It is perhaps hardly necessary to say that the “George” at Stamford, in common with the many other inns of the same name throughout the country, derived the sign from the English patron saint, St. George, and not out of compliment to any one of our Four Georges. The existing house is largely of late eighteenth-century period, having been remodelled during those prosperous times of the road, to meet the greatly-increased coaching and posting business; and can have little likeness to the inn where Charles the First lay, on the night of Saturday, August 23rd, 1645, on the march with his army from Newark to Huntingdon.
In that older “George,” in 1714, another taste of warlike times was felt. The town was then full of the King’s troops, come to overawe Jacobites. Queen Anne was just dead, and Bolton, the tapster of the “George,” suspected of Jacobite leanings, was compelled by the military to drink on his bended knees to her memory. He was doing so, meekly enough, when a dragoon ran him through the heart with his sabre. A furious mob then assembled in front of the house, seeking to avenge him, and very quickly broke the windows of his house and threatened to entirely demolish it, if the murderer were not given up to them. We learn, however, that “the villain escaped backway, and the tumult gradually subsided.”
At the “George” in 1745, the Duke of Cumberland, the victor of Culloden, stayed, on his return, and in 1768, the King of Denmark; but I think the most remarkable thing about the “George” is that Margaret, eldest daughter of Bryan Hodgson, the landlord at that time, in 1765, married a clergyman who afterwards became Bishop of London. The Reverend Beilby Porteous was, at the time of his marriage, Vicar of Ruckinge and Wittersham, in Kent. In 1776 he became Bishop of Chester, and eleven years later was translated to London.
In 1776 the Reverend Thomas Twining wrote of the “distracting bustle of the ‘George,’ which exceeded anything I ever saw or heard.” All that has long since given place to the gravity and sobriety already described, and the great central entrance for the coaches has for many years past been covered over and converted into halls and reception-rooms; but there may yet be seen an ivied courtyard and ancient staircase.
Even as I write, a great change is coming upon the fortunes of the “George.” The motorists who, with the neighbouring huntsmen, have during these last few years been its chief support, have now wholly taken it over. That is to say, the Road Club, establishing club quarters along the Great North Road, as nearly as may be fifty miles apart, has procured a long lease of the house from the Marquis of Exeter, and has remodelled the interior and furnished it with billiard-rooms up-to-date, a library of road literature, and other essentials of the automobile tourist. While especially devoted to these interests, the “George” will still welcome the huntsman fresh from the fallows, and hopes to interest him in the scent of the petrol as much as in that of the fox.
THE “SWAN,” FITTLEWORTH.
It may be noted, in passing, that the “Red Bull” at Stamford also claims to have entertained the Duke of Cumberland on his return from Culloden, and that the “Crown” inn, with its old staircase and picturesque courtyard, is interesting.
A small gallows sign is still to be seen at the “Old Star,” in Stonegate, York, another at Ottery St. Mary, and a larger, wreathed in summer with creepers, at the “Swan,” Fittleworth, while at Hampton-on-Thames the picturesque “Red Lion” sign still spans a narrow and busy street.
