rather to point out the former as having been the original proprietors. Nor is there any record as to the actual date of the building, which has often been a subject of antiquarian doubt and speculation. It seems that in the year 1730 two old English letters, M and W, implying, as was supposed, the date of 1005, were discovered by some workman who was employed to repair the outside of the building, but this cannot be relied on. All the architecture that now is left would point to the age of King John. “The general thickness of the walls,” says Britton, “and the double gateway it presents, show that it was intended to repel assailants, and to protect the interior area and its inhabitants from enemies.”
Other monarchs since Charles have visited Worcester; especially to be noted are James II. and George III. The latter presented his portrait to the Corporation, and the former attended the Cathedral on October 23, 1687, where it is recorded that he touched several persons for king’s evil, almost the last instance on record. His successor William III. did certainly yield to sundry entreaties to touch some sufferers, but he added, “God give you better health and more sense.”
When King James visited the city he attended mass at the old Catholic chapel, and was waited on by the mayor and Corporation; but these dignitaries objected to enter a Catholic place of worship, and left him to enter alone. A minute in the Corporate accounts seems to explain how the time was spent, for they adjourned to the “Green Dragon,” and spent the time in smoking and drinking till the service was over, loyally charging their bill to the city.
The next illustration is extremely interesting. It represents the “New Inn” at Gloucester, and its history is curious. Edward II. was murdered under circumstances of great cruelty at Berkeley Castle, and was interred in the Abbey Church of Gloucester, a shrine being raised by the monks over his remains. Lord Berkeley would, it is said, have willingly protected the weak king, but he fell sick; and Edward was given over one dark September night to the tender mercies of “two hell-hounds, that were capable of more villainous despite than becomes either knights or the lewdest varlets in the world,” Thomas Gurney and William Ogle. The chronicler says that “screams and shrieks of anguish were heard even so far as the town, so that many being awakened therewith from their sleep, as they themselves confessed, prayed heartily to God to receive his soul, for they understood by those cries what the matter meant.”
The New Inn was originally designed to accommodate the pilgrims that the monks had been able to collect to the shrine. The view of the courtyard here given differs but little from its present appearance. It has been slightly modernised, but all the details remain to complete the present drawing, which differs indeed but little from John Britton’s, published in the early part of the present century. Most of the pilgrims brought some offering with them, and hence the pains that were taken for their accommodation. The hotel built at Glastonbury for a similar purpose still remains, and is the principal one there at the present day. The buildings of New Inn surrounded two square courts, and were ascended by rows of steps—as appears in the engraving—communicating with two rows of galleries, and these led to various apartments and dormitories. The present inn was built about the year 1450 in Northgate Street by John Twining; and the usual tale about a subterraneous passage to the Cathedral is handed down, which indeed corresponds with the stories that are current of all religious houses. There is a commonly received tradition among country people in the neighbourhood of Chester that a tunnel, closed up at each end, exists between Chester Cathedral and Saighton Hall, a country-seat of the abbots of Chester; and if such a passage ever was constructed, it would compare rather favourably with Cenis tunnel.
This inn is enormously strong and massive, and covers a large area. It is said that half of it is built of timber, principally chestnut.
The luxury of these roomy hotels, after a journey that no market-cart in the most rural district in England would now tolerate, must have been great indeed. In the Grand Concern of England explained by a Lover of his Country, 1673, we read, “What advantage can it be to a man’s health to be called out of bed into these coaches an hour or two before day in the morning; to be hurried in them from place to place till one, two, or three hours within night, insomuch that, after sitting all day in the summer time stifling with heat and choked with dust, or in the winter time starving or freezing with
the cold, or choking with filthy fogs, they are often brought into their inns by torchlight, when it is too late to sit up and get a supper, and next morning they are forced into the coach so early that they cannot get breakfast? What addition is it to a man’s health or business to ride all day with strangers—oftentimes sick, ancient, diseased persons, or young children crying,—all whose humors he is obliged to put up with, and is often poisoned with their nasty scents, and crippled with the crowd of boxes and bundles? Is it for a man’s health to be laid fast in the foul ways and forced to wade up to the knees in mire, afterwards sitting in the cold till teams of horses can be sent to pull the coach out? Is it for their health to travel in rotten coaches, and to have their tackle, or perch, or axle-tree, broken, and then to wait three or four hours (sometimes half a day), and afterwards to travel all night to make good their stage?”