King’s Head, Aylesbury
The yard of the old King’s Head is still a busy picturesque one on market days, but the scene has lost a delightful background since the removal of the old galleries.
Even finer in its carvings and the richly-moulded cornice and ceiling beams is the great hall in the Bull at Long Melford. Probably this is a little earlier in date than the Aylesbury house. Unfortunately, the beauty of this exquisite hall is marred by glass partitions and modern wall decoration of an inferior quality. Three miles away at Sudbury there is another Bull also of Edwardian date, full of quaint nooks and retaining its original front, altered only by the insertion of a few eighteenth-century window frames. It stands near the site of an old friary, but we are inclined to believe that it owes its name, not to a monastic origin, but to the Black Bull of the House of Clarence.
Tap-room at the Bull, Sudbury
Other fine old inns of this period are the New Inn at Gloucester, built by Abbot Seabrook from the designs of John Twyning, a monk; the Sun at Feering in Essex, formerly a manor-house; and the George at Glastonbury, unique in the possession of its original stone front, bold oriels and richly-traceried windows. The Crown at Shipton-under-Wychwood has a fine archway in the Perpendicular style and also some mullioned windows.
Nearer London is the White Hart at Brentwood. “There are few hostelries in England,” says Albert Smith, “into which a traveller would sooner turn for entertainment for himself and animal than that of the White Hart, whose effigy looks placidly along the principal street from his lofty bracket, secured thereto by a costly gilt chain, which assuredly prevents him from jumping down and plunging into the leafy glades and coverts within view. And when you enter the great gate, there is a friendly look in the old carved gallery running above the yard, which speaks of comfort and hospitality; you think at once of quiet chambers; beds into which you dive, and sink at least three feet down, for their very softness; with sweet, clean, country furniture, redolent of lavender. The pantry, too, is a thing to see, not so much for the promise of refection which it discloses, as for its blue Dutch tiles, with landscapes thereon, where gentlemen of meditative minds, something between Quakers and British yeomen, are walking about in wonderful coats, or fishing in troubled waters; all looking as if they were very near connections of the celebrated pedestrian, Christian, as he appeared in the old editions of ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress.’” And the White Hart at Brentwood remains a treasure among old inns, although fate has not been kind to it during the sixty years since little Fred Scattersgood found shelter there when running away from persecution at Merchant Taylors’ School. Depressed Tudor arches, framed in dark oak, open into each of its two great yards, and an early Tudor arcading forms the front of the gallery, a retreat from which the fair dames of Brentwood were wont to watch the cock-fightings. Just inside the principal entrance will be found some excellent renaissance woodwork.
