURCH HOUSE, PENSHURST .... 72 THE PUNCH BOWL, HIGH EASTER . 74, 76 YARD OF THE WHITE HART, ST. ALBANS . 84 COACH GALLERY AT THE BULL, LONG MELFORD . 86 FIREPLACE AT THE WHITE HART, WITHAM . 89 OLD COACHING INNS, ST. ALBANS . .94 BOTOLPH'S BRIDGE INN, ROMNEY MARSH . 95 THE WHITE HORSE, PLESHY 99 THE CHEQUERS, DODDINGTON . facing 104 THE CHEQUERS, REDBOURNE . .106 THE THREE HORSE SHOES, PAPWORTH EVERARD 108 THE HORSESHOES, LICKFOLD . 109 THE RED LION, WINGHAM 113 THE SWAN, SUTTON VALENCE . 116 List oi Illustrations ix PACK THE KING'S HEAD, ROEHAMPTON . .119 THE NELSON, MAIDSTONE 129 THE HORSE AND GROOM, NEAR WALTHAM ST. LAWRENCE ....... 136 THE FALSTAFF, CANTERBURY . .149 THE SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, NEWINGTON . .152 SIGN OF THE Fox AND HOUNDS, BARLEY . .165 SIGN OF BLACK'S HEAD, ASHBOURNE . .170 SIGN OF WHITE HART, WITHAM . .173 THE ANGEL, THEALE 175 THE CLOTHIERS' ARMS, STROUD . facing 184 THE GREYHOUND INN, STROUD . 190 THE SHIP, WINGHAM . .194 THE KING'S HEAD, AYLESBURY . .196 TAP-ROOM AT THE BULL, SUDBURY . .198 THE KING'S HEAD, LOUGHTON, ESSEX . facing 200 FIREPLACE AT THE SUN, PEERING .... 203 FIREPLACE AT THE NOAH'S ARK, LURGASHALL . 207 Fox AND PELICAN INN, HASLEMERE . facing 212 THE WHITE HORSE INN, STETCHWORTH, NEW- MARKET ,,228 THE WOODMAN INN, FARNBOROUGH, KENT ,, 240 THE WHEATSHEAF INN, LOUGHTON, ESSEX . ,, 248 THE SKITTLES INN, LETCHWORTH, HERTS . ,, 254 RECREATION ROOM IN THE SKITTLES INN, 266 LETCHWORTH, HERTS ... ,, THE BELL INN, BELL COMMON, EPPING . ,, 280 SIGN OF THK ANGEL INN, WOOLHAMPTON . 285 The King's Arms, Hemel Hempstead OLD COUNTRY INNS CHAPTER I MANORIAL INNS WHICH among the thousand of old inns to be met with on our country roads has a right to be called the oldest ? There are many claimants. The title-deeds of the Saracen's Head at Newark refer back to 1341. Local antiquaries cite documentary evidence to prove that the Seven Stars at Manchester existed before the year 1356. Symond Potyn, who founded St. Catherine's Hospital for poor Pilgrims at Rochester in 1316, is described as "of the Crown Inn." A Not- tingham ballad relates the adventures of one Dame Rose who kept the Ram in that town " in the days of good King Stephen." Then we have the witness of the German Ambas- sador to the comfort and excellence of the Fountain at Canterbury, when he lodged there in 1299, on the occasion of the marriage of King Edward I to Margaret of France. Nay, the legend runs that within its walls the four murderers of St. Thomas arranged the last * 1 2 Old Country Inns details of their plot in 1170, and that the wife of Earl Godwin stayed at this inn in 1029. But what are all these compared with the Fighting Cocks at St. Albans, said to be the oldest inhabited house in England ? A few years ago its signboard modestly chronicled " the fact that it had been Rebuilt after the Flood." Nevertheless, we can safely assert that no English inn has a history of more than 800 years, and that very few hostelries can trace their independent existence to a period earlier than the fourteenth century. Until the towns had acquired rights of self-govern- ment and trade had in consequence begun to expand, there was little occasion for inns. England under the Norman kings was a purely agricultural country with scattered villages where dependent tillers of the soil grouped their clay-walled thatched hovels around church and manor-house. Even ancient towns, with a record of a thousand years, were merely rather larger villages on a navigable river or a cross road. Foreign merchant ships were just beginning to call once more at the seaports on the chance of trade. Travelling on the roads was attended with Manorial Inns serious dangers and inconveniences. Rob- bers abounded, some not so courteous and discriminating as the legendary Robin Hood. Armed retainers at the tail of some noble lord's retinue were occasionally not above a little highway robbery on their own account, and if the victim failed to beat off his assailant his remedy at law was precarious at best. Such a band, if sufficiently numerous, would even go so far as to attack the King's officers sent in pursuit of them. The journey might at any time be brought to an abrupt conclu- sion because the travellers' horses and carts were forcibly commandeered by the purveyor to the King or some great noble. The roads themselves were in a disgraceful state, full of deep ruts, holes and quagmires, quite in wet weather their impassable ; repair was left to chance or the good-will of neighbouring owners. In the towns they were encumbered with heaps of refuse. The rolls of Parlia- ment from the reign of Edward I onward contain numerous petitions for a regular highway tax. A curious illustration of the lack of any systematic authority over the roads, even as late as the fifteenth century, is preserved in the records of the Manor of Aylesbury. A Old Country Inns local miller, named Richard Boose, needed some ramming clay for the repair of his mill. Accordingly his servants dug a great pit in the middle of the road, ten feet wide and eight feet deep, and so left it to become filled with water from the winter rains. A glover from Leighton Buzzard, on his way home from market, fell in and was drowned. Charged with manslaughter, the miller pleaded that he knew no place wherein to get the kind of clay he required except on the high 1 road. He was acquitted. Furthermore, all England was parcelled out into manors, each a little principality in itself presided over by a lord who in practice possessed summary rights over life and pro- perty within his domain. A stranger might be called upon to undergo a very searching examination to account for his presence in the neighbourhood. Most of the inhabitants were forbidden to leave the demesne without the consent of their lord. Not that this was a great hardship; the idea of a journey rarely occurs to the bucolic mind, and fully half the rural population of England in these days of cheap railway excursions are content to spend their lives within their native parish, 1 " Parker's Manor of Aylesbury," 14. Manorial Inns or at any rate never venture beyond the market town. In every manor there was a manor-house, the residence of the lord and the centre of the life of the community. It was usually quite a simple building on the main street near the church. Here were held the manor courts, view of frank pledge, assize of bread and ale and other quaint customs, some of which have come down to our own days.