YARD OF THE “GEORGE AND DRAGON,” WEST WYCOMBE.
It is, indeed, remarkable what picturesqueness lingers in the courtyards of old inns. The front of the house may have been modernised, or in some way smartened up, but the old gables and the casement windows are still generally to be found in the rear, and sometimes the local church-tower comes in, across the roof-tops, in a partly benedictory and wholly sketchable way, as at the village of Dedham, near Colchester, where the yard of the “Sun” inn and the church-tower combine to make a very fine composition. A relic of the bygone coaching days of Dedham remains, in the small oval spy-hole cut through the wall on either side of the tap-room bay-window, and glazed, commanding views up and down the village street, so that the approach of coaches coming either way might be clearly seen.
THE YARD OF THE “SUN,” DEDHAM.
THE “OLD SHIP,” WORKSOP.
Dedham, however, is very far from being exceptionally fortunate among Essex villages, in retaining old inns. It is an old-world county, largely off the beaten track, and offering few inducements to the innovator. Among the many humble old Essex inns the “Dial House” at Bocking, adjoining Braintree, is notable; for although it is now only an ale-house, the elaborately panelled and sculptured Renaissance oak of the tap-room walls indicates a bygone grandeur whose history cannot now be even surmised. Local records do not tell us the story of the “Dial House” before it became an inn. The sign, it should be said, derives from an old sundial on the wail. A curious contrivance may be noticed in one of the old wooden seats in the tap-room; a circular hole, with a drawer below. The purpose at first sight seems mysterious; but it appears that this is the simple outfit for that ancient, and now illegal, game, shove-halfpenny. A recent visit discloses the fact that all the beautiful panelling of the “Dial House” has now been sold and removed.