There was also the taberna or wine-cellar, the Buttery, the Tap House, the Kitchen, the Hostry, and the Parlour. The furniture, of which a full inventory is appended, seems to have been of a very homely type. No difference seems to have been made between the living and the sleeping rooms; each room was supplied with beds, the relative importance of which was measured by the number of planks they contained, and the only other articles of furniture were tables on tressels for dining and forms of oak and beech for the guests to sit at table. The Principal room was distinguished by the possession of a cupboard, and each room contained three beds.
Another fine old inn is the Falcon of Chester. It is notable as a good example of old half-timbered work. {198}
Malone, in his Supplement to Shakspere, mentions the fact that many of our old plays were acted in the yards of Carriers’ Inns, in which, he says, “in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, the comedians, who then first united themselves in companies, erected an occasional stage. The form of these temporary play-houses seems to be preserved in our modern theatre. The galleries are in both ranged over each other, on three sides of the building. The small rooms under the lowest of these galleries answer to our present boxes; and it is observable that these, even in theatres which were built in a subsequent period, expressly for dramatic exhibitions, still retained their old name, and are frequently called rooms by our ancient writers. The yard bears a sufficient resemblance to the pit, as at present in use. We may suppose the stage to have been raised in this area, on the fourth side, with its back to the gateway of the inn, at which the money for admission was taken. Here, in the middle of the Globe, and, I suppose, of the other public theatres in the time of Shakespeare, there was an open yard or area, where the common people stood to see the exhibition, from which circumstances they are called groundlings, and by Ben Jonson, ‘the understanding gentlemen of the ground.’”
At the beginning of the present century the Angel at Islington was a typical, old-fashioned country inn, long and low, with deep overhanging eaves, and a central yard surrounded by double galleries, open to the air and communicating with the bedrooms. Travellers approaching London from the north would frequently remain at the Angel the night, rather than venture into London by dark along a road dangerous alike from its ruts and its footpads. Persons whose business took them to Islington after dark usually waited at an avenue, which then existed on the site of John Street, until a sufficient number of them had assembled to go on in safety to their destination, whither they were escorted by an armed patrol appointed for that purpose. What a striking picture of the insecurity of life and limb in districts close to the metropolis not one hundred years ago!
A curious custom, known as the Highgate Oath, held its ground for many a long year, and has only fallen into disuse within living memory. When a traveller passed through Highgate towards London for the first time he was brought before a pair of horns at one of the taverns, and there a mock oath was administered to him, to the effect that he would never drink small beer when he could get strong, unless he liked it better; that, with a similar saving clause, he would never drink gruel when he could command turtle soup; nor make love to the maid, when {199} he could court the mistress, unless he preferred the maid; with much more to the same effect. In the old coaching days scarcely a coach passed through Highgate without some of its occupants being initiated and we may well imagine that copious streams of ale would flow to “wet” the time-honoured custom. It is to this custom that Byron makes allusion in Childe Harold:—
. . many to the steep of Highgate hie; Ask ye, Bœotian shades, the reason why? ’Tis to the worship of the solemn horn, Grasped in the holy hand of Mystery, In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn, And consecrate the oath with draught and dance till morn.
The privileges belonging to a freeman of Highgate who had taken the oath are described as follows:—“If at any time you are going through Highgate, and want to rest yourself, and you see a pig lying in the ditch, you have liberty to kick her out and take her place; but if you see three lying together, you must only kick out the middle one and lie between the two others.”
The custom is said to have been originated by a club of graziers who were wont to tarry at Highgate on their way to London, and who, in order to keep their company select, would admit none to their society before he had gone through a process of initiation, which consisted of kissing between the horns, one of their oxen brought to the door for the purpose.
Interesting as are many of our old country inns and village ale-houses, and numberless the tales that might be told of the doings within their time-stained walls; “of quips and cranks and wanton wiles”; of the village feast, the village minstrelsy, the “jocund rebeck’s” sound to ears long since deaf; the song; the toast pledged by lips long since cold—interesting as all these are, it is when we come to the history of our old London taverns, fragmentary though it be, that we really find ourselves face to face with the clearest pictures of the social life and customs of the past. It is here that memories gather thickest of the
Peals of genial clamour sent From many a tavern door, With twisted quirks and happy hits, From misty men of letters; The tavern hours of mighty wits— Thine elders and thy betters.