THE “FEATHERS,” LUDLOW.
The finest old timber-fronted, black-and-white house in Ludlow is the “Feathers” inn, in Corve Street. There are many ancient and picturesque hostelries in England, but none finer than the “Feathers,” and it is additionally remarkable for being as exquisite within as without. You see its nodding gables and peaked roofs among the earliest of the beautiful things of Ludlow, as you come from the railway-station and ascend the steep Corve Street, that leads out of the town, into Corve Dale.
Very little is known of the history of the “Feathers.” The earliest deed relating to the property is dated August 2nd, 1609, when it appears to have been leased from a member of the Council of the Marches, one Edward Waties of Burway, by Rees Jones and Isabel, his wife. Ten years later, March 10th, 1618-9, Rees Jones purchased the fee-simple of the house from Edward Waties and his wife, Martha: other parties to the transaction being Sir Charles Foxe, of Bromfield, and his son Francis, respectively father and brother of Martha Waties. The purchase price of the freehold was £225. In neither of those transactions is the house called the “Feathers,” or even referred to as an inn; nor do we know whether Rees Jones purchased the existing house, or an older one, on this site. It seems probable, however, that this is the original mansion of some personage connected with the ancient government of the Welsh marches, or perhaps the “town house” of the Foxes of Bromfield in those times when every Shropshire squire of wealth and standing repaired for a season every year with his family from his country seat to Shrewsbury or Ludlow; the two resorts of Society in those days when London, in the toils, dangers, and expenses of travelling, was so far removed that it was a place to be seen but once or twice in a lifetime.
Rees Jones seems to have remodelled the mansion as an inn, and there is every likelihood that he named it the “Feathers” in honour of Henry, Prince of Wales, elder brother of Charles the First, who died in 1612; or perhaps in celebration of Prince Charles being, in his stead, created Prince of Wales, in 1616, when there were great rejoicings in Ludlow, and masques in “The Love of Wales to their Sovereign Prince.” How more loyal could one be—and how more certain to secure custom at such a juncture—than to name one’s inn after the triply feathered badge of a popular Prince?
The door of the “Feathers” appears to be the original entrance of Rees Jones’ day. No prospect of unwelcome visitors bursting through that substantial oak, reinforced by the three hundred and fifty or so iron studs that rather grimly spangle the surface of it, in defensive constellation. Even the original hinges remain, terminated decoratively by wrought-iron fleurs-de-lys. The initials of Rees Jones himself—R.I.—are cut in the lock-plate.
THE DINING-ROOM AT “THE FEATHERS,” LUDLOW.