HIGH STREET, GLASTONBURY, IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
From the etching by Rowlandson.
CHAPTER VII
PILGRIMS’ INNS AND MONASTIC HOSTELS (continued)
At St. Albans we have still something in the way of a pilgrim’s inn. St. Albans was, of course, the home of the wonder-working shrine of St. Alban, the proto-martyr of Britain, and by direct consequence a place of great pilgrimage and a town of many inns. Here is the “George,” one of the pleasantest of the old inns remaining in the place, with an old, but scarce picturesque frontage, relieved from lack of interest by a quaint sundial, inscribed Horas non numero nisi serenas, and a more than usually picturesque courtyard.
The house is mentioned so early as 1448 as the “George upon the Hupe.” In those times it possessed an oratory of its own, referred to in an ancient licence, by which the Abbot authorised the innkeeper to have Low Mass celebrated on the premises, for the benefit of “such great men and nobles, and others, as shall be lodged here.”
Let us try to imagine that inn, licensed for the sale of wine and spirituous liquors and for religious services! It seems odd, but after all not so odd as these mad times of our own, when public-houses are converted into missions, and ordained clergymen of the Church of England become publicans and serve drinks across the counter in the interest of temperance and good behaviour.[14]