THE RED LION HOTEL, HAMPTON
Drawn by C. G. Harper
In the chapter describing the flight of Betty Higden we are told that her pilgrimage took her through Chertsey, Walton, Kingston, and Staines, and so on to her journey’s end. One day she was sitting in a market-place on a bench outside an inn. Here she became nervous of those who questioned her, and determined to move on. As she left the spot she had looked over her shoulder before turning out of the town, and had seen the “sign of the White Lion hanging across the road, and the fluttering market booths and the old grey church, and the little crowd gazing after her, but not attempting to follow her.”
Although the name of this town is not mentioned, there is no doubt that the description is of Hampton, and that the inn is the Red Lion, whose picturesque sign still spans the street, with the view of the “old grey church” behind it.
The scenes of the fourth book bring us to the district of Henley, although the name is never mentioned and the locks and inns are given fictitious names. But it has not been difficult to locate the spots from the novelist’s accurate descriptions. The only inn which plays an important part in the unravelling of the story in this neighbourhood is given the name of the Anglers’ Inn. All authorities identify this as the Red Lion, Henley. It was here that Eugene Wrayburn found accommodation when in pursuit of Lizzie Hexam. The inn is on the west bank of the river and north of the bridge, and, being a favourite resort of anglers, the name Dickens gives it is appropriate enough. It was to this inn that Lizzie Hexam brought the apparently lifeless body of Eugene Wrayburn after her brave rescue of it from the water, following the murderous attack on him by Bradley Headstone.
“She rowed hard—rowed desperately, but never wildly—and seldom removed her eyes from him in the bottom of the boat.... The boat touched the edge of the patch of inn lawn sloping gently to the water. There were lights in the windows, but there chanced to be no one out of doors. She made the boat fast, and again by main strength took him up, and never laid him down until she laid him down in the house.”
This patch of green lawn sloping gently to the river coincides with that of the Red Lion, Henley. It was also in this inn, some weeks later, that Lizzie and Eugene were married. It was still uncertain if he would recover, and, in conformity with his wish, the ceremony was performed round his bed, the Rev. Frank Milvey officiating, Bella and her husband, Mortimer Lightwood, Mrs. Milvey and Jenny Wren being in attendance.
The Red Lion is a famous old coaching-inn, as well as a fishing and boating one of renown. It is not only very old but large. Standing by the bridge in prominent fashion it appeals to the eye at once:
’Tis a finely toned, picturesque, sunshiny, place,
Recalling a dozen old stories;
With a rare British, good-natured, ruddy-hued face,
Suggesting old wines and old Tories.
to quote once more from Ashby Sterry’s rhymes.
It was on a window in this old inn that Shenstone the poet scratched with a diamond about 1750 that celebrated stanza of his: