When I designed with my friend W. a visit to the Dulwich gallery, which
we did not effect, we did not foresee the consequence of diversion from
our intent; and having been put out of our way, we strolled without
considering “the end thereof.” Hence, our peradventure at the “Crooked
Billet,” on Penge Common;[252] our loitering to sketch the “Bridge on
the Road to Beckenham;”[253] the same, for the same purpose, at “the
Porch of Beckenham Church-yard;”[254] the survey of “Beckenham
Church;”[255] the view of its old Font in the public-house garden;[256]
and the look at the hall of “Wickham Court,” and West Wickham
church.[257] New and beautiful prospects opened to us from the latter
village; and to the just enumerated six articles, and their engravings,
respecting that part of the country, in the former volume of the _Table
Book_, it is intended to add like abstracts of our further proceedings.
In short, to be respectful and orderly, as one moiety of a walking
committee, self-constituted and appointed, I take permission to “report
progress, and ask leave to _go_ again.”
The “Crooked Billet” at Penge, and mine host of the “Swan” at West
Wickham, have had visitors curious to trace the pleasant route, and
remark the particulars previously described. While indulging the sight,
there is another sense that craves to be satisfied; and premising that
we are now penetrating further “into the bowels of the land,” it becomes
a duty to acquaint followers with head-quarters. For the present, it is
neither necessary nor expedient to nicely mark the road to “Keston
Cross”--go which way you will it is an agreeable one. A Tunbridge or
Seven-Oaks coach passes within a short half mile, and the Westerham
coach within the same distance. If a delightful two hours’ lounging walk
from Bromley be desired, take the turning from the Swan at Bromley to
Beckenham church; go through the church-yard over a stile, keep the
meadow foot-path, cross the Wickham road, and wander by hedge-row elms,
as your will and the country-folk direct you, till you arrive at Hayes
Common; then make for the lower or left-hand side of the common, and
leaving the mill on the right, get into the cottaged lane. At a few
hundred yards past the sheep-wash, formed in a little dell by the
Ravensbourne, at the end of the open rise, stands “Keston Cross.”
Before reaching this place on my first visit to it, the country people
had indiscriminately called it “Keston _Cross_” and “Keston _mark_;” and
lacking all intelligible information from them respecting the reason for
its being so named, I puzzled myself with conjectures, as to whether it
was the site of a cross of memorial, a market cross, a preaching cross,
or what other kind of cross. It was somewhat of disappointment to me,
when, in an angle of a cross-road, instead of some ancient vestige,
there appeared a commodious, respectable, and comfortable-looking house
of accommodation for man and horse; and, swinging high in air, its sign,
the red-cross, heraldically, a cross _gules_; its form being, on
reference to old Randle Holme, “a cross _molyne_, invertant;” to
describe which, on the same authority, it may be said, that “this cross
much resembles the molyne, or pomette; saving in this, the cut, or sawed
ends, so turn themselves inward that they appear to be escrowles rolled
up. Some term it _molyne_, the ends rolled up.”[258] So much for the
sign, which I take to be a forgotten memorial of some old boundary
stone, or land-mark, in the form of a cross, long since removed from the
spot, and perhaps after it had become a “stump-cross;” which crosses
were of so ancient date, that the Christians, ignorantly supposing them
to have been dedicated to idolatrous purposes, religiously destroyed
them, and their ancient names were soon forgotten: “this may be the
reason why so many broken crosses were called stump-crosses.”[259] The
observation is scarcely a digression; for the house and sign, commonly
called “Keston Cross,” or “Keston mark,” stand on a site, which, for
reasons that will appear by and by, the antiquary deems sacred. The
annexed representation shows the direction of the roads, and the star *
in the corner the angular situation of the house, cut out of Holwood,
the estate of the late Mr. Pitt, which is bounded by the Farnborough and
Westerham roads, and commands from the grounds of the enclosure the
finest view towards the weald of Kent in this part of the county.
| |
| | Westerham
| |
* | |
---------------+ +---------------
Farnboro and 7 Wickham and
Oakes Croydon
---------------+ +---------------
| |
| | Bromley and
| | Lewisham
| |
“Keston Cross” I call “head-quarters,” because in this house you will
find yourself “at home.” You may sparkle forth to many remarkable spots
in the vicinage, and then return and take your “corporal refection,” and
go in and out at will; or you may sit at your ease, and do nothing but
contemplate in quiet; or, in short, you may do just as you like. Of
course this is said to “gentle” readers; and I presume the _Table Book_
has no others: certain it is, that ungentle persons are unwelcome
visitors, and not likely to visit again at “Keston Cross.” Its occupant,
Mr. S. Young--his name is beneath his sign--will not be regarded by any
one, who does himself the pleasure to call at his house, as a common
landlord. If you see him seated beside the door, you estimate him at
least of that order one of whom, on his travels, the chamberlain at the
inn at Rochester describes to Gadshill as worthy his particular
notice--“a franklin in the weald of Kent, that hath three hundred marks
with him in gold--one that hath abundance of charge too.”[260] You take
Mr. Young for a country gentleman; and, if you company with him, may
perhaps hear him tell, as many a country gentleman would--bating
obsolete phrase and versification--
I lerned never rhetorike certain;
Thing that I speke it mote be bare and plain:
I slept never on the mount of Pernaso,
Ne lerned Marcus Tullius Cicero.
Colours ne know I non, withouten drede,
But swiche colours as growen in the mede,
Or elles swiche as men die with, or peint;
Colours of rhetorike ben to me queinte;
My spirit feleth not of swiche matere:
But if you lust my tale shul ye here.[261]
In brief, if you “put up” at the “Red Cross,” and invite Mr. Young’s
society, you will find him
---------------a franklin faire und free,
That entertaines with comely courteous glee.[262]
The house itself is not one of your bold looking inns, that if you enter
you assure yourself of paying toll at, in regard of its roystering
appearance, in addition to every item in your bill; but one in which you
have no objection to be “at charges,” in virtue of its cheerful,
promising air. You will find these more reasonable perhaps than you
expect, and you will _not_ find any article presented to you of an
inferior quality. In respect therefore of its self-commendations and
locality, the “Cross” at Keston is suggested as a _point d’appui_ to any
who essay from town for a few hours of fresh air and comfort, and with a
desire of leisurely observing scenery altogether new to most London
residents.
* * * * *
The classical ancients had inns and public-houses. Nothing is a stronger
proof of the size and populousness of the city of Herculaneum, which was
destroyed by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius on the 24th of August, A. D.
79, than its nine hundred public-houses. A placard or inscription,
discovered on the wall of a house in that ruined city, was a bill for
letting one of its public-houses on lease; and hence, it appears that
they had galleries at the top, and balconies, or green arbours, and
baths. The dining-rooms were in the upper story. Although it was the
custom of the Romans to recline at their meals, yet when they refreshed
themselves at these places they sat. The landlord had a particular
dress, and landladies wore a _succinct_, or tucked up dress, and brought
the wine in vases for the visitors to taste. They had common drinking
vessels as with us, and sometimes the flaggons were chained to posts. In
the inns on the roads there were both hot and cold meats. Until the time
of Nero, inns provided every kind of delicacy: that emperor restricted
them to boiled vegetables. Tiberius prohibited their selling any baker’s
goods.
The company frequenting the ancient public-houses were usually
artificers, sailors, drunken galli, thieves, &c. Chess was played, and
the abacus, or chess-board, was made oblong. Hence came the common
painted post still at the doors of our own public-houses, the sign of
the chequer or chequers.[263] Sir William Hamilton presented to the
Antiquarian Society a view of a street in Pompeii, another Italian city
destroyed by Vesuvius, which contains the sign of the chequers, from
whence there can be no doubt that it was a common one among the Romans.
* * * * *
Our Saxon ancestors had public-houses where they drank very hard out of
vessels of earthenware, as the country people do still.
The Anglo-Saxons had the _eala-hus_, ale-house, _win-hus_, wine-house,
and _cumen-hus_, or inn. Inns, however, were by no means common houses
for travellers. In the time of Edward I. lord Berkeley’s farm-houses
were used for that purpose. Travellers were accustomed to inquire for
hospitable persons, and even go to the king’s palaces for refreshment.
John Rous, an old traveller, who mentions a celebrated inn on the
Warwick road, was yet obliged to go another way for want of
accommodation.[264]
* * * * *
Mr. Brand supposes, that the chequers, at this time a common sign of a
public-house, was originally intended for a kind of draught-board,
called “tables,” and that it showed that there that game might be
played. From their colour, which was red, and the similarity to a
lattice, it was corruptly called _the red_ lettuce, a word frequently
used by ancient writers to signify an alehouse. He observes, that this
designation of an alehouse is not altogether lost, though the original
meaning of the word is, the sign being converted into a _green_ lettuce;
of which an instance occurs in Brownlow-street, Holborn.
* * * * *
In “A Fine Companion,” one of Shackerly Marmion’s plays, we read of “A
waterman’s widow at the sign of the Red _Lattice_ in Southwark.” Again,
in “Arden of Faversham,” 1592, we have
--“his sign pulled down, and his _lattice_ born away.”
Again, in “The Miseries of Inforc’d Marriage,” 1607:
--“’tis treason to the _Red Lattice_, enemy to the signpost.”
It were needless to multiply examples of this sign beyond one in
Shakspeare. Falstaff’s page, speaking of Bardolph, says, “He called me
even now, my lord, through a red _lattice_, and I could see no part of
his face from the window.”
A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine for June 1793, says, “It has been
related to me by a very noble personage, that in the reign of Philip and
Mary the then earl of Arundel had a grant to license public-houses, and
part of the armorial bearings of that noble family is _a chequered
board_: wherefore the publican, to show that he had a license, put out
that mark as part of his sign.” On this, Mr. Brand inquires why the
publicans take but a part of the Arundel arms, and why this part rather
than any other? Another writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine for September
1794, says, “I think it was the great earl Warrenne, if not, some
descendant or heir near him, not beyond the time of Rufus, had an
exclusive power of granting licenses to sell beer: that his agent might
collect the tax more readily, the door-posts were painted in chequers;
the arms of Warren then, and to this day.” We may, however, reasonably
refer all these “_modern_ instances” to ancient times; and derive the
publican’s sign of the chequers from the great authors of many of our
present usages, the old Romans.
* * * * *
Mons. Jorevin, a French traveller, who journeyed through England in the
reign of Charles II., stopped at the Stag inn, at Worcester, in the
High-street, and he describes the entertainment of himself and a friend
with whom he supped, so as to acquaint us somewhat with the
entertainments in inns at that time. “During supper he (his friend) sent
for a band of music, consisting of all sorts of instruments: among these
the harp is the most esteemed by the English. According to the custom of
the country the landladies sup with the strangers and passengers, and if
they have daughters they are also of the company, to entertain the
guests at table with pleasant conceits, where they drink as much as the
men. But what is to me the most disgusting in all this is, that when one
drinks the health of any person in company, the custom of the country
does not permit you to drink more than half the cup, which is filled up,
and presented to him or her whose health you have drank. Moreover, the
supper being finished, they set on the table half a dozen pipes and a
packet of tobacco for smoking, which is a general custom, as well among
women as men, who think that without tobacco one cannot live in England,
because, say they, “it dissipates the evil humours of the brain.” It
appears from a “Character of England,” printed in 1659, “that the ladies
of greatest quality suffered themselves to be treated in these taverns,
and that they drank their _crowned cups_ roundly, danced after the
fiddle, and exceeded the bounds of propriety in their carousals.”
* * * * *
If a description of Scottish manners, printed about fifty years ago, may
be relied on, it was then a fashion with females at Edinburgh to
frequent a sort of public-house in that city. The writer says: “January
15, 1775.--A few evenings ago I had the pleasure of being asked to one
of these entertainments by a lady. At that time I was not acquainted
with this scene of ‘high life below stairs;’ and therefore, when she
mentioned the word ‘oyster-cellar,’ I imagined I must have mistaken the
place of invitation: she repeated it, however, and I found it was not my
business to make objections; so agreed immediately. I waited with great
impatience till the hour arrived, and when the clock struck away I went,
and inquired if the lady was there.--‘O yes,’ cried the woman, she has
been here an hour, or more.’ The door opened, and I had the pleasure of
being ushered in, not to one lady, as I expected, but to a large and
brilliant company of both sexes, most of whom I had the honour of being
acquainted with. The large table, round which they were seated, was
covered with dishes full of oysters and pots of porter. For a long time
I could not suppose that this was the only entertainment we were to
have, and I sat waiting in expectation of a repast that was never to
make its appearance. The table was cleared, and glasses introduced. The
ladies were now asked whether they would choose brandy or rum punch? I
thought this question an odd one, but I was soon informed by the
gentleman who sat next me, that no wine was sold here, but that punch
was quite ‘the thing;’ and a large bowl was immediately introduced. The
conversation hitherto had been insipid, and at intervals: it now became
general and lively. The women, who, to do them justice, are much more
entertaining than their neighbours in England, discovered a great deal
of vivacity and fondness for repartee. A thousand things were hazarded,
and met with applause; to which the oddity of the scene gave propriety,
and which could have been produced in no other place. The general ease
with which they conducted themselves, the innocent freedom of their
manners, and their unaffected good-nature, all conspired to make us
forget that we were regaling in a cellar, and was a convincing proof
that, let local customs operate as they may, a truly polite woman is
every where the same. When the company were tired of conversation they
began to dance reels, their favourite dance, which they performed with
great agility and perseverance. One of the gentlemen, however, fell down
in the most active part of it, and lamed himself; so the dance was at an
end for that evening. On looking at their watches, the ladies now found
it time to retire; the coaches were therefore called, and away they
went, and with them all our mirth. The company were now reduced to a
party of gentlemen; pipes and politics were introduced: I took my hat
and wished them good night. The bill for entertaining half a dozen very
fashionable women, amounted only to two shillings apiece. If you will
not allow the entertainment an elegant one, you must at least confess
that it was cheap.”[265]
* * * * *
It may be amusing to wander for a moment to another place of public
entertainment, for the sake of a character of it two centuries ago, by
bishop Earle.