Across the way is the "Angel's" rival the "George," possibly identical with the hospitium called "Le George" presented with other property by Edward IV to his mother, the Duchess of York. It lacks the appearance of age which clothes the "Angel" with dignity, and was rebuilt with red brick in the Georgian era. The coaches often called there, and Charles Dickens stayed the night and describes it as one of the best inns in England. He tells of Squeers conducting his new pupils through Grantham to Dotheboys Hall, and how after leaving the inn the luckless travellers "wrapped themselves more closely in their coats and cloaks ... and prepared with many half-suppressed moans again to encounter the piercing blasts which swept across the open country." At the "Saracen's Head" in Westgate Isaac Newton used to stay, and there are many other inns, the majority of which rejoice in signs that are blue. We see a Blue Horse, a Blue Dog, a Blue Ram, Blue Lion, Blue Cow, Blue Sheep, and many other cerulean animals and objects, which proclaim the political colour of the great landowner. Grantham boasts of a unique inn-sign. Originally known as the "Bee-hive," a little public-house in Castlegate has earned the designation of the "Living Sign," on account of the hive of bees fixed in a tree that guards its portals. Upon the swinging sign the following lines are inscribed:—
Stop, traveller, this wondrous sign explore,
And say when thou hast viewed it o'er and o'er,
Grantham, now two rarities are thine—
A lofty steeple and a "Living Sign."
The connexion of the "George" with Charles Dickens reminds one of the numerous inns immortalized by the great novelist both in and out of London. The "Golden Cross" at Charing Cross, the "Bull" at Rochester, the "Belle Sauvage" (now demolished) near Ludgate Hill, the "Angel" at Bury St. Edmunds, the "Great White Horse" at Ipswich, the "King's Head" at Chigwell (the original of the "Maypole" in Barnaby Rudge), the "Leather Bottle" at Cobham are only a few of those which he by his writings made famous.
A Quaint Gable. The Bell Inn, Stilton
Leaving Grantham and its inns, we push along the great North Road to Stilton, famous for its cheese, where a choice of inns awaits us—the "Bell" and the "Angel," that glare at each other across the broad thoroughfare. In the palmy days of coaching the "Angel" had stabling for three hundred horses, and it was kept by Mistress Worthington, at whose door the famous cheeses were sold and hence called Stilton, though they were made in distant farmsteads and villages. It is quite a modern-looking inn as compared with the "Bell." You can see a date inscribed on one of the gables, 1649, but this can only mean that the inn was restored then, as the style of architecture of "this dream in stone" shows that it must date back to early Tudor times. It has a noble swinging sign supported by beautifully designed ornamental ironwork, gables, bay-windows, a Tudor archway, tiled roof, and a picturesque courtyard, the silence and dilapidation of which are strangely contrasted with the continuous bustle, life, and animation which must have existed there before the era of railways.
Not far away is Southwell, where there is the historic inn the "Saracen's Head." Here Charles I stayed, and you can see the very room where he lodged on the left of the entrance-gate. Here it was on May 5th, 1646, that he gave himself up to the Scotch Commissioners, who wrote to the Parliament from Southwell "that it made them feel like men in a dream." The "Martyr-King" entered this inn as a sovereign; he left it a prisoner under the guard of his Lothian escort. Here he slept his last night of liberty, and as he passed under the archway of the "Saracen's Head" he started on that fatal journey that terminated on the scaffold at Whitehall. You can see on the front of the inn over the gateway a stone lozenge with the royal arms engraved on it with the date 1693, commemorating this royal melancholy visit. In later times Lord Byron was a frequent visitor.
On the high, wind-swept road between Ashbourne and Buxton there is an inn which can defy the attacks of the reformers. It is called the Newhaven Inn and was built by a Duke of Devonshire for the accommodation of visitors to Buxton. King George IV was so pleased with it that he gave the Duke a perpetual licence, with which no Brewster Sessions can interfere. Near Buxton is the second highest inn in England, the "Cat and Fiddle," and "The Traveller's Rest" at Flash Bar, on the Leek road, ranks as third, the highest being the Tan Hill Inn, near Brough, on the Yorkshire moors.