OLD INNS AND THEIR ARCHITECTURE
Although many of our country inns must in their structural substance date
from the reigns of Edward III and Richard II, and some, like the _Red
Lion_ at Wingham, and the _White Hart_ at Newark, possess features that
are without doubt fourteenth-century work, the earliest examples worthy of
extended description and classification date from the middle of the
fifteenth century. The enormous development of trade, and the wealth of
the towns at this period, occasioned the building of hostelries so
magnificent in size and so well adapted for comfort that they have often
served through the strain and stress of coaching days. Some of these inns
are well worthy of being compared with the grand parish churches which the
same age has bequeathed to us.
Hidden behind a corner of the market-place at Aylesbury is the noble old
_King’s Head_, presenting to a narrow turning its broad mullioned windows
and Tudor entrance gateway. The interior has an open spacious staircase,
and a lofty tap-room with massive oak cornice, and moulded ceiling-ribs
meeting in a carved boss. It is lighted by a magnificent window, the
ancient stained glass in which represents the arms of England and France
quartered, the arms of Margaret of Anjou, and numerous heraldic and
ecclesiastical symbols. A strong opinion exists that this house was a
refectory for the Grey Friars; others have suggested that it was a hall of
one of the town Guilds, built soon after the marriage of Henry VI, in
1444. With regard to the glass, there is some question whether it was not
brought hither from some other position, especially as one of the heraldic
shields has been reversed during insertion. But the whole apartment
remains very much in its original state except that the chimney piece is
ordinary and modern.
[Illustration: King’s Head, Aylesbury]
The yard of the old _King’s Head_ is still a busy picturesque one on
market days, but the scene has lost a delightful background since the
removal of the old galleries.
Even finer in its carvings and the richly-moulded cornice and ceiling
beams is the great hall in the _Bull_ at Long Melford. Probably this is a
little earlier in date than the Aylesbury house. Unfortunately, the
beauty of this exquisite hall is marred by glass partitions and modern
wall decoration of an inferior quality. Three miles away at Sudbury there
is another _Bull_ also of Edwardian date, full of quaint nooks and
retaining its original front, altered only by the insertion of a few
eighteenth-century window frames. It stands near the site of an old
friary, but we are inclined to believe that it owes its name, not to a
monastic origin, but to the Black Bull of the House of Clarence.
[Illustration: Tap-room at the Bull, Sudbury]
Other fine old inns of this period are the _New Inn_ at Gloucester, built
by Abbot Seabrook from the designs of John Twyning, a monk; the _Sun_ at
Feering in Essex, formerly a manor-house; and the _George_ at Glastonbury,
unique in the possession of its original stone front, bold oriels and
richly-traceried windows. The _Crown_ at Shipton-under-Wychwood has a fine
archway in the Perpendicular style and also some mullioned windows.
Nearer London is the _White Hart_ at Brentwood. “There are few hostelries
in England,” says Albert Smith, “into which a traveller would sooner turn
for entertainment for himself and animal than that of the _White Hart_,
whose effigy looks placidly along the principal street from his lofty
bracket, secured thereto by a costly gilt chain, which assuredly prevents
him from jumping down and plunging into the leafy glades and coverts
within view. And when you enter the great gate, there is a friendly look
in the old carved gallery running above the yard, which speaks of comfort
and hospitality; you think at once of quiet chambers; beds into which you
dive, and sink at least three feet down, for their very softness; with
sweet, clean, country furniture, redolent of lavender. The pantry, too, is
a thing to see, not so much for the promise of refection which it
discloses, as for its blue Dutch tiles, with landscapes thereon, where
gentlemen of meditative minds, something between Quakers and British
yeomen, are walking about in wonderful coats, or fishing in troubled
waters; all looking as if they were very near connections of the
celebrated pedestrian, Christian, as he appeared in the old editions of
‘The Pilgrim’s Progress.’” And the _White Hart_ at Brentwood remains a
treasure among old inns, although fate has not been kind to it during the
sixty years since little Fred Scattersgood found shelter there when
running away from persecution at Merchant Taylors’ School. Depressed Tudor
arches, framed in dark oak, open into each of its two great yards, and an
early Tudor arcading forms the front of the gallery, a retreat from which
the fair dames of Brentwood were wont to watch the cock-fightings. Just
inside the principal entrance will be found some excellent renaissance
woodwork.
[Illustration: “The King’s Head,” Loughton, Essex]
At Alfriston, in Sussex, is the _Star Inn_, small in size, but of the
highest interest. On brackets on each side of the doorway are mitred
figures of St. Giles with a hind and St. Julian, the patrons of weary
wayfarers. A beam in the parlour is ornamented with a shield and the
sacred monogram, and all kinds of curious carvings abound in the building.
In the dining-room upstairs, suggestive of an old ship’s cabin, the solid
construction of the fine old roof may be studied. For four centuries it
has borne its coverings of thick Horsham stone slabs without shifting, and
seems sound enough to resist time for a long period to come. Antiquarians
have supposed this inn to have been erected as a pilgrim’s hostel, but it
seems scarcely probable that voyagers, even if they landed at Seaford,
would take this route either to Canterbury or Chichester. It belonged to
the Abbey of Battle, and the many ecclesiastical carvings may be ascribed
to the monkish craftsmen. Just above a facetious, smiling lion thickly
bedaubed with red paint, and evidently the figure-head of a ship stranded
on this dangerous coast, is the carver’s mark showing the date of the
building. A rude heraldic design on the angle bracket, represents a
coronetted ragged staff supported by a bear and a lion with a twisted
tail. In 1495, Edmund Dudley married Elizabeth Grey, last heiress of
Warwick the “King-maker.” The union of the Green Lion with the Bear and
Ragged Staff was a great event for the Sussex people. Edmund Dudley was
brought up at Lewes Priory, and the hillfolk were proud of his success in
becoming the chief minister of his time.
The _Maid’s Head_ at Norwich, so far as the older part of this excellent
house is concerned, is chiefly Elizabethan and early Jacobean; thanks to
the careful restoration and the valuable collection of old furniture
introduced by Mr. Walter Rye, much of the interior helps us to realise
what an old inn looked like two or three centuries ago. But the _Maid’s
Head_ has a more ancient history, and can boast of a Norman cellar (a
relic of the Bishop’s Palace), while in the drawing-room, a real
fifteenth-century fireplace, discovered in the thickness of the wall, has
been opened up and correctly fitted with dogs and hood. The panelled
billiard-room, cosy Jacobean bar, and the music gallery in the assembly
room (like the “Elevated Den” in the _Bull_ at Rochester), are all
delightful. The only fault we can find at the _Maid’s Head_ is that the
old inn-yard, now converted into a lounge, has been roofed in with glass
at too low a level. A much better effect would have been attained by
introducing the glazed protection high above the galleries, as has been
done in the yard of the _Rose and Crown_ at Sudbury.
[Illustration: Sun Inn, Feering]
Another Elizabethan inn of note is the _Star_ at Great Yarmouth, built by
a local merchant, William Crowe, at the end of the sixteenth century. Here
the Nelson Room, so called from a famous portrait of Lord Nelson, is
beautifully panelled in dark oak. When the match-boarding was torn down
for repairs about forty years ago the original fireplace and chimney-piece
were discovered and restored. Over the mantel are the arms of the Merchant
Adventurers who received their charters from Queen Elizabeth.
The exact date of the _Feathers_ at Ludlow is not very easy to determine,
but it must have existed before 1609, when Rees Jones took a lease of the
premises; and the initials “R. I.” on the lockplate probably refer to
him. The splendid carved front with a gallery of spiral balusters, the
studded door, elaborate ceilings, fireplaces and panelling are, of course,
well known to all students, and illustrated in every collection. In 1616,
there was a celebration in Ludlow of “The Love of Wales to their Sovereign
Prince”; and from this event the inn must have received its name. It is
the finest of all the _Magpie_ half-timbered inns of Cheshire,
Herefordshire, and Shropshire. By the time these lines are in print the
famous “Globe Room” at the _Reindeer_ at Banbury will have been exported
to America, but a replica in all respects is to be erected in its place. A
copy of the ceiling is already at the South Kensington Museum.
Many of the great coaching inns of the Queen Anne and Georgian eras are
not lacking in good proportion and correct classic detail. But they lack
the individuality of the very old inns, and a long description of them
would interest only the purely architectural student. The artist will find
effects of colour and lighting in the mouldering brick cornices at
Godalming or Sittingbourne. The old ballrooms in county towns, now
deserted for the modern Town Hall, and made to do duty as store rooms,
are always worth peeping into; and little survivals of our forefathers’
habits of life are to be detected in the broad staircases and deep easy
window seats. Hotel architecture continued to follow the fashion, and even
the Greek revival early in the last century and the later Italian revival
had their influence.
Some very curious examples of the Sir Charles Barry period are to be noted
in the neighbourhood of the Crystal Palace. Fifty years of wear might make
us forgive some of their eccentricities. Among these, one of the best from
the architectural point of view, is the little _Goat House Hotel_ in South
Norwood, so named from a famous goat-breeding establishment which existed
on an island of the Croydon Canal. The portico, cluster of narrow
round-headed windows and slender Lombardic tower of this building are not
bad, albeit hopelessly exotic. At least they show an attempt at artistic
purpose during the years when public-house design was generally mechanical
and sordid.
For the very queerest adaptation by a local builder of the style in vogue
during the Greek revival, a visit must be paid to the _Lisle Castle_, on
the Dover Road, about three miles beyond Gravesend.
[Illustration: The Noah’s Ark, Lurgashall]
Old wayside inns, as a rule, have few architectural pretensions; good
sound proportion, breadth of roof, bold chimney breasts, and age together
suffice to make them attractive and dignified. Internally the tap-rooms
are often panelled, and the ceilings crossed by many smoke-stained beams;
with here and there a welcome chimney-corner. Ingle-nooks and
chimney-corners are still fairly numerous even in the home counties.
Surrey can boast of a good half-dozen; _The Plough_ at Smallfield, near
Red Hill, the _Crown_ at Chiddingfold, the _White Lion_ at Warlingham, may
be given as instances--while there are more than one in that fine old
Elizabethan inn, the _Clayton Arms_, formerly the _White Hart_ at
Godstone. Leaves Green and Groombridge own two out of the many scattered
about Kent. In Sussex they are too common to require special notice.