THE GEORGE INN, SALISBURY
Photograph by T. W. Tyrell
It is no longer a coaching inn. The court-yard where the strolling players of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries gave their dramatic performances is now the garden, and the entrance for the coaches has been narrowed to an ordinary hotel entrance. In doing this, the rooms on each side were widened, and in this process the massive rough-hewn oaks that support the cross-beams of the ceilings, and which at one time formed part of the walls, became isolated, and stand now like trees growing out of the earth.
Such an ancient inn naturally has many historic stories and traditions associated with it, and these are not overlooked by the present proprietor in a little brochure available to visitors. Shakespeare, we are informed, acted in its court-yard, Oliver Cromwell slept in the inn when passing through the city to join his army on the 17th October, 1645, whilst Samuel Pepys makes mention of it in his diary where he records his welcome to a silk bed and a very good diet.
This inn is referred to again in Chapter XXXI, when Tom Pinch, having parted from Mr. Pecksniff, tramped on foot to Salisbury and “went to the inn where he had waited for Martin,” and ordered a bed, which, we are told “was a low four-poster shelving downward in the centre like a trough.” He slept two nights at the inn before starting on his ride to London, so graphically described by Dickens, meeting Mrs. Lupin at the finger-posts where she had brought the box of good things which he shared with the coachman on the journey.
Where was situated the Baldfaced Stag, where four fresh horses were supplied to the admiring gaze of the topers congregated about the door, cannot be determined. But the inn where Tom alighted in London, and where, in one of the public rooms opening from the yard, he fell fast asleep before the fire, although not named, was probably the “Swan with Two Necks,” which stood in Lad Lane (now Gresham Street) until 1856. It was a famous coaching inn whence the Exeter and other coaches set out and returned.
There was another inn at Salisbury where John Westlock entertained Tom Pinch and Martin to dinner one evening. It is described as “the very first hotel in the town.” Tom and Martin had walked in from Pecksniff’s on a very cold and dry day and arrived at the inn with such flushed and burning faces and so brimful of vigour that the waiter “almost felt assaulted by their presence.” Dickens describes the hostelry in these words: “A Famous Inn! the hall a very grove of dead game and dangling joints of mutton; and in one corner an illustrious larder, with glass doors, developing cold fowls and noble joints, and tarts wherein the raspberry jam coyly withdrew itself, as such a precious creature should, behind a lattice-work of pastry. And behold, on the first floor, at the court end of the house, in a room with all the window-curtains drawn, a fire piled half-way up the chimney, plates warming before it, wax candles gleaming everywhere, and a table spread for three, with silver and glass enough for thirty—John Westlock.”
What a greeting for hungry souls after a long tramp in the brisk cold country air. “I have ordered everything for dinner that we used to say we’d have, Tom,” said their host, and an excellent idea of a dinner it was, too—“like a dream,” as he added.
“John was wrong there,” the narrator goes on, “because nobody ever dreamed such soup as was put upon the table directly afterwards; or such fish; or such side-dishes; or such a top and bottom; or such a course of birds and sweets; or, in short, anything approaching the reality of entertainment at ten-and-sixpence a head, exclusive of wines. As to them, the man who can dream such iced champagne, such claret, port or sherry, had better go to bed and stop there.”
It was a right royal, jolly dinner, and they were very merry and full of enjoyment all the time; “but not the least pleasant part of the festival was when they all three sat about the fire, cracking nuts, drinking wine, and talking cheerfully.” They parted for the night, “John Westlock full of light-heartedness and good humour, and poor Tom Pinch quite satisfied.” After breakfast next morning the two young men returned to Pecksniff’s and John Westlock to London.