Since it contained the headquarters of so many stage coaches, carts and waggons, the High Street was bound to contain, as well, many houses of entertainment, if only as stables for the horses and accommodation for the drivers and grooms. The inns of Southwark, however, were far more ancient than the stage coaches. We have seen already that from the earliest times of trade the southern suburb was the place where merchants and those who brought produce of all kinds to London out of the south country put up their teams of pack-horses and their goods, and found bed and board and company for themselves. We have also seen how the inns of Southwark were used as gathering places and starting places for the Pilgrims bound for St. Thomas's Shrine, Canterbury. The mediæval inn was not much like that of later times. It contained a common hall and a common dormitory, with another for women. There was also a covered place for goods, and stables for horses. A small specimen of a fifteenth-century inn survives at Aylesbury: the hall, quite a small room, is very well preserved. That of the Tabard must have been much larger, in order to accommodate so large a company. The quaint old inns, so long the delight of the artist, now nearly all gone, were not earlier than the sixteenth or seventeenth century. They consisted of a large open courtyard filled with waggons and vehicles of all kinds, surrounded by galleries, at the back of which were bedrooms, and other chambers opening from the gallery. On the ground floor were the kitchens, dining-rooms, and private sitting-rooms. There was generally a large room for public dinners and other occasions. The inns of Southwark formed, so long as they stood, the most picturesque part of modern Southwark. Scarcely anything now remains of them, the George alone preserving anything of its ancient picturesqueness. The reader who desires a closer acquaintance with these inns is referred to Mr. Philip Norman's exquisitely illustrated book, which presents in a lasting form the vanished glories of the High Street.
To speak of these inns is like entering upon a historical catalogue. There are so many of them, and the associations connected with them carry one away into so many directions and land him into many strange corners of history.
At the south end of London Bridge, and on the west side of it, stood a tavern called the 'Bear at the Bridge Foot.' It was built in the year 1319 by one Thomas Drinkwater, taverner of London. In Riley's 'Memorials' may be found a lease of this house by the proprietor to one James Beauflur. The lease is for six years. James Beauflur is to pay no rent, because he has advanced money to Thomas Drinkwater to help in the building. James is, in fact, to act as manager of a 'tied' house. Thomas Drinkwater will furnish all the wine, and will keep an exact account of the same and will have a settlement twice a year. Thomas will also complete the furniture of the house with 'hanaps,' that is, handled mugs of silver and of wood, with curtains, clothes, and everything else necessary for the proper conduct of a tavern.
ALLEN ROPEWALK, SOUTHWARK
One hopes that James Beauflur made the tavern pay. This was the commencement of a long and singularly prosperous inn. It became one of the most famous inns of London, and one of the most popular for dinners. Hither came the Churchwardens and vestry of St. Olave's to feast at the expense of the parish as long as feasts were allowed. Some of the bills of these dinners have been preserved among the papers of St. Saviour's. Rendle the antiquary and historian of Southwark gives one:
| Pd for | 3 Geese, 3 Capons and one Rabbit | 00 | 14 | 08 |
| 3 Tarts | 00 | 12 | 00 | |
| a Giblett pie makyng | 00 | 02 | 08 | |
| Beefe | 01 | 02 | 06 | |
| 3 leggs of mutton | 00 | 8 | 00 | |
| wine and dresing the meat and naperie, fire, bread and beere | 02 | 11 | 00 | |
| 18 oz Tobacco and 12 pipes | 00 | 01 | 02 | |
| 12 Lemmonds and 18 Oranges | 00 | 03 | 00 | |
| 05 | 15 | 00 | ||
Among the names of persons connected with the tavern must be noticed that of the Duke of Norfolk—'Jockey of Norfolk'—in 1463. Two hundred years later, one Cornelius Cooke, late a Colonel in Cromwell's army and a commissioner for the sale of the King's lands, enters upon a new sphere of usefulness by turning landlord of the Bear at the Bridge Foot. Samuel Pepys records several visits paid to the tavern. From this house the Duke of Richmond carried off Miss Stewart. It was pulled down in 1761, when the end of the bridge was widened. I need not catalogue the whole long list of the Southwark inns: you may find them all enumerated in Rendle's book, but mention may be made of the more important. Some of them, it will be seen, had been in more ancient times the town houses of great people—Bishops, Abbots and nobles. Other town houses, those off the highway of trade, having been deserted by their former occupants, fell upon evil times, went down in the world, even became mere tenements. This happened to Sir John Fastolf's house, and to the house of the Prior of Lewes, and to many others. Those standing in the highway, whither came all the merchants; whither came all the waggons; became transformed, and proved more valuable property as inns than as residences.