Blunderstone has a village ale-house called the Plough, from which started Barkis the carrier on his daily trip to Yarmouth. David speaks of this inn, and pictures the parlour of it as the room where “Commodore Trunnion held that club with Mr. Pickle.” It is still a comfortable ale-house and a centre of attraction to visitors of the unspoiled village where David was born.
On the occasion of David’s drive in the carrier’s cart to Yarmouth for a stay with Daniel Peggotty in order to be out of the way for his mother’s marriage to Mr. Murdstone, we are introduced to the road between the village and the famous seaside town, so frequently used by Barkis and so often referred to in the course of the story.
THE PLOUGH INN, BLUNDERSTONE
THE BUCK INN
THE DUKE’S HEAD
YARMOUTH
Photographs by T. W. Tyrrell
The first halt was made at a public-house where a long wait occurred whilst a bedstead was delivered there. This inn was probably the Village Maid, at Lound, a name that may also have suggested that of the Willing Mind, the public-house where Mr. Peggotty went occasionally for short spells, as he put it to Mrs. Gummidge. But no public-house with that name, or anything like it, existed in Yarmouth, and it must, therefore, be assumed that no particular one was intended.