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.
[Illustration: The Chequers, Loose]
Old Country Inns of England
BY HENRY P. MASKELL
AND EDWARD W. GREGORY
_With Illustrations by_
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 Churchmen such as the Bishop of
Birmingham and 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
therefore been included with a view of showing how it might easily be
adapted to modern social needs.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
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
XI. 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
PAGE
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
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, FEERING 203
FIREPLACE AT THE NOAH’S ARK, LURGASHALL 207
FOX AND PELICAN INN, HASLEMERE _facing_ 212
THE WHITE HORSE INN, STETCHWORTH, NEWMARKET " 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, LETCHWORTH, HERTS " 266
THE BELL INN, BELL COMMON, EPPING " 280
SIGN OF THE ANGEL INN, WOOLHAMPTON 285
[Illustration: 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 Nottingham 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 Ambassador 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 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-government 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 serious dangers and
inconveniences. Robbers 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
conclusion 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 impassable in wet weather; their 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 Parliament 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 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 road.
He was acquitted.[1]
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 property 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, 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. Hither at Hocktide
and harvest would come the tenants and their wives, bringing their own
platters, cups and napkins for their feast.
Such few travellers as were benighted on the road, small merchants or
pedlars going to a local fair, a knight or squire on his way to court,
Kings’ messengers and officials, would naturally put up at the
manor-house. Hospitality was so rarely called for that it was willingly
afforded, just as it is at an Australian homestead in the backwoods. One
more sleeping place on the rushes in the hall, another seat at the common
table--above or below the salt according to the hosteller’s estimate of
the guest’s condition in life--was no great matter. Doubtless each in his
own degree made his present to the hosteller in the morning; the butler
in a country house still expects his solatium from the parting guest.
By the middle of the fourteenth century the roads had become more
frequented, and it was no longer the fashion for the lord to reside in the
comparatively humble manor-house. The cost of living had seriously
increased; the nobility were impoverished by attendance at court, the
foreign wars, and their crowd of retainers. So the lord retired to his
more secluded castle or country seat, leaving strangers to be entertained
at the manor-house by a steward who afterwards was replaced by a regular
innkeeper as tenant. Throughout these changes the family crest or arms
remained on the front of the building. Or sometimes the manor-house was
turned to other uses and an inn was built close by, and the coat of arms
hung over the door in order to induce travellers to transfer their custom
thither. Such is the origin of the official inn throughout feudal Europe,
but in the Black Forest and the Tyrol the process was sometimes completely
reversed. As the nobility became poorer they parted with their estates and
turned innkeepers. One can still now and then make the surprising
discovery that mine host is by birth a baron, actually entitled to bear
the arms above his door, and that it is his ancestors who sleep under
those magnificent marble tombs in the minster hard by.
Inns with heraldic emblems for their signs, or called the Norfolk Arms,
Dorset Arms, Neville Arms, according to the local landowner, abound
everywhere--the actual arms scarcely ever being emblazoned on account of
the heavy tax on armorial bearings. But it is not easy to trace their
connection with the manor-house. Manors have been alienated over and over
again; with each change the sign on the inn has usually been repainted
with the arms of the new owner. One of the few exceptions is the _Tiger_
at Lindfield, which carries us back to the Michelbournes of the fourteenth
century.
For a characteristic example of a manorial inn we must invite our readers
to visit the sleepy town of Midhurst, venerable in its winding streets of
projecting upper stories, deeply moulded eaves and gables; a town nestling
among the gentler slopes of the South Downs, on the banks of that sweetest
and most musical of trout streams, the Sussex Rother. Here is an old inn,
far away from the great roads which no vandal has yet ventured to
rebuild. The older portion dates from about 1430, and no doubt stands on
the site of the original manor-house of the De Bohuns. It is an excellent
example of an early timber-framed house of the better class, with massive
old oak ceilings, ingle-nooks and “down” fires. The old fireplaces and
recessed ovens are pronounced by experts to be genuine fourteenth-century
work. A very large addition was made in 1650, when the stables were also
built. This latter portion will not be regretted by the visitor who loves
more comfort and cheery surroundings than is possible in a conscientiously
preserved fourteenth-century hotel.
[Illustration: The Spread Eagle, Midhurst]
In clearing away the paint from one of the panelled rooms at the _Spread
Eagle_ an inscription was discovered: “The Queen’s Room,” possibly
referring to the much travelled Queen Elizabeth who was entertained
“marvellously, nay rather excessively,” by Sir Anthony Browne, first
Viscount Montagu, at Cowdray, in 1591. A melancholy interest attaches to
the sign of the _Spread Eagle_. It was the crest of the Montagu family,
which came to an end in 1793 with the drowning of the last Viscount
Montagu at Schaffhausen, on the Rhine, in the very same week that his
splendid mansion at Cowdray was destroyed by fire.
It is worth noting that the double-gabled house in the foreground of our
first picture of the _Spread Eagle_ (once also an inn, now a cosy
temperance hotel) was built early in the seventeenth century by an
ancestor of Richard Cobden.
On royal manors the crown was more frequently employed as a distinguishing
mark of the manorial hall than the royal arms. Inns having for their
signs the King’s Arms have usually assumed this title during the
Reformation period when the royal arms were ordered to be set up in the
churches. An exception is the _King’s Arms_ Hotel at Godalming, which has
every reason to claim to be the original inn of the royal manor. The
present building is not much more than two centuries old, a fine
substantial example of red-brick domestic architecture in the reign of
good Queen Anne. An oak-panelled room is shown to visitors as that in
which Peter the Great Czar of Russia slept during his visit to England.
The landlord’s bill on this occasion is preserved as a curiosity in the
Bodleian library. The items of the bill are as follows: Breakfast--half a
sheep, a quarter of lamb, ten pullets, twelve chickens, three quarts of
brandy, six quarts of mulled wine, seven dozen of eggs, with salad in
proportion. At dinner the company had five ribs of beef weighing three
stone, one sheep weighing fifty pound, three quarters of lamb, a shoulder
and loin of veal boiled, eight pullets, eight rabbits, two-and-a-half
dozen sack and one dozen of claret. The number of guests was twenty-one.
[Illustration: The Spread Eagle, Midhurst]
There is another old inn at Godalming with the sign of _Three Lions_. We
have not been able to obtain any authentic information about its history,
and it may be only a coincidence that the royal arms before Edward III
quartered the arms of France consisted of three lions on a shield.
Even if inns that can prove their authentic manorial origin are few and
far between, this class of hostelry must once have been the most important
of all. The nomenclature of the thirteenth-century manor is preserved in
every detail of the modern inn. The hosteller remains as the ostler, who
now usually confines his attention to four-footed visitors; the
chamberlain has changed his sex (though only since the days of Sir Roger
de Coverley) and has become the Chambermaid. In most old manor-houses
provisions, wine and ale were served from a special department close to
the porch and called the “bower,” from Norse _Bür_, meaning buttery.
Frequenters of a modern inn resort for the same purpose to the “bar.”
Lastly, the presiding genius in every hotel or tavern, no matter how
humble, is invariably referred to as “the Landlord.” The very word “Inn,”
like the French _hôtel_, anciently implied the town residence of a
nobleman. The Inns of Court were nearly all of them houses of the nobility
converted for the purpose of lodging the law students there. The same
remark applies to the inns which preceded the cloistered colleges of our
older universities.
But we usually know the English inn by a much nobler name--a name which
carries us back to an age many generations before there were any manorial
lords to the tribal chief, and beyond the tribal chieftain to the common
dwelling of our Aryan forefathers. We generally refer to it as “The
public-house.” It is the one secular place of resort where we can all
forget our social differences; where millionaire and pauper, nobleman and
navvy can hob-nob together on equal ground if they care to do so. The
public-house opens its doors to every well-behaved citizen without
distinction of persons. It is the abiding witness to the common
brotherhood of man. For the public-house is not merely an institution to
provide lodging and refreshment for the individual wayfarer, nor yet a
shop for the sale of certain specific liquids; it is a place where men can
meet to entertain each other, and converse with their fellow men on equal
terms. As such it is hateful to the sectary, who would fain see men sorted
out into exclusive coteries for the airing of their own opinions and class
grievances.