Old Country Inns of England

by Henry Parr Maskell; Edward W. Gregory

THE INNS OF LITERATURE AND ART

John Ball, shut up in the Archbishop’s prison at Canterbury, fell a’longing for “the green fields and the whitethorn bushes, and the lark singing over the corn, and the talk of good fellows round the alehouse bench.” The same craving for the real things of life comes to every creative genius fretting against class restrictions. Sir Walter Scott, when staying with Wordsworth at Grassmere, usually managed to give his host the slip in order to spend an hour or two in the Swan beyond the village; just as Addison had fled the splendid state of Holland House for the Old White Horse in Kensington Road. Either this wayside inn or the Red Lion at Hampton, was the scene of the historic drinking bout between Addison and Pope, which so upset the latter’s digestion and sense of dignity that he ever afterwards described the great essayist as a terrible drunkard. The Bull and Bush, in North End Hampstead, now chiefly patronised by holiday makers on account of its attractive tea-gardens, was another resort where Addison, Dryden, Steele, and the rest of the famous galaxy of wits loved to gather. It is said also to have once been the country seat of Hogarth.

The Falstaff, Canterbury

More temperate in their devotion to the flowing bowl, but scarcely less brilliant in their abilities, were the company who fifty years ago used to visit the Bull at Woodbridge. George Borrow, the gipsy wanderer; Edward Fitzgerald, the translator of “Omar Khayyam,” and Charles Keene, the Punch Artist, were among the number. Old John Grout, who kept the house, was himself an odd character. When Lord Tennyson came to stay with Fitzgerald, at Woodbridge, the latter remarked to Grout that the town ought to feel itself honoured. John was not a student of poetry, and inquired of Mr. Groome (whose son tells the story in “Two Suffolk Friends”) who was the gentleman that Mr. Fitzgerald had been talking of. “Mr. Tennyson, the poet-laureate,” was the reply. “Dissay,” said John, hazily; “anyhow, he didn’t fare to know much about hosses when I showed him over my stables!” In these stables there is a tomb to the memory of George Carlow, who was buried there in 1738, at his own special desire.

Many, who afterwards rose to eminence in the world of art and letters were born at inns. David Garrick’s birthplace was at the Raven at Hereford; at the Garrick Theatre, hard by, Kitty Clive, Mrs. Siddons and Kemble made some of their early successes. William Cobbett was born at the Jolly Farmer at Farnham; while at the little Wheatsheaf in Kelvedon, now disused, but still retaining the wrought-iron bracket from which the sign used to swing, Charles Spurgeon, the famous preacher, first saw the light. Cardinal Wolsey’s father is generally described as a butcher, but he was also a tavern-keeper at Ipswich. Like dear old Tom Hughes, who kept the Black Lion at Walsingham, a few years ago, he combined with his inn, branch shops for the sale of bread and meat. It was at the Black Bear at Devizes, then kept by his father, that Sir Thomas Lawrence first discovered his talent as a painter. We may add that a personage with an entirely different kind of reputation—Dick Turpin—was born at the Crown, Hempstead, Essex.

A very large number of inns all over England are dedicated to the memory of Shakespeare; in fact, a print dated 1823 shows the chief portion of the house where the Bard was born at Stratford-on-Avon, as a very picturesque inn—the Swan and Maiden Head—with a portly, good-humoured landlord standing in the doorway and inviting visitors to enter and drink a bumper. Of Shakespeare’s characters, the one best known on the signboards is Sir John Falstaff. There are three Falstaff inns on the Dover road. The first is that on Gad’s Hill, the scene of the hero’s most glorious exploit, and incidentally connecting him with his prototype, Sir John Oldcastle. At Canterbury, just outside the West Gate, the Falstaff is a fine old-fashioned comfortable house with some very good linen-fold panelling. But we love best to linger over the Sir John Falstaff at Newington, near Sittingbourne. The projecting upper storey, bracketed out on grinning satyrs, the excellent portrait of the fat knight on the signboard, the noble cornice, and the rakish lines of the great red-tiled roof all give the distinctive character of the best Jacobean work. Standing amid its homelier neighbours in the village street, it looks like a rollicking cavalier who has come down in the world and is just a little bit ashamed of being seen in such company. His finery is sadly faded; he is obliged now to shift for himself and pick up what he can among these common people. If we wait awhile, he will take us aside, and confide in us about his doings, when he could share in the gay monarch’s revels with the best of them. Ben Jonson, Garrick, and Dr. Syntax, are almost the only other literary or dramatic signs that are at all common.

Sir John Falstaff, Newington

The Three Pigeons at Brentford was, in all likelihood, one of the haunts of Shakespeare, and was certainly frequented by Ben Jonson, who mentions it in the “Alchymist,” as also does Thomas Middleton in “The Roaring Girl.” At this time the landlord was John Lowin, of the Globe Theatre, said to have been the original creator of Falstaff in the “Merry Wives of Windsor,” and of the part of Henry VIII. He died in great poverty during the Commonwealth and the inn has lately been rebuilt.