Where’er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The greatest comfort in an inn.
—Shenstone.
In one of his oracular and sententious utterances, Dr. Johnson declared that “there is nothing that has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good tavern or inn.” But, inasmuch as Boswell tells us that this opinion was pronounced just after the great doctor had “dined at an excellent inn,” we may fairly receive the sentiment as the pair received their meal—with a grain of salt. It would be foreign to the purpose of this paper to enlarge upon the benefits or to denounce the evils connected with inns and taverns. It is enough to know that they exercised on the domestic lives and habits of our forefathers an influence sufficiently potent to establish their claim to share the attention of historical writers with churches, and monasteries, and castles. The Royalist tendencies of the citizens were shown by the “King John Tavern,” in the Serge Market, at the head of South Street; the “Plume of Feathers,” at the bottom of North Street; the “Unicorn,” in the Butcher Row; the “King’s Head,” formerly in Spiller’s Lane; and the “Crown and Sceptre,” in North Street.
The oldest of Exeter inns having anything like a connected history was known for centuries by the inappropriate title of the “New Inn.” We may enter it now without any suspicion of its antiquity. Of the ladies of the present day who are so familiar with the house, which bears over its alluring portal the name of “Green & Son,” probably not one in a hundred suspects that her ancestors knew it equally well as the principal inn in Exeter. The archives of the Corporation and of the Dean and Chapter, to whom it jointly belonged, make frequent mention of the “New Inn,” the earliest being a lease in 1456, by which the Master and Brethren of the Magdalen Hospital granted to Roger Schordych and Joan, his wife, two tenements opposite “le Newe Inne,” in the parish of St. Stephen. It appears from Shillingford’s Letters (p. 85), that the inn was then “newly built,” and one of the frequent squabbles between the Cathedral and the City authorities arose out of a “purpresture” or encroachment said to have been made there by the Chapter. A few years later, as we learn from Mr. Cotton’s Gleanings (p. 11), an entry was made in the accounts of the Receiver to the Chamber of 3s. 4d., disbursed for “four gallons of wine sent to Lord Stafford at the Newynne.” From this time it often occurs on successive renewals of the lease. In John Hoker’s Extracts from the Act Books of the Chamber, we find that on the 16th February, 1554, during the mayoralty of John Midwinter, that body resolved to establish at the “New Inn” the cloth mart previously kept at the “Eagle” from 1472—"The newe Inne to be bought of Christian, the wydowe of Thomas Petefyn, and the same to be converted into a commodious hall for all manner of clothe, Lynnen or wollyn, and for all other m’chandises and wch shalbe called the m’chaunts hall." In pursuance of this arrangement, Edward Clase and Elizabeth, his wife, who had succeeded Thomas Peytevin, surrendered their lease to the Chamber in 1555. The Act Book also shows that Thomas Johnson was deprived of the tenure of the “New Inn” on the 25th July, 1582, and was succeeded by Valentine Tooker (or Tucker). This tenant had a misunderstanding with the municipal authorities, in which he induced some of his mercantile customers to take up his cause; for amongst the municipal records is a letter addressed to the Chamber on the 20th of June, 1612, in which Matthew Springham, Walter Clarke, John Pettye, and eighteen other London merchants, intercede for Tooker, who had received notice to quit his “nowe dwelling howse, the Newe Inn”; and they pray that in consideration of his years and services “some stipend may be given him.” Shortly after this, Valentine Tooker died, and in 1617 his sons, Thomas and Samuel, state, in a letter to Ignatius Jurdaine, the Mayor, that their father had recovered £43 13s. 4d. from the Chamber by a Decree in Chancery for being compelled to leave the New Inn, of which he had been tenant for many years, and they desired that it might be paid without putting them to the charge of taking out the Decree under the Great Seal. They thought it hard that their father should, without any just cause or indemnity, be thrust out of doors, “after keeping the New Inn for more than thirty years, behaving himself honestly, and paying his rent duly, albeit two or three several times raysed and enhanced therein on the promise afterwards to enjoy it for his life.” Notes are added in favour of the petitioners by the brothers Richard and Symon Baskerville.
This Simon Baskerville, a near relative of the Mayor, was a man of note and influence at this time. He was the son of Thomas Baskerville, an Exeter apothecary, and was born in the city in 1573. He was successively appointed physician to James I. and Charles I., from the latter of whom he received the honour of knighthood. A mural tablet in St. Paul’s, London, records that “Near this place lyeth the body of that worthy and learned gentleman, Sir Simon Baskerville, Knight and Doctor in Physick, who departed this life the fifth of July, 1641, aged 68 years.” The transactions between the sons of Valentine Tooker and the Chamber appear to have closed on the 3rd of April, 1618, when they acknowledged the receipt from that body of £6 16s., “in full satisfaction, recompence and payment, of and for the full and uttermoste value of all those selynges, stayned or paynted, clothes, shelfes, and all other goods, chattels,” etc., left by them in the “New Inn.”
After the year 1612, we find many references to the “New Inne Halle” or Merchants’ Hall. This was let separately from the inn, and was used as an Exchange, where the cloth merchants congregated, and where the three great yearly cloth fairs drew together traffickers from all parts to carry on the trade previously conducted at “le Egle,” opposite the Guildhall. These merchants rented stalls or shops, which were also distinct from the inn, and in 1640 they petitioned the Chamber to prevent “foreigners,” by whom they meant non-residents, from buying and selling to one another in the city. They suggested that “the hygher roome of Sent Johns (Hospital) be ordenyd to be a store as a roome annyxt unto the New In halle, to reseve all wols browght unto thys cyttaye by foreners.” These restrictive and protectionist measures, operating with the introduction of steam power, finally caused the great woollen manufacture of the West to depart into districts where trade was freer and coal was cheaper.
The “New Inn” extended as far back as Catherine Street, including what was till lately Mr. Seller’s coach factory. Perhaps the sole relic of the original structure is the well in the cellar under this part of the old premises. When this well was opened, in May, 1872, its circular wrought courses of red sandstone plainly testified to its antiquity. The stabling was on the other side of Catherine Street, on a site still used for that purpose, and belonging to the Duke of Bedford. A fire broke out in these stables in 1723, and their great extent is shown by the following advertisement in Andrew Brice’s Postmaster, or Loyal Mercury: “Whereas there has been a Report industriously spread abroad by certain malicious or designing persons, that all or most of the Stables belonging to the New Inn, in the High Street, Exon, are burnt down;—this is to certify that the said Report is vicious and false, there being but one only Stable any way damaged by the said late Fire; and that there are remaining near Three times as much Stable room as belongs to any other Inn House in that City, with handsome Accommodation for Coaches, &c., and above an Hundred Horses.”
The structure already referred to was the first edition of the “New Inn” on that site. About the time of the Restoration of Monarchy the house appears to have been re-built, and then was erected the great Apollo Room, which still remains the chief ornament of the house. This splendid apartment is 32½ feet long by 23½ feet wide, and before the floor was raised by Messrs. Green to increase the height of the shop below, it was 17 feet high. The original contract for the construction of the rich and elaborate ceiling appears to have been made with the Chamber by Richard Over, who was to receive £50 “for his skill and labour in playstering the fore chamber, or dining-room, in the New Inn, according to the form and mould which he hath propounded and laid down in a scheme or map.” But the work appears to have been begun in 1689 by Thomas Lane, a plasterer, for five shillings a yard, and on the following 20th of March he was paid by the Chamber £50 for this admirable work of art. It displays the royal arms, with those of the See of Exeter, and of the county families of Hillersdon, Calmady, Prestwood, Acland, and Radcliffe. The name of this fine room may possibly have been borrowed from the Apollo Club in London, near Temple Bar, a place of great resort in the reign of James I. Its principal room was called the Oracle of Apollo, the bust of the god being set above the door of the room, whilst over the entrance to the house were some verses beginning:—