The Old Inns of Old England, Volume 1 (of 2) / A Picturesque Account of the Ancient and Storied Hostelries of Our Own Country

by Charles G. Harper

For generations the merchants and wool-staplers exposed their wares and did their business in the street, or in a large upper room of the house, and long continued to do so when in course of time the whole thing had been altogether secularised.

The cyclist who comes to Norton St. Philip from Bath has a weary time of it, among the hills, by Odd Down, Midford, and Freshford; and only when he has come uphill to windy Hinton Charterhouse are his toils over, and the rest of the way easy. It is a broad, modern road, but the observant may yet see the disused Abbot’s Way going, narrow, and even more steep, over the fields, to the left hand; and we may well imagine the joy of the old travellers along it when they saw the grey church tower in the village, nestling in a fold of the hills, and heard those sweet-toned bells of Norton that still sound so mellow on the ear, and are the identical “very fine ring of six bells” that Pepys heard on June 12th, 1668, and pronounced “mighty tuneable.”

The “George” keeps unmistakable evidences of its semi-ecclesiastical origin, and the Gothic character of the solid stonework in the lower storey points to the latter half of the fourteenth century. The curious and exceedingly picturesque contrast between the massive masonry below and the overhanging timbered upper part has led, without any other evidence, to the conjecture that the house must at some time have suffered from fire, or otherwise been injured and partly rebuilt; but such instances of mixed methods in ancient building are numerous.

History of a romantic kind has been enacted here, for it was in the street of Norton St. Philip, that a furious skirmish was fought, June 26th, 1685, between the untrained and badly armed rustics of the rebel Duke of Monmouth, and the soldiers of King James, under command of the weak and vacillating Lord Feversham. The rebel peasantry, armed only with pikes, scythes, and billhooks, that day withstood and routed their enemies, and they held the village that night, Monmouth himself sleeping in one of the front bedrooms of the “George.” It was while dressing at this window the following morning that he was fired at by some unknown person desirous of earning the reward offered by James for the taking of his nephew’s life. The bullet, however, sped harmlessly by that preserver and champion of the Protestant liberties of the country: hence the invincible anonymity of the firer of that shot. Had Monmouth died thus, it is conceivable he would have come down to us a more manly historic figure.

The interior of the “George” is woefully disappointing, after the expectations raised by the noble exterior. It was obviously never ornately fitted, and long generations of neglect and misuse have resulted in the house being, internally, little better than a mere wreck, with the installation of a vulgar bar to insult the Gothic feeling of the place. The property now belongs to the Bath Brewery Company, and is not merely that abomination, a “tied house,” but is maintained in a barely habitable condition, the Company being reported of opinion that the Somersetshire Archæological Society—interested, as all archæologists must be, in a house so architecturally and historically interesting—should restore the building. If that report be true, it is a striking example of colossal impudence.

On the ground-floor, the present Tap-room keeps a large fire-place with old-fashioned grate. Above, mounting by a stone spiral staircase to the first floor, is the room used by Monmouth (the one to the right hand in the view), and known as the “King’s Room.” Its door, floor, and walls are of the roughest, as also are those of the adjoining room. On the floor above, running the whole length of the building, under the roof, is the long room used by the old wool-merchants as their market: and a darksome and makeshift place, under the roof-timbers, it is, and must have been at the best of times. To-day the floor is rotten, and you must go delicately, lest you fall through to the next floor, and then through that to the ground, where only the explorer can feel secure.

It is the same tale of far-gone decay in the yard, to which you enter, as also to the house itself, by the great archway in the village street. It was always a small yard, but was partly galleried. The tottering remains of the gallery, with brewhouse below, are left, still filled with the enormous casks built in the brewhouse itself, and only to be removed by demolishing them. The rooms are mere ruins. If ever the interior and the yard of the “George” are restored it will be a great and an expensive work; but it is to be feared that, Norton St. Philip being an unlikely place for lengthened resort—visitors coming from curiosity from Bath for merely an hour or so—such a work will never be undertaken.

In even worse case, from an archæologist’s point of view, is the “George” at Winchcombe, in Gloucestershire; for it stands in the High Street of a busy little town, and has been disastrously altered in recent years by the brewers who own it. Brewers have no undue leanings toward historic or architectural sentiment, and in this instance their object was to fit their house for use as a commercial hotel. Accordingly, they caused the ancient stone face to be pulled down and have replaced it by an imitation timbered gabled front. Something of what the old front was like may be discovered at the back, where the date, 1583, may be seen on the stonework, together with an inscription to the effect that it was restored in 1706.

The “George” was originally built as a pilgrims’ inn by the Abbots of Winchcombe and Hayles, whose noted West Country shrines attracted many thousands of the pious and the sinful in days gone by. At Winchcombe they had the body of St. Kenelm, the Saxon boy-king who succeeded to the throne of Mercia in A.D. 822, and, according to legendary lore, was murdered at the instigation of his sister Cwoenthryth, who desired his place. Kenelm was but seven years of age, but already so pious, if we are to believe the story, that the poisons at first administered to him refused their customary effects, and there was nothing for it but to strike his head off. Piety, therefore, was not proof against cold steel.