WAYSIDE INNS AND ALEHOUSES
We have shown in previous chapters how the old English inn grew up almost
always under some local authority--either the lord of the manor, the
monastery, or the parish--and its conduct was regulated by legal
enactments from the reign of Henry II onwards. The alehouse, on the
contrary, might conduct its business as its owner pleased, subject only to
the natural laws of supply and demand. Every householder was free to brew
either for his own consumption or for sale, the one condition being that
his liquor was wholesome and good. Among the crimes that incurred the
punishment of the ducking-stool in the city of Chester during Saxon times
was that of brewing bad beer.
In every manor there was held annually the assize of bread and ale, the
two staple articles of diet which it was essential should be pure and of
good quality. “Bread, the staff of life, and beer life itself,” not
unknown as a motto on the signboards, is a saying that has come down to
us from a prehistoric period. And modern science, as it seems, is inclined
to endorse the maxim. Good old-fashioned wheaten and rye bread, made from
the whole flour from which only the coarser brans had been sifted, built
up the stamina of our forefathers. Their chief drink was ale brewed from
barley or oaten malt. The small proportion of alcohol served as a vehicle
for the organic phosphates necessary for the sustenance of strong nerves,
while the ferment of the malt helped to digest the starch granules in the
bread. Bread and ale are still the main diet of our labouring classes--but
alas! stale, finely-sifted flour contains a very poor allowance of gluten,
and chemically produced saccharine is destitute of phosphates. O, that our
modern legislators would revive the assize of bread and ale!
In _Arnold’s Chronicle_, published by Pynson about 1521, the following
receipt for making beer is given: “Ten quarters of malt, two quarters of
wheat, two quarters of oats and eleven poundes of hoppys, to make eleven
barrels of single beer.” Hops only came into use about the reign of Henry
VII; previously ivy berries, heath or spice had been used as a flavouring
for ale. Leonard Maskall, of Plumpton, a writer on gardening in the reign
of Henry VIII, has the credit of acclimatising the hop-plant. He is also
said to have first introduced carp in the moat at Plumpton Place. Hence
the rhyme of which many versions are given:
“Hops, heresy, carp and beer,
Came into England all in one year.”
However, hops are mentioned as an adulterant in ale in a statute of Henry
VI; and about the same time mention of beer occurs in the accounts of Syon
Nunnery, which were kept in English.
Every inn, large or small, once possessed its own brewhouse, and although
wholesale breweries were established about the time of the Flemish
immigration, at the end of the fourteenth century, home-brewed ale was
commonly on draught fifty or sixty years ago. The _White Horse_ at Pleshy,
that village that boasts of knowing neither a teetotaller nor a drunkard,
relied entirely on its home-brewed liquors up to within the last ten
years, and the apparatus wherein they were prepared remains for the
student of old methods to examine.
Home-brewed ale is still more commonly to be met with in some districts
than many suppose. Even in the neighbourhood of the greatest brewery town
in the world, Burton-on-Trent, there are small inns which rely upon their
own brewing for the best of their ale. There is a very old brewhouse at
Derby, at the _Nottingham Castle Inn_, into which any passer-by may step
from the street and see, twice a week, a huge cauldron containing about a
hundred and twenty gallons, bubbling and foaming in the corner. This
brewhouse dates from the sixteenth century, and is one of the oldest
buildings in the town; the _Dolphin_, whose licence dates from 1530, being
another and perhaps older inn in the same neighbourhood.
[Illustration: White Horse, Pleshy]
A legion of brewers are named in Domesday Book, mostly women, and manorial
assizes show a preponderance of the fairer sex. The price of bread and ale
was fixed by statute in Henry III’s reign, and it was the business of the
Ale-tester to see that the measures were of standard capacity and stamped
with some recognized official mark. Alehouses abounded everywhere, known
by a long pole surmounted by a tuft of foliage. An Act of 1375 regulates
the length of the ale-stake at not more than seven feet over the public
way. The poles had a tendency to become over long to the deterioration of
the timber structures from which they depended, as well as danger to
travellers passing on horseback. At Guildford, and some other cloth
centres, the alehouses were required to exhibit a woolpack for a sign.
These alehouses were of all sorts and sizes. There was the humble
hedgeside cottage, looking like a mere sentry-box, illustrated in the
fourteenth century MS.[9], where a hermit is being entertained by an
alewife with a very large beer jug; or the little alehouse on the Watling
Street, somewhere near Rainham, where Chaucer’s Pardoner dismounted to
“Drynke and byten on a cake”
before commencing his tale; or the establishment by Leatherhead Bridge,
where Elinour Rummyng drove such a thriving trade, immortalised by the
poet Skelton. Some of these larger alehouses were a cause of anxiety to
well-disposed people, and no doubt the Church Houses were partly
instituted with the idea of inducing the faithful to spend their time in a
less disreputable manner. All kinds of bad characters resorted to the
alehouse. Piers Plowman gives us a lurid picture of what went on there.
How the glutton going to be shriven met the alewife and was induced to
spend the afternoon and evening with
“Tymme the tynkere and tweyne of his prentis
Hikke the hakeneyman and Hughe the nedeler,
Clarice of cokkeslane, and the clerke of the Cherche
Dawe the dykere and a doziene other;
Sir Piers of Pridie and Peronelle of Flanders,
A ribidour, a ratonere, a rakyer of Chepe,
A ropere, a redynkyng, and Rose the disheres,
Gofrey of Garlekehithe, and Gryfin the Walshe,
And upholderes an hepe.”
They drink deeply, joke coarsely and quarrels ensue.
Finally the glutton is hopelessly intoxicated.
“He myghte neither steppe ne stande, er his staffe hadde;
And thanne gan he go, liche a glewmannes biche,
Somme tyme aside, and somme tyme arrere,
As who-so leyth lynes for to lache foules.”
His wife and maid carry him home between them and he lies helpless through
Saturday and Sunday, waking in bitter repentance at having missed his
duties.[10]
From Skelton we learn how women came to pledge their wedding rings and
husbands’ clothes
“Because the ale is good.”
Hence the necessity for an Act in Henry VII’s reign which empowered
justices to close alehouses notorious for bad conduct, and later, the
first Licensing Act of 1552, requiring every alehouse-keeper to obtain the
licence of two justices, and regulating the manner in which the business
is to be carried on. By an Act of 1627, a fine of twenty-one shillings, or
in default a whipping, was inflicted on the keepers of unlicensed
alehouses, and on a second conviction imprisonment for one month. But none
of these measures were enforced throughout the country, and they were
easily evaded. Anyone was still free to sell ale in booths at fair time,
and many trades had by custom the privilege to sell ale as a part of their
business: for example, barbers and blacksmiths, whose customers required
entertainment while waiting their turn. Two centuries after the first
Licensing Act, the nation was still unconvinced on the subject of free
trade in liquor. In a report on an inquiry made by Justices of the Peace
for the County of Middlesex in 1736, it was shown that within the limits
of Westminster, Holborn, The Tower and Finsbury (exclusive of London and
Southwark), there were no less than 2,105 unlicensed houses. Spirits were
retailed by above eighty other trades, particularly chandlers, weavers,
tobacconists, shoemakers, carpenters, barbers, tailors, dyers, etc.
Barbers’ shops were once resorted to by idlers, in order to pass away
their time, and a system of forfeits prevailed, nominally to enforce
order, but in practice to promote the sale of drink. They are referred to
in “Measure for Measure.”
“Laws for all faults,
But laws so countenanced that the strong statutes
Stand like the forfeits in a barber’s shop
As much in mock as mark.”
Dr. Kenrick professes to have copied the following list of forfeits in a
shop near Northallerton:
“RULES FOR SEEMLY BEHAVIOUR
First come, first served--then come not late;
And when arrived keep your state;
For he who from these rules shall swerve
Must pay the forfeits--so observe.
1.
Who enters here with boots and spurs,
Must keep his nook; for if he stirs,
And gives with armed heel a kick,
A pint he pays for every prick.
2.
Who rudely takes another’s turn,
A forfeit mug may manners learn.
3.
Who reverentless shall swear or curse,
Must lug seven farthings from his purse.
4.
Who checks the barber in his tale,
Must pay for each a pot of ale.
5.
Who will or cannot miss his hat
While trimming, pays a pint for that.
6.
And he who can or will not pay,
Shall hence be sent half trimm’d away,
For will he, nill he, if in fault,
He forfeit must in meal or malt.
But mark who is already in drink,
The cannikin must never clink.”
[Illustration: The Chequers, Doddington]
As the restrictions on travelling gradually disappeared many of the
alehouses developed into inns. As early as 1349, a statute of Edward III,
requiring those who entertained travellers to be content with moderate
prices, recognizes the class of _Herbergers_[11] or keepers of unlicensed
hostelries. And these inns as a class are deserving of close study from
the difficult problem of determining their exact age. Some of them may
have existed as alehouses during the Saxon period; some may even stand on
the sites of Roman _tabernae_.
The oldest of all inn signs of this class is the _Chequers_, found
throughout England, but especially in the neighbourhood of old Roman
roads. This sign is found on many houses at Pompeii, and was throughout
Europe the common indication of a money-changer’s office. Hence our Court
of the Exchequer, which concerned itself with the national funds and their
collection. The chess-board was the most primitive form of ready reckoner;
and as the innkeeper was the person best qualified to act as money-changer
he readily undertook the business. Small tradesmen still send their
assistants to the public-house when they require to change a sovereign.
Many heraldic shields are painted with checks, and Brand, in his “Popular
Antiquities,” suggested that the Chequers represent the coat of arms of
the Earls of Warrenne, on the supposition that a member of this family in
the reign of Edward IV possessed the exclusive right of granting licences.
It is absolutely certain that no such licence was ever authorised. Nothing
of the kind was ever attempted before Sir Giles Mompesson in the reign of
James I; but, of course, some “chequers” may possibly have a heraldic
origin.
[Illustration: The Chequers, Redbourne]
Chaucer’s pilgrims put up at the _Chequers on the Hope_ (_i.e._, on the
Hoop) at Canterbury, and part of this inn still remains near the
Cathedral gate. There was also a _Chequers Inn_ at St. Albans, but it has
now ceased to exist. Either may have stood on the sites of Roman inns; but
with these as with the thatched _Chequers_ on the Watling Street, near
Redbourne, or the _Chequers_ at Loose or Doddington, speculation is vain.
Like the needy knife-grinder, whose breeches were so woefully torn during
his drinking bout at an inn bearing the same name: “Story? God bless you,
I have none to tell, sir!” is the universal answer to all our inquiries
for any historical particulars beyond a century or two back.
Wayside inns needed no licence and were usually carried on by a hosteller
who combined the occupation with that of farmer or tradesman of some kind.
Where any old leases exist they are described merely as tenements or
farms. Thus the _Dorset Arms_ at Withyham, a very picturesque old shingled
and barge-boarded inn, appears as “Somers’ Farm.” Only by accident do we
find the name of one of the tenants, William Pigott, on a list of Sussex
tavern-keepers in the year 1636.
[Illustration: The Three Horseshoes near Papworth Everard]
When the sign of the _Three Horseshoes_ occurs at the end of a rough
difficult stretch of road during which a horse would often lose a shoe,
it is probable that the inn grew up side by side with a blacksmith’s
business, even when the smithy no longer exists. In a very lonely and
exposed situation on the Ermine Street, where the road to St. Ives crosses
near Papworth Everard, there is a thatched inn bearing this sign and also
known as _Kisby’s Hut_. At Lickfold, about six miles from Haslemere,
almost under the shadow of Black Down, the highest hill in Sussex, there
is a cosy half-timbered _Three Horseshoes_, which has come down to our
time practically unaltered since the day of its erection in 1642, and it
is well worth examination. The roads around it are liable to be flooded,
and it is a likely place for waggoners to pull up for repairs. But when
disentangling the riddles of local history, we must not be led astray
with obvious explanations. Many old coats of arms contain the three
horseshoes. Indeed there is one inn on a manor once belonging to the
Shelleys, where possibly the forgotten shield of the older Kentish branch
of the family--the three escallops--has been repainted as three
horseshoes.
[Illustration: The Horseshoes, Lickfold]
The _Plough_ and _Harrow_ are both primitive emblems, and agricultural
signs such as these point to a very high antiquity. The _Plough_ at
Kingsbury is supposed to be more than eight hundred years old.
At the Upper Dicker in Sussex there is an inn called the _Plough_, which
is worth visiting by motorists on their way to the _Star_ at Alfriston,
especially as it will enable them to get a glimpse of Michelham Priory on
an island in the Cuckmere close by. The tap-room of this inn has a
generously-planned fireplace with an ancient fireback and dogs. Up till
quite recently it was the custom to keep a fire constantly burning, and in
the hottest weather the warmth of this fire was far from unwelcome owing
to the thickness of the outer walls. This tradition of the ever-burning
fire is a curious one, found in remote districts, and pointing to a time
when the public-house was necessarily resorted to for purposes of this
kind. At the _Chequers Inn_, Slapestones, near Osmotherly, in Yorkshire,
the hearth-fire has been burning uninterruptedly for at least a hundred
and thirty years.
Some inns now known as the _Ship_ were possibly at one time the “Sheep,”
as will be readily understood by those acquainted with rustic dialect.
_Shepherd and Crook_, _Load of Hay_, _Woodman_, are all to be found in
rural districts throughout England. The _Wheatsheaf_, whether it surmounts
a fine old coaching house in a market town, or a little wayside inn far
from the madding crowd, reminds us that we once could boast of the finest
wheat culture in the world; while the _Harvest Home_ pleasantly recalls
the merry-making which concluded the ingathering of the crops.
In some country villages there are a very large number of small inns close
together, perhaps three in a row. At Steeple Ashton, in Oxfordshire, there
are thirteen, and at East Ilsley, in Berkshire, nearly as many to a
population of about five hundred. The street seems almost to consist of
public-houses. But it would be quite wrong to suppose that the inhabitants
of these districts are unduly given to convivial habits. The reports of
the petty sessions show that drunkenness is exceedingly rare. In Steeple
Ashton division no charge of drunkenness has been heard for the past six
years. Such villages are decayed market towns, which become important at
the time of their periodical sheep fairs, when an army of graziers and
shepherds from the distant downs must find board and lodging. For a week
these inns are crowded with dealers in velveteen jackets, and grizzled
veterans clad in those blue smock coats and slouched hats, which were once
the universal dress of village labourers, with a shaggy bob-tail dog under
every chair. When fair-time is over they are quite deserted.