Newbury, the “hated rival,” is three miles down the road. Within a mile of it in coaching times, but now not to be distinguished from the town itself, is Speenhamland, the site of that famous coaching inn, the “Pelican,” whose charges were of so monumental a character that Quin has immortalized them in the lines:—
“The famous inn at Speenhamland,
That stands beneath the hill,
May well be called the Pelican,
From its enormous bill.”
Alas! how are the mighty fallen! The Pelican is no longer an inn, but has been divided up, and part of it is a veterinary establishment.
RAIL AND RIVER: THE KENNET AND THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.
THOMAS STACKHOUSE
The most famous inhabitant of Newbury was that fifteenth-century clothier, that “Jack of Newbury,” whose wealth and public benefactions were alike considered wonderful in his day. The most notorious inhabitant was that scandalous Vicar of Beenham Vallance, near by, who flourished flamboyantly here between 1733 and 1752. Candour compels the admission that the Rev. Thomas Stackhouse, besides being the learned author of the “History of the Bible,” was also a great drunkard. That history, indeed, he chiefly wrote at an inn still standing on the Bath Road near Thatcham, called “Jack’s Booth.” He would stay there for days at a time, and write (and drink), in an arbour in the garden, going frequently from this retreat to his church on Sundays, where, in the pulpit, he would break into incoherent prayers and maudlin tears, asking forgiveness for his besetting sin, and promising reformation of his evil courses. But after service he was generally to be seen going back to his inn. Here one day a friend found him and reminded him that it was the day of the Bishop’s Visitation, a circumstance which he had quite forgotten. He went off, clothed disgracefully, and by no means sober. “Who,” asked the Bishop, indignantly, on seeing this strange creature—“who is that shabby, dirty old man?” The vicar answered the query himself. “I am,” he shouted, “Thomas Stackhouse, Vicar of Beenham, who wrote the ‘History of the Bible,’ and that is more than your lordship can do!” The historian of these things says this reply quite upset the gravity of the solemn meeting; and the statement may well be believed.
Camden says, “Newburie must acknowledge Speen as its mother,” and Newbury, in fact, was originally an offshoot from Speen, which was anciently a fortified Roman settlement in the tangled underwoods of the wild country between the Roman cities of Aquæ Solis and Calleva (Bath and Silchester). The Romans called it “Spinæ,” i.e. “the Thorns,” a sufficiently descriptive title in that era. The Domesday Book calls it “Spone.” The fact of Speen having been the original settlement may be partly traced in the circumstance of its lying directly on the old road, while Newbury, its infinitely bigger daughter, sprawls out on the Whitchurch and Andover roads, which run from the Bath Road almost at right angles.