THE "BULL," ROCHESTER, "WRIGHT'S NEXT HOUSE"
AND THE "BLUE LION," MUGGLETON
To the accompaniment of the "stranger's" breathless eloquence, the
Pickwickians' first journey from London passed with no untoward
adventure. Although the "Commodore" coach stopped occasionally to
change horses and incidentally to refresh the passengers, no mention
of an inn by name or any other designation is made, however, until
The Bull Inn in the High Street, Rochester, is reached.
"Do you remain here, sir? "enquired Nathaniel Winkle of
the "stranger."
"Here--not I--but you'd better--good house--nice beds--Wright's next
house, dear--very dear--half a crown in the bill if you look at the
waiter--charge you more if you dine at a friend's than they would if
you dined in the coffee room--rum fellows--very."
After consultation with his friends Mr. Pickwick invited the
"stranger" to dine with them, which he accepted with alacrity.
"Great pleasure--not presume to dictate, but boiled fowl and
mushrooms--capital thing! What time?"
The hour being arranged they parted for the time being.
Dickens knew his Rochester well, even in the days when he was
writing Pickwick--a knowledge gained doubtless when a lad at Chatham,
and Jingle's reference to "Wright's next house" is evidence of this,
for there was such an hotel at the time, the owner's name of which
was Wright. It was a few doors away, but was actually the next
public-house, which, of course, was what was meant.
Its original name was the "Crown," but in 1836 the said Wright,
on becoming proprietor, altered the name it then bore to that of
his own. He also changed its appearance to suit his own fancies.
In the earlier days it was a typical coaching inn, and had the
reputation of once having been favoured with a visit of Queen
Elizabeth, as well of Hogarth and his friends. It claimed to
have been built in 1390, and was then owned by Simon Potyn, who
was several times member of Parliament for the city.
In an old engraving of Rochester Bridge the inn can be seen with the
word "Wright's" distinctly showing in prominent letters emblazoned
on its frontage, if such proof that Jingle was not romancing were
necessary.
The inn was rebuilt in 1864, and has been identified as the
"Crozier" of Edwin Drood, where Datchery, on his first arrival
in the town "announced himself . . . as an idle dog living on his
means . . . as he stood with his back to the empty fire-place,
waiting for his fried sole, veal cutlet and pint of sherry."
In the meantime Mr. Pickwick and his friends, after having engaged
and inspected a private sitting-room and bedrooms and ordered their
dinner at "The Bull," set out to inspect the city and adjoining
neighbourhood.
Before the days of Pickwick, the "Bull" presumably was merely a
comfortable roadside coaching inn between Dover and London, with no
claim to fame other than that of being a favoured resort of the
military from the adjacent town of Chatham. It is true that Queen
Victoria--then but a Princess--was compelled, because of a mishap to
the bridge across the Medway and the stormy weather, to stay in the
inn with her mother, the Duchess of Kent, for one night only. They
were on their way to London from Dover. The event happened on the
29th of November, 1836, and caused a flutter of excitement in the
city and inspired the proprietor to add the words "Royal Victoria"
to the inn's name, and to justify the adornment of the front of the
building with the royal crest of arms.
But it remained for the Pickwickians to draw the inn out from
the ruck of the commonplace, and to spread its fame to all
corners of the globe; and the fact that it once had royal
patronage is nothing in comparison to the other fact that it
was the headquarters of the Pickwickians on a certain memorable
occasion. That is the attraction to it; that is the immutable
thing that makes its name a household word wherever the English
language is spoken. Indeed, that was the one notable event in
its history which filled the proprietor with pride, and in his
wisdom, in order to lure visitors into its comfortable interior,
he could find no more magnetic announcement for the signboard on
each side of the entrance than the plain unvarnished statement:
"Good House. Nice Beds. Vide Pickwick."
[illustration: The Bull Hotel, Rochester. From a photograph
by T.W.Tyrrell]
It may have boasted a history before then: it is difficult to say.
It existed in 1827 when Dickens housed the famous four within its
hospitable walls; and he doubtless knew it long before then when,
as a lad, he lived in Chatham; anyway, it was always a favourite
of his, and furnishes the scene of many incidents in his books, in
addition to the part it plays in the early portion of The Pickwick
Papers; it no doubt is the original of the "Winglebury Arms" in "The
Great Winglebury Duel" in Sketches by Boz, and is certainly the
"Blue Boar" of Great Expectations.
Dickens frequented it himself, and the room he occupied on those
occasions is known as the Dickens room and is furnished with pieces
of furniture from his residence at Gad's Hill. We know, too, that
he conducted his friends over it, on those occasions when he made
pilgrimages with them around the neighbourhood.
The house has been slightly altered since those days, but it
practically remains the same as when Dickens deposited the
Pickwickians in its courtyard that red-letter day in 1827. Its
outside is dull and sombre-looking, but its interior comfort and
spaciousness soon dispel any misgivings which its exterior might
have created.
The entrance hall is as spacious as it was when Dickens described
it, in "The Great Winglebury Duel," as ornamented with evergreen
plants terminating in a perspective view of the bar, and a glass
case, in which were displayed a choice variety of delicacies ready
for dressing, to catch the eye of a new-comer the moment he enters,
and excite his appetite to the highest possible pitch. "Opposite
doors," he says, "lead to the 'coffee' and 'commercial' rooms; and
a great wide rambling staircase--three stairs and a landing--four
stairs and another landing--one step and another landing--and so
on--conducts to galleries of bedrooms and labyrinths of sitting-rooms,
denominated 'private,' where you may enjoy yourself as privately as
you can in any place where some bewildered being or other walks into
your room every five minutes by mistake, and then walks out again, to
open all the doors along the gallery till he finds his own."
And so the visitor finds it to-day, although the interior of the
coffee-room may have been denuded of its compartments which the
interview between Pip and Bentley Drummie in Great Expectations
suggests were there on that occasion. It was in this room that
the Pickwickians breakfasted and awaited the arrival of the chaise
to take them to Dingley Dell; and it was over its blinds that
Mr. Pickwick surveyed the passers-by in the street, and before
which the vehicle made its appearance with the very amusing result
known to all readers of the book.
The commercial room is across the yard, over which on one occasion
Mr. Wopsle was reciting Collin's ode to Pip in Great Expectations
with such dramatic effect that the commercials objected and sent up
their compliments with the remark that "it wasn't the Tumbler's Arms."
From the hall runs the staircase upon which took place the famous
scene between Dr. Slammer and Jingle, illustrated so spiritedly by
Phiz. Those who remember the incident--and who does not?--can
visualize it all again as they mount the stairs to the bedrooms
above, which the Pickwickians occupied. They remain as Dickens
described them, even in some cases to the very bedsteads and
furniture, and are still shown to the interested visitor.
"Winkle's bedroom is inside mine," is how Mr. Tupman put it. That
is to say, the one led out of the other, and they are numbered 13
and 19; but which is which no one knows. Number 18, by the way, is
the room the Queen slept in on the occasion of her visit, eight
months after the appearance of the first part of Pickwick.
Number 17 is claimed as Mr. Pickwick's room, which is also the one
Dickens occupied on one occasion, and the one spoken of in Seven
Poor Travellers, from which the occupant assured us that after the
cathedral bell struck eight he "could smell the delicious savour of
turkey and roast beef rising to the window of my adjoining room,
which looked down into the yard just where the lights of the kitchen
reddened a massive fragment of the castle wall"
[illustrations: Staircase at the "Bull." Orchestra in Ballroom
at the "Bull"]
An important feature in those days, and presumably to-day, was
the ballroom, "the elegant and commodious assembly rooms to
the Winglebury Arms." In The Pickwick Papers Dickens thus
describes it: "It was a long room, with crimson-covered benches,
and wax candles in glass chandeliers. The musicians were
securely confined in an elevated den, and quadrilles were being
systematically got through by two or three sets of dancers. Two
card tables were made up in the adjoining card-room, and two pair
of old ladies and a corresponding number of stout gentlemen were
executing whist therein."
The room itself is little altered; although the glass chandeliers
have been removed, there still remains at the end the veritable
elevated den where the fiddlers fiddled. During the war it was
turned into a dining-room on account of the military and naval
demands of the town; but there may come a time when it will revert
to its old glory and tradition.
On the evening of the Pickwickians' arrival Jingle remarks that
there is a "Devil of a mess on the staircase, waiter. Forms
going up--carpenters coming down--lamps, glasses, harps. What's
going forward?"
"Ball, sir," said the waiter.
"Assembly, eh?"
"No, sir, not assembly, sir. Ball for the benefit of charity, sir."
This was the famous ball at which the incident occurred resulting in
the challenge to a duel between Dr. Slammer and Winkle, the details
of which require no reiteration here.
But the pleasant fact remains that the Bull Inn exists to-day and the
Dickens tradition clings to it still. One instinctively goes there
as the centre of the Dickensian atmosphere with which the old city
of Rochester is permeated.
The Bull Inn should never lose its fame. Indeed, as long as it
lasts it never will, because Pickwick can never be forgotten. The
present-day traveller will go by rail, or some day by an aerial
'bus, and may forget the old days during his journey; but when he
arrives there and walks into the inn yard, whole visions of the
coaching days will come back to him, and prominent amongst them will
be the arrival of the "Commodore" coach with the Pickwickians on
board, and the departure of the chaise with the same company with
Winkle struggling with the tall mare, on their way to Dingley Dell,
which resulted so disastrously. He might be curious enough to want
to discover the "little roadside public-house with two elm trees,
horse-trough and a sign-post in front," where the travellers
attempted to put up the horse. That, however, has not been
discovered, although Dickens no doubt had a particular one in
his mind at the time.
During their stay at Manor Farm, Dingley Dell, the Pickwickians
visited Muggleton to witness the cricket match between Dingley
Dell and all Muggleton. "Everybody whose genius has a topographical
bent," says Dickens, "knows perfectly well that Muggleton is a
corporate town, with a mayor, burgesses and freeman," but so far
no topographer has discovered which corporate town it was. Some
say Maidstone, others Town Malling. Until that vexed question
has been settled, however, the identification of the "large inn
with a sign-post in front, displaying an object very common in art,
but very rarely met with in nature--to wit, a Blue Lion with three
legs in the air, balancing himself on the extreme point of the
centre claw of his fourth foot," cannot definitely be verified.
The same remark applies to the Crown Inn, where Jingle stopped
on the same occasion.
[illustration: The Swan Inn, Town Malling. Drawn by C. G. Harper]
At Maidstone there is a "White Lion," and at Town Malling there is
the "Swan." Which of these is the original of the inn where Mr.
Wardle hired a chaise and four to pursue Jingle and Miss Rachael,
and on whose steps, the following Christmas, the Pickwickians, on
their second visit to Dingley Dell, were deposited "high and dry,
safe and sound, hale and hearty," by the Muggleton Telegraph, when
they discovered the Fat Boy just aroused from a sleep in front of
the tap-room fire, must be left to the choice of the reader.