On the opposite side of the street projects the gabel end of a building once part of the Blue Boar, afterwards Blue Bell inn, in ancient times undoubtedly the principal inn of the place. The old over-hanging window gave light to a chamber in which stood the bedstead, which has been celebrated by the name of King Richard’s Bedstead, from the circumstance of his having slept in it a few nights preceding Bosworth Fight.
Antiquaries have spoken of this bedstead as belonging to the king rather than to the master of the house; and this opinion has been thought favoured by the circumstance of a large sum in gold coin, partly of Richard’s
reign, accidentally discovered in its double bottom. The bedstead is of oak, highly ornamented with carved work, and is now, in the possession of Tho. Babington Esq. m.p. There seems but little reason to suppose that a Royal General while attending the march of his Army, should unnecessarily encrease his baggage by so cumbrous a piece of furniture, or that a Sovereign, guarded by nearly all the military force of the Nation, should find it expedient to hide his gold like a private unprotected person. The bedstead therefore, it may safely be inferred, belonged, not to a monarch, but to the master of a good inn; and the money was secreted in it by some person anxious to secure his property from the dangers threatened by times of civil distraction.
At the bottom of Blue Boar Lane, which takes it name from the inn, is a small Alms-house, founded 1712, by Matthew Simons Esq. for six Widows, and endowed with 20l. 10s. annually.
The next observable object in the High Cross Street, is the Town Goal. It is a commodious building, with a handsome stone front, and built after the plan of Howard—the Architect, Mr. W. Firmadge.
In taking down the old Goal for the erection of the present edifice, in the year 1792, incorporated with the walls of the cells were discovered the remains of the chapel of St John, supposed to have been destroyed during the contests between Henry the Second and his Son. A regular stone arch belonging to this chapel, of a circular form, with ornaments of cheveron work, was carefully taken from among the ruins of the old
goal, and preserved by that industrious Antiquary and Historian of Leicester, Mr. Throsby.
The small Hospital of St. John, to which this chapel belonged, joins the prison; it supports six Widows who subsist on a very scanty stipend arising from various annual donations. Bent’s Hospital, being the ground floor of the same building, supports four Widows on an endowment equally small.
We are now approaching one of the most valuable traces which Leicester affords of our Roman Conquerors, a relick of their tesselated floors; preserved with great attention, in the cellar of Mr. Worthington, opposite the town prison. It was discovered in the year 1675, about four feet and a half under the surface of the earth, which beneath was found to consist of oyster shells to a considerable
depth; it was sunk from its original portion on one side being considerably inclined from the level.—This pavement, which is an octagon three feet diameter, represents a Stag looking intently upon the modestly-inclined countenance of a figure seemingly female, with her arm resting affectionately against his neck; in front stands a boy, whose wings and bow plainly indicate him to be a Cupid; he appears about to discharge an arrow at the breast of the female; a circumstance which renders it very certain that the subject must be the amours of some fabulous personages, but assuredly not Dïana and Actæon; nor yet as some Antiquaries have hastily supposed, Cypressus lamenting the death of his favourite stag. Indeed in the whole of the Metamorphoses, no story cm be found bearing the slightest resemblance to the subject before us.