Edward W. Gregory

“ But the travellers of to-day are not those of a hundred or even fifty years ago, any more than they are the pilgrims of the thirteenth century. No use offering them strong ale for breakfast or rum punch at every halt. As well might one hawk the metal charms which found such ready sale seven hundred years ago on the great roads to holy shrines. The modern pilgrim comes on motor-car and bicycle and the relic of his trip is the nimble picture postcard. Of course, one must not forget that the country inn is not entirely kept up as a convenience to travellers. ”

“ The new inn, moreover, the building itself, erected here in the twentieth century for the accommodation of modern people, must be as suitable for its purpose as the old coaching-house was for the stiff, befuddled travellers who, a hundred years ago, alighted from the “Royal Mail” or “Eclipse” for a much-needed night’s repose on their journey to London. It is plain that people use the roads to-day quite as much for pleasure as business. ”

“ Every high road leads sooner or later to a market town, and in that town the tourist may be sure of finding a White Hart Inn. The White Hart is the commonest of signs all through England. Half-timbered and rambling, with the marks of decrepit old age and long service writ large all over it, this inn is in evidence near the market-place, often in a street of the same name, to remind us of its importance in the days gone by. ”

“ We associate the inn with genial comfort and old English hospitality; the sight of it kindles every good sentiment of human kindness within us, and we hail with enthusiasm the reconciliation of father and child, the union of two constant lovers, and happiness restored all round. There is nothing so successful on the stage as an inn scene.
Artists have also shared in the making of the inns. A host of signboards are attributed to Hogarth or that eccentric and profligate genius, George Morland. ”

“ The day should not be far distant when the new inn, not large fashionable hotels, will seek to furnish in some better way than by the purchase of heavy and ornate cast-iron tables with marble tops for the saloon bar, with utterly unsuitable saddle-bag suites for the parlour, with flashing mirrors everywhere, and ornamental crockery, palm stands of dubious origin, and gilt leather papers as decorative enrichments. ”

“ 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 ”

“ At the moment the most accessible good furniture for the new inns is to be found in the modern reproductions of well-known styles which are to be purchased through the ordinary commercial channels and at commercial prices. It is the commonest experience to go into a country inn of undeniable architectural charm, even if the attraction be merely that it seems a simple homely looking building and nothing else, and to find inside furnishing as bad or worse than that of the cheap lodging-house. ”

“ Let us admit and welcome the efforts of the old Georgian coaching inns to keep abreast of the times. Let us cheerfully accept the [Pg 226] attempts of mine host to put life into an old musty coffee-room and bar parlour. Conservatism is not without value at the inn with a history, and the landlord for his own sake must step warily. Let no iconoclast interfere too violently with the worm-eaten glories of old oak and mahogany or seek to disparage the solid virtues of the great round of beef, or the appetising ingredients of the game pie. Tradition in such things is well worth preserving. ”

“ Angel Inn, Woolhampton
[Pg 286] We live in the midst of a period when great revolutionary changes are impending. Never before has the struggle for existence among the masses been so keenly felt, or the cruel differences of opportunity of rich and poor so widely ventilated. Class privilege and hereditary endowment seem alike destined for the melting-pot. What will emerge none can tell. We have shown how in previous ages, whenever there were great political or social changes, the tavern played its part. Within the doors of the public-house all men are brethren. ”

“ Why is it that haunted inns are so scarce and difficult to find? We have sought for them far and wide. During thirty years of wanderings among the old inns, we have retired for the night full oft into blackened oak-lined chambers with secret sliding panels in the walls, or traps in the ceiling, that offered golden opportunities for any ghost of enterprise; rooms where heavy tie-beams and dark recesses cast eerie shadows in the moonlight ”

“ Short’s sanctimonious morality and his devices to detain customers in a hurry, so that they are compelled to stay in the inn for dinner, are a valuable humorous element of this play.
Fielding’s innkeepers are all exquisitely drawn, with the lifelike touches of a fine student of human nature in its infinite variety. We love best of all the host of that inn where Parson Adams met the braggart, untruthful squire who offered him a fine living and endless other benefits without the slightest intention of fulfilling his promises. ”

“ A woman likes to enter a house. She does not like to slip in furtively, and she feels, perhaps unconsciously, that there is a hint of the surreptitious in these doors in the way they open just wide enough on pressure and close again immediately as if to hide a misdemeanour. No woman, either, will stand and drink even the mildest of non-alcoholic liquors if she can possibly help it. ”

“ All is homely and hearty. We have visited the Ship many times and never perceived any signs of objectionable conduct. If it lacks any of the advantages of its Barcelona rival, we must blame the law and the licensing authorities—certainly not the institution.
In Spain, as in Germany, the inn or the tavern is regarded as an essential element of civic life, not as a place to be discouraged and despised. A century or two ago all good and respectable Britons avoided the theatre, and the drama in England became a byword for immorality and licentiousness. ”

“ In later life the White Horse was a famous coaching house, and rebuildings have apparently destroyed any feature older than say three centuries. Perhaps it was in the yard of this house, where a noble old vine spreads green fragrance over the great white gables, that Charles Dickens met the individual who sat for the portrait of Tony Weller. Deep underneath the building are a series of vaults cut out of the sandstone—maybe a relic of the Hospitallers. In one of the lowest is a curious old well. Tradition has it that these cellars were used in the smuggling days. ”

“ He loves to dally with every smoke-stained beam, lattice-window, or row of battered pewter pots and blue mugs, before ushering in the motley throng who gather round the tap-room fire, or the fine lady and gentleman in the smartly-appointed chaise whom the landlord receives so obsequiously. ”

“ The venerable house of call, bequeathed to us by the ages, beckons all to come within its kindly shelter, out of the storms of class hatred and political prejudice. Churlish and short-sighted indeed will those be who reject the invitation. ”

“ It is only the modern craze for collecting which has robbed the inn of so many of its treasures. The experts will tell you that the fact of a piece of furniture being old is no guarantee whatever of its worth, excepting whatever value may be attached to mere length of years. A joiner in the country, say in Shropshire or Yorkshire, might not make a piece of furniture for mine host of the Chequers or Blue Lion as well or in such good taste as would the first-class cabinet-makers of London. ”

“ In the good old days men did not go into a public-house to drown their wits in gin, but to buy each other good wholesome ale in Christian fellowship. And as every man went to church—of course, there had to be many alehouses!”
We have since discovered a less picturesque though much more plausible origin of these superfluous inns which will be given in another chapter. Nevertheless, allowing for our good friend’s flamboyant enthusiasm, there is an element of truth in his contention. Wherever there is a church we may be certain of finding an old inn hard by. ”

“ 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 [Pg 111] 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 architects have contrived cleverly to combine the idea of the continental café and the English country inn. The rooms are large and airy, there is plenty of seating accommodation, and a billiard-room is one of the attractions. There is an entire absence of ornamental decoration, a form of embellishment which still continues to appear in nine out of every ten newly equipped public-houses, in the country as well as in towns. Of course, it is perfectly plain that with a new house of refreshment which is not to hold a licence, anything may be done. ”

“ The old Bath Road knows no more the coaches, curricles, wigs and hoops, holstered saddles or the beaux and fine ladies, and gentleman’s gentlemen whose environment they were. We drift half-unconsciously into the language of the novelist who has recalled these old days so vividly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One can understand the point of view as with an effort one can realise the horror of the Puritans for anything in the form of an image in a Church. But people do not want nowadays to use the inn as a place in which to get drunk; a drunken man, to say nothing of a drunken woman, is a universal object of pity and scorn. What is demanded is a wholesome, clean and pleasant place in which to have something to eat and drink without being [Pg 228] told by anyone, publican or teetotaller, what form the refreshment shall take. ”

“ One exception is to be found at the Ostrich at Colnbrook, a beautiful old Elizabethan coaching inn, retaining near the middle of its long half-timbered and gabled front, above the yard gate, the platform by which “the quality” embarked on the coach. It is an ideal place for a ghost to take sanctuary, with many corridors and low-ceilinged chambers, all lined through with carved chestnut panelling and twisted pilasters. There is a Queen’s room, said to have been used by Queen Elizabeth while awaiting the repair of her coach which had lost a wheel crossing the ford. ”

“ Quite a small thing will turn a lady traveller against a wayside inn. Those horrible, narrow swing doors, which are only too common, are quite enough to make a woman decide against the inn which is so unfortunate as to have them barring the only entrance. ”

“ An exception is the bar, which, of course, was a fixture and part of the inn structure. Our modern bar with its almost invariable ugliness, its row of vertical handles for drawing beer, and its aggressive [Pg 245] cash register, is a poor survival of the Jacobean bar, an example of which is still in existence at the Maid’s Head, Norwich. It is worthy of recollection that the high stools which enable one to sit at a bar are quite of modern origin. Bar lounging evidently did not become a habit until the nineteenth century. People sat down and had their refreshments at ease. ”

“ The black’s head is an effigy in carved and painted wood, planted firmly in the centre of the beam and looking for all the world as if it had only lately been cut off and put there to warn other blacks of a similar awful fate, if ever they should chance to come to Ashbourne. ”

“ It is by long tradition his castle, his secret keep, the innermost temple of his religion. Every patriotic instinct of the poor man has its centre within that little stuffy apartment. [Pg 274] Home to the working man means the best room. The safety of the best room justifies all the national expenditure on a standing army and a huge navy. In the defence of that best room he is prepared to send his sons to lay their bones in some nameless soldier’s grave in the most distant corner of the empire. Take away the best room and the wage-earner has no home worth either working for or fighting for. ”