A weather-beaten sign with a red horse rampant swings at one corner of the main building.
"Half effaced by rain and shine,
The Red Horse prances on the sign."
For nearly two hundred years, from 1683 to 1860, the inn was owned and kept by one family, the Howes, and was called by many "Howe's Tavern," by others "The Red Horse Inn."
Since the publication of Longfellow's "Tales of a Wayside Inn," the place has been known by no other name than the one it now bears.
"As ancient is this hostelry
As any in the land may be,
Built in the old Colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality;
A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather-stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall."
A portrait of Lyman Howe, the last landlord of the family, hangs in the little bar-room,
"A man of ancient pedigree,
A Justice of the Peace was he,
Known in all Sudbury as 'The Squire.'
Proud was he of his name and race,
Of old Sir William and Sir Hugh."
And now as of yore
"In the parlor, full in view,
His coat-of-arms, well framed and glazed,
Upon the wall in colors blazed."
The small window-panes which the poet describes as bearing