“Let those who rest more deeply sleep;Let those awake their vigils keep.”
“Let those who rest more deeply sleep;Let those awake their vigils keep.”
The light moved away, and through her eyelashes Bella saw that the woman’s back was turned to her, and that she was placing the hand in the middle of the long oak table, while she muttered this rhyme:
“O Hand of Glory, shed thy light;Direct us to our spoil to-night.”
“O Hand of Glory, shed thy light;Direct us to our spoil to-night.”
Then she moved a few steps away and undrew the window curtains. Coming back to the latter she said:
“Flash out thy light, O skeleton hand,And guide the feet of our trusty band.”
“Flash out thy light, O skeleton hand,And guide the feet of our trusty band.”
At once the light shot up a bright vivid gleam, and the woman walked to the door; she took down the bar, drew back the bolts, unfastened the chain, and Bella felt a keen blast of cold night air rush in as the door was flung open. She kept her eyes closed, however, for the woman at that moment looked at her, and then drawing something from her gown, she blew a long shrill whistle; she then went out at the door and down a few of the steps, stopped and whistled again, but the next moment a vigorous push sent her spinning down the steps on to the road below. The door was closed, barred and bolted, and Bella almost flew to her master’s bedroom and tried to wake him. In vain, he and his wife slept on, while their snores sounded loudly through the house. The girl felt frantic.
She then tried to rouse young Alderson, but he slept as if in a trance. Now a fiercebattery on the door and cries below the windows told that the band had arrived.
A new thought came to Bella. She ran back to the kitchen. There was the Hand of Glory, still burning with a wonderful light. The girl caught up a cup of milk that stood on the table, dashed it on the flame and extinguished it. In one moment, as it seemed to her, she heard footsteps coming from the bedrooms, and George Alderson and his son rushed into the room with firearms in their hands. As soon as the robbers heard the landlord’s voice bidding them depart, they summoned him to open the door, and produce his valuables. Meanwhile young Alderson had opened the window, and for answer he fired his blunderbuss down among the men below.
There was a groan—a fall—then a pause, and, as it seemed to the besieged, a sort of discussion. Then a voice called out, “Give up the Hand of Glory, and we will not harm you.”
For answer young Alderson fired again and the party drew off. Seemingly they had trusted entirely to the Hand of Glory, or else they feared a long resistance, for no further attack was made. The withered handremained in the possession of the Aldersons for sixteen years after.
This story, concludes Mrs. Macquoid, was told to my informant, Mr. Atkinson, by Bella herself when she was an old woman.
The Ship, Wingham
OLD INNS AND THEIR ARCHITECTURE
Although many of our country inns must in their structural substance date from the reigns of Edward III and Richard II, and some, like theRed Lionat Wingham, and theWhite Hartat Newark, possess features that are without doubt fourteenth-century work, the earliest examples worthy of extended description and classification date from the middle of the fifteenth century. The enormous development of trade, and the wealth of the towns at this period, occasioned the building of hostelries so magnificent in size and so well adapted for comfort that they have often served through the strain and stress of coaching days. Some of these inns are well worthy of being compared with the grand parish churches which the same age has bequeathed to us.
Hidden behind a corner of the market-place at Aylesbury is the noble oldKing’s Head, presenting to a narrow turning its broad mullioned windows and Tudor entrancegateway. The interior has an open spacious staircase, and a lofty tap-room with massive oak cornice, and moulded ceiling-ribs meeting in a carved boss. It is lighted by a magnificent window, the ancient stained glass in which represents the arms of England and France quartered, the arms of Margaret of Anjou, and numerous heraldic and ecclesiastical symbols. A strong opinion exists that this house was a refectory for the Grey Friars; others have suggested that it was a hall of one of the town Guilds, built soon after the marriage of Henry VI, in 1444. With regard to the glass, there is some question whether it was not brought hither from some other position, especially as one of the heraldic shields has been reversed during insertion. But the whole apartment remains very much in its original state except that the chimney piece is ordinary and modern.
King’s Head, Aylesbury
The yard of the oldKing’s Headis still a busy picturesque one on market days, but the scene has lost a delightful background since the removal of the old galleries.
Even finer in its carvings and the richly-moulded cornice and ceiling beams is the great hall in theBullat Long Melford. Probably this is a little earlier in date than theAylesbury house. Unfortunately, the beauty of this exquisite hall is marred by glass partitions and modern wall decoration of an inferior quality. Three miles away at Sudbury there is anotherBullalso of Edwardian date, full of quaint nooks and retaining its original front, altered only by the insertion of a few eighteenth-century window frames. It stands near the site of an old friary, but we are inclined to believe that it owes its name, not to a monastic origin, but to the Black Bull of the House of Clarence.
Tap-room at the Bull, Sudbury
Other fine old inns of this period are theNew Innat Gloucester, built by Abbot Seabrook from the designs of John Twyning, a monk; theSunat Feering in Essex, formerly a manor-house; and theGeorgeat Glastonbury, unique in the possession of its original stone front, bold oriels and richly-traceried windows. TheCrownat Shipton-under-Wychwood has a fine archway in the Perpendicular style and also some mullioned windows.
Nearer London is theWhite Hartat Brentwood. “There are few hostelries in England,” says Albert Smith, “into which a traveller would sooner turn for entertainment for himself and animal than that of theWhite Hart, whose effigy looks placidly along the principal street from his lofty bracket, secured thereto by a costly gilt chain, which assuredly prevents him from jumping down and plunging into the leafy glades andcoverts within view. And when you enter the great gate, there is a friendly look in the old carved gallery running above the yard, which speaks of comfort and hospitality; you think at once of quiet chambers; beds into which you dive, and sink at least three feet down, for their very softness; with sweet, clean, country furniture, redolent of lavender. The pantry, too, is a thing to see, not so much for the promise of refection which it discloses, as for its blue Dutch tiles, with landscapes thereon, where gentlemen of meditative minds, something between Quakers and British yeomen, are walking about in wonderful coats, or fishing in troubled waters; all looking as if they were very near connections of the celebrated pedestrian, Christian, as he appeared in the old editions of ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress.’” And theWhite Hartat Brentwood remains a treasure among old inns, although fate has not been kind to it during the sixty years since little Fred Scattersgood found shelter there when running away from persecution at Merchant Taylors’ School. Depressed Tudor arches, framed in dark oak, open into each of its two great yards, and an early Tudor arcading forms the front of the gallery, a retreat from which the fair dames ofBrentwood were wont to watch the cock-fightings. Just inside the principal entrance will be found some excellent renaissance woodwork.
“The King’s Head,” Loughton, Essex
At Alfriston, in Sussex, is theStar Inn, small in size, but of the highest interest. On brackets on each side of the doorway are mitred figures of St. Giles with a hind and St. Julian, the patrons of weary wayfarers. A beam in the parlour is ornamented with a shield and the sacred monogram, and all kinds of curious carvings abound in the building. In the dining-room upstairs, suggestive of an old ship’s cabin, the solid construction of the fine old roof may be studied. For four centuries it has borne its coverings of thick Horsham stone slabs without shifting, and seems sound enough to resist time for a long period to come. Antiquarians have supposed this inn to have been erected as a pilgrim’s hostel, but it seems scarcely probable that voyagers, even if they landed at Seaford, would take this route either to Canterbury or Chichester. It belonged to the Abbey of Battle, and the many ecclesiastical carvings may be ascribed to the monkish craftsmen. Just above a facetious, smiling lion thickly bedaubed with red paint, and evidently thefigure-head of a ship stranded on this dangerous coast, is the carver’s mark showing the date of the building. A rude heraldic design on the angle bracket, represents a coronetted ragged staff supported by a bear and a lion with a twisted tail. In 1495, Edmund Dudley married Elizabeth Grey, last heiress of Warwick the “King-maker.” The union of the Green Lion with the Bear and Ragged Staff was a great event for the Sussex people. Edmund Dudley was brought up at Lewes Priory, and the hillfolk were proud of his success in becoming the chief minister of his time.
TheMaid’s Headat Norwich, so far as the older part of this excellent house is concerned, is chiefly Elizabethan and early Jacobean; thanks to the careful restoration and the valuable collection of old furniture introduced by Mr. Walter Rye, much of the interior helps us to realise what an old inn looked like two or three centuries ago. But theMaid’s Headhas a more ancient history, and can boast of a Norman cellar (a relic of the Bishop’s Palace), while in the drawing-room, a real fifteenth-century fireplace, discovered in the thickness of the wall, has been opened up and correctly fitted with dogs and hood.The panelled billiard-room, cosy Jacobean bar, and the music gallery in the assembly room (like the “Elevated Den” in theBullat Rochester), are all delightful. The only fault we can find at theMaid’s Headis that the old inn-yard, now converted into a lounge, has been roofed in with glass at too low a level. A much better effect would have been attained by introducing the glazed protection high above the galleries, as has been done in the yard of theRose and Crownat Sudbury.
Sun Inn, Feering
Another Elizabethan inn of note is theStarat Great Yarmouth, built by a local merchant, William Crowe, at the end of the sixteenth century. Here the Nelson Room, so called from a famous portrait of Lord Nelson, is beautifully panelled in dark oak. When the match-boarding was torn down for repairs about forty years ago the original fireplace and chimney-piece were discovered and restored. Over the mantel are the arms of the Merchant Adventurers who received their charters from Queen Elizabeth.
The exact date of theFeathersat Ludlow is not very easy to determine, but it must have existed before 1609, when Rees Jones took a lease of the premises; and the initials“R. I.” on the lockplate probably refer to him. The splendid carved front with a gallery of spiral balusters, the studded door, elaborate ceilings, fireplaces and panelling are, of course, well known to all students, and illustrated in every collection. In 1616, there was a celebration in Ludlow of “The Love of Wales to their Sovereign Prince”; and from this event the inn must have received its name. It is the finest of all theMagpiehalf-timbered inns of Cheshire, Herefordshire, and Shropshire. By the time these lines are in print the famous “Globe Room” at theReindeerat Banbury will have been exported to America, but a replica in all respects is to be erected in its place. A copy of the ceiling is already at the South Kensington Museum.
Many of the great coaching inns of the Queen Anne and Georgian eras are not lacking in good proportion and correct classic detail. But they lack the individuality of the very old inns, and a long description of them would interest only the purely architectural student. The artist will find effects of colour and lighting in the mouldering brick cornices at Godalming or Sittingbourne. The old ballrooms in county towns, now deserted for the modern Town Hall, and made to do duty as storerooms, are always worth peeping into; and little survivals of our forefathers’ habits of life are to be detected in the broad staircases and deep easy window seats. Hotel architecture continued to follow the fashion, and even the Greek revival early in the last century and the later Italian revival had their influence.
Some very curious examples of the Sir Charles Barry period are to be noted in the neighbourhood of the Crystal Palace. Fifty years of wear might make us forgive some of their eccentricities. Among these, one of the best from the architectural point of view, is the littleGoat House Hotelin South Norwood, so named from a famous goat-breeding establishment which existed on an island of the Croydon Canal. The portico, cluster of narrow round-headed windows and slender Lombardic tower of this building are not bad, albeit hopelessly exotic. At least they show an attempt at artistic purpose during the years when public-house design was generally mechanical and sordid.
For the very queerest adaptation by a local builder of the style in vogue during the Greek revival, a visit must be paid to theLisle Castle, on the Dover Road, about three miles beyond Gravesend.
The Noah’s Ark, Lurgashall
Old wayside inns, as a rule, have few architectural pretensions; good sound proportion, breadth of roof, bold chimney breasts, and age together suffice to make them attractive and dignified. Internally the tap-rooms are often panelled, and the ceilings crossed by many smoke-stained beams; with here and there a welcome chimney-corner. Ingle-nooks and chimney-corners are still fairly numerous even in the home counties. Surrey can boast of a good half-dozen;The Ploughat Smallfield, near Red Hill, theCrownat Chiddingfold, theWhite Lionat Warlingham, may be given as instances—while there are more than one in that fine old Elizabethan inn, theClayton Arms, formerly theWhite Hartat Godstone. Leaves Green and Groombridge own two out of the many scattered about Kent. In Sussex they are too common to require special notice.
THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER
The genuine traveller is really the man who is on business. Even the tourist can scarcely lay confident claim to the title. Is he not on pleasure bent? Is he not going from place to place merely for the fun of the thing? Is he not really a stay-at-home who has ventured out merely to stretch his legs? Ask the keeper of a commercial hotel in a country town who his customers are. He will tell you that they are commercialtravellersand coffee-roomvisitors. The two classes are distinct in the mind of mine host. One suggests work, the other play. The commercial man is bound to travel whether he likes it or not, the visitor is a fitful amateur amusing himself by a change from the monotony of home.
Whoso looks upon the commercial traveller as a modern production created by the railway system should listen to the explosion of wrath from an old hand on the road, who has had time and inclination to examine into thehistory of commerce. “What, no traditions!” he will exclaim. “Permit me to call your attention once more, my friend, to the parable of the Good Samaritan. Who was he, I should like to know, but a commercial traveller? Everything points to it. He was travelling in oil and wine, why else should he have had them with him? Notice his influence with the host of the inn. He was evidently known there. He could give instructions and had enough ready money to leave two denarii on his departure, with a reminder that he would be coming again later on. Then, again, his broad-minded sympathy, he was certainly no sectarian. Commercial travellers rarely are. Their calling teaches them to be friendly to all sorts and conditions of men. No traditions? History is full of incidents which show that the man who travels with samples is as old as the hills.”
During the eighteenth and early nineteenth century it was the bagman who used the inn. Not a term of opprobrium this by any means. Think of the immediate forerunner of the present-day commercial, sitting astride a sturdy horse with a well-stocked bag on each side, facing all weathers, negotiatingall roads, and making a journey of a month or two at a time. Not an altogether despicable figure this. There would be nothing squeamish about his methods, perhaps; but he would be equally welcome to his customers and mine host as a carrier of news or a purveyor of goods. He travelled horseback because the roads he had to go over were not always suitable for vehicles. It was not till Macadam that the light spring-cart became an essential part of his equipment.
Long after the commencement of railways the commercial traveller was known as a bagman. TheDaily Telegraph, in the year 1865, seemed in doubt as to whether its readers would recognize the more modern name without some explanation, for it refers to “a traveler—I mean a bagman, not a tourist—arriving with his samples at a provincial town.” At that time, of course, commercial travellers were increasing in numbers; but inasmuch as railways only connected up towns on certain routes, the light cart was used constantly to go the round of outlying districts. Indeed, to-day, there are commercial travellers who still use the older method of progress for work in parts ofcounties where railway communication is poor and the service of trains intermittent. The motor-car is also an occasional means of conveyance for travellers. When first it was so used, tradesmen looked askance at it as being likely to frighten the horses of carriage customers.
The country inn began to cater specially for business men early in the nineteenth century, and the establishment of the commercial room was the ultimate result of the special accommodation which innkeepers offered to travellers.
The “Fox and Pelican” Inn, Haslemere
Let no unwary casual visitor, even to-day, imagine that all rooms except the bedchambers of an inn in a country town are open to him. The commercial room is a private apartment reserved for privileged representatives of business concerns. A ritual has grown up which is strictly observed by those whose right it is to make use of its many conveniences. Notice the formality of greeting which a late comer extends to the president of the table at the one o’clock dinner. “Mr. President, may I be permitted to join you?” or “Mr. President, may I have the honour of joining this company?” “With pleasure, sir.” The head of the table invites the company to joinhim at wine. “Well, gentlemen, what do you say to a bottle of sherry to begin with?” And later on—“Now gentlemen, suppose we have a bottle of port.” Here is indicated a spaciousness of life, a dignity and ease which the rapid pushful customs of to-day are hustling into the past. But although the long wine dinners in the commercial room, where every traveller was considered good for at least a pint, are almost over, the ceremonial is still to a great extent kept up. At one time not so long ago, a diner paid for his share of the wine consumed whether he drank it or not; but the spread of teetotalism, the establishment of Temperance Hotels and the gradual curtailment of the time spent on dinner, as well as the keen competition which compelled every man on the road to make as much of the afternoon as he did of the morning, led to a freer personal liberty in the consumption of and payment for liquor. Nowadays, a commercial traveller orders and pays for what he likes. There is a generally understood rule that the traveller longest in the hotel shall officiate as president, and should an entirely fresh set of arrivals enter the commercial room at dinner-time, the first to come in takes the head of the table aspresident, or chairman, as he is more commonly called to-day. The custom of toasting the Sovereign at dinner, at one time common, has now fallen into disuse. In places where the Sunday commercial dinner is still an institution—return tickets on the railways at a single fare, and express trains have largely done away with it—the old time formalities are still kept up, for Sunday is a day which admits of plenty of leisure and opportunity for ceremonial. Grace used to be pronounced by the president, and a story goes that on one occasion—perchance on many subsequent occasions—at a suggestion from one of the diners that Mr. President should “now say grace,” the head of the table arose and inquired, “Is there a clergyman present? No? Thank God,” and resumed his seat.
One good custom which still survives and is likely to do so, is the penny collection in the Commercial Room for the Commercial Travellers’ Schools and the Commercial Travellers’ Benevolent Association. This collection is taken daily at every dinner in the commercial room all over the country, and it is largely from the proceeds that these institutions are supported. A sidelight oncustom may be observed in the fact that in many hotels now the collection is taken at breakfast to ensure every traveller being present. The midday dinner became less well attended, and this led to a serious diminution in the receipts when once travellers began to use restaurants and take advantage of local travelling facilities to visit customers at some distance from headquarters. It is common for the landlord of the inn to take charge of the money collected. The president of the table enters the amount, divided into equal portions into two books and fixes his initials, the proprietor of the establishment, on the annual remittance to the Association, receiving a votes allotment which can be utilized on behalf of any applicants for the privileges of the two philanthropic bodies.
No one is permitted to smoke in the commercial room until after 9 p.m., a rule which is observed far more strictly than those unacquainted by actual experience with the traveller’s life might think. The custom of using slippers of the inn, which indispensable “Boots” keeps often at his own expense, is peculiar to the commercial room, though many travellers now carry their own foot wear for the fireside with them. At theRed Horse,[17]Stratford-on-Avon, “Boots” is credited with having as fine a selection of comfortable slippers as is to be found in the kingdom.
Convenience for those who use the room led to the provision of a big table in the centre, with small writing-tables round the walls. In old inns this simple method of furnishing is still retained; but more pretentious establishments now have a separate writing-room. Upon the landlord rests the responsibility of providing many small details in equipment, such as books of reference, time-tables, ink-stands, paper and pens. At theOld Steyne Hotel, Brighton, the landlord—himself an old Commercial—even goes to the length of providing an open box of penny and halfpenny stamps which travellers may take from as they will, paying for what they use by placing the money in another box which stands close by. Probably in no other room of an inn could such a convenience be extended without abuse. Atthe same hotel a special stand of well-selected canes is always kept for travellers who may wish to use them in their walks of relaxation on the front.
Beyond these small matters of detail of equipment the commercial room has little of interest. Hear the description of the author of “The Ambassadors of Commerce,” who prefaces what he has to say with the remark that “the cosiness and comfort of the commercial room in the old-fashioned hotel are by no means due to its architectural form, its size, ventilation, or adaptation to its special purposes—most of them having none of these requisites—but to its association,” etc.... “The room itself is not hung with choice works of art in either oil or water colours.” We seem, by the way, to have seen many a terrible old oleograph. “The proprietor being more desirous of advertising noted whiskys and popular bitter ales, he covers his walls with framed advertisements of these beverages. These, with a coloured print of the Commercial Travellers’ Schools at Pinner, and a notice of the dinner hour, complete the picture. Add to the same a dozen or more half-dried overcoats, mackintoshes, whips, rugs, hats of all conceivableshapes, and you have some idea of the ornamentations and fine art decoration of an old-fashioned commercial room.” Not an altogether unattractive picture either. It smacks of the old mid-Victorian times when mahogany and horsehair were the chief stock in trade of the furnisher. A day may come when this much abused combination of woodwork and upholstery will be sought after. Stranger things have happened. Mahogany and horsehair chairs and sofas are rapidly approaching that age limit beyond which they will certainly become interesting, and one can see in imagination the advertisements of the second-hand dealers who will describe them as “genuinely old.” In that day many an old commercial room will be made to yield up its treasures to the insatiable greed of collectors. It is not uncommon, however, to find odd pieces of eighteenth-century furniture in the travellers’ room to-day. We have come across several old sideboards which were obviously of not later date than Sheraton’s time, though in all probability the famous cabinet-maker had but little to do with their origin.
It is the experience of most commercial travellers that the temperance hotel, quiteapart from the fact that it supplies no alcoholic liquors, is only very rarely comparable to the fully-licensed house. Tradition may have something to do with the comfort of the old inn, and temperance hotels have no traditions whatever. Their inception was due to a protest, and even to-day, with the temperance movement so well understood and appreciated, the “hotels” which advertise themselves as being dogmatically averse to a particular form of refreshment, more often than not seem unable adequately to provide comforts about which there can be no question whatever. We have known many temperance hotels which began with a flourish of trumpets and a long list of influential patrons; a few years later they had become slovenly, disreputable, and even in one or two cases, immoral. An inn may have peculiarities, it may have character through history and old associations, but one thing it should certainly never possess, and that is a narrow shibboleth.
THE NEW INN AND ITS POSSIBILITIES
Whatever developments may be in store in the future will depend almost entirely as to how far the licensing authorities and the various bodies formed for the purpose of furthering the cause of temperance, to say nothing of trade protection societies, can sink their differences and come to some sort of understanding as to the best type of inn for public convenience. Some temperance reformers have dreamt of a land without public-houses, and even to-day it is not at all uncommon to hear a lecturer in his enthusiasm for the cause of total abstinence express the wish that every drop of intoxicating liquor in the country could be run into the sewers to-morrow, and every public-house at the same time have its shutters put up. Of course such a dream is impossible of fulfilment, and by far the bulk of English people are heartily glad it is so. On the other hand, there is a small body of opinion which thinks that public-house licences should be dispensed withaltogether, that anybody should be permitted to sell intoxicating spirits if he thinks fit, and that the removal of restriction would tend towards temperance. This also is a condition of things which is not in the range of practical politics.
What, however, does seem a hopeful possibility is that a middle course should become more generally accepted in the direction of improvement of public-houses and their conduct, not for the sake of “the trade” on the one hand, nor for the temperance societies on the other, but for the benefit of the public. On the whole, the number of people, even in the temperance ranks, who look upon the public-house as of the devil, to be destroyed wherever possible, is very small, and it is also fair to say that among publicans the attitude of mind which regards the possession of a licence as merely permission to sell as much intoxicating liquor as possible is becoming rarer every day. The trade has been forced, not without some grumbling, to recognize tea as a form of liquid refreshment which may legitimately be called for by the traveller; and although there are still, in out of the way country districts, wayside inns where the kettle never seems to boil, and,according to the veracious landlord, no fire is ever kept up in the afternoon, it is usually easy to obtain tea on demand in most licensed houses. What has led to this no doubt is the discovery that tea may be provided at a profit.
Of late years traffic on the turnpike road has become thicker and thicker. But the travellers of to-day are not those of a hundred or even fifty years ago, any more than they are the pilgrims of the thirteenth century. No use offering them strong ale for breakfast or rum punch at every halt. As well might one hawk the metal charms which found such ready sale seven hundred years ago on the great roads to holy shrines. The modern pilgrim comes on motor-car and bicycle and the relic of his trip is the nimble picture postcard. Of course, one must not forget that the country inn is not entirely kept up as a convenience to travellers. It must minister besides to the permanent residents of the neighbourhood. The regular customer must be studied, and he has the comforts of home near by. He does not appear to want them in the bar of theBlue LionorGeorge the Fourth. Sufficient for him if he find civility and an opportunity of discussing a tankard ofale and a pipe in company with his friends. But for all that, travellers continue to increase and the faster they go the quicker they come.
A motorist or cyclist thinks nothing of an extra mile or two in search of good cheer. This is a point which may well be commended to landlords of inns which are not in the direct line of traffic. The number of people, too, who take a positive pleasure in going out of their way to search for unfrequented hostelries is on the increase. Motor-cars have to a great extent driven cyclists on to the by-roads, and in planning a tour the rider of the humbler machine will take any amount of trouble to avoid main roads in his anxiety to avoid dust and obtain peace and quietness. This tends to increase the popularity of half-forgotten inns in remoter districts. Where a generation ago the advent of a traveller from a distance was an event to be remembered, nowadays the ubiquitous motorist and cyclist may turn up any moment. It is to the interest, therefore, of rural innkeepers to study him.
Another fact to be remembered, is the increase in the number of lady travellers on the roads, and ladies quite rightly will notstand any sort of makeshift accommodation. Where a man will thankfully accept his pot of beer and bread and cheese in an evil smelling bar parlour, a woman will prefer to sit under a tree outside and do without refreshment until it can be obtained in reasonable cleanliness and comfort. Women, as a rule, travel under the protection of men, and depend upon their escort for the discovery of nice places in which to take meals. Men, therefore, have to find them, and many a little inn which might profit by frequent parties of both sexes is passed by in favour of a more pretentious establishment further on, not because the accommodation is not extensive and elaborate at the smaller place, but because of lack of cleanliness, plain reasonable fare, and some attention to the amenities of life.
Quite a small thing will turn a lady traveller against a wayside inn. Those horrible, narrow swing doors, which are only too common, are quite enough to make a woman decide against the inn which is so unfortunate as to have them barring the only entrance. No man ever pushed through such doors with dignity, and a woman feels instinctively that to struggle with them involves almost a lossof self-respect. A woman likes toentera house. She does not like to slip in furtively, and she feels, perhaps unconsciously, that there is a hint of the surreptitious in these doors in the way they open just wide enough on pressure and close again immediately as if to hide a misdemeanour. No woman, either, will stand and drink even the mildest of non-alcoholic liquors if she can possibly help it. She prefers to sit down. The ordinary bar, therefore, has no attractions for her. Even in a railway refreshment room, where hurry excuses most things, a woman will only stand under compulsion. It is not that she really wants to sit down through weariness, for she may have been sitting for hours in a railway carriage. But she has an instinct for propriety and conduct. If tea shops, which are so largely patronized by women, had a high bar like public-houses, with as little sitting accommodation, as is often to be found in licensed establishments, they could not possibly keep open. Why it should be customary to stand up to drink a glass of beer and sit down to take a cup of tea is a mystery.
Let us admit and welcome the efforts of the old Georgian coaching inns to keep abreast of the times. Let us cheerfully accept theattempts of mine host to put life into an old musty coffee-room and bar parlour. Conservatism is not without value at the inn with a history, and the landlord for his own sake must step warily. Let no iconoclast interfere too violently with the worm-eaten glories of old oak and mahogany or seek to disparage the solid virtues of the great round of beef, or the appetising ingredients of the game pie. Tradition in such things is well worth preserving.
But it is the licensed house which never had much of a history, which has nothing interesting to preserve, whose justification for existence is solely on account of its use to the community as a house of call, that so often requires alteration. The new inn, moreover, the building itself, erected here in the twentieth century for the accommodation of modern people, must be as suitable for its purpose as the old coaching-house was for the stiff, befuddled travellers who, a hundred years ago, alighted from the “Royal Mail” or “Eclipse” for a much-needed night’s repose on their journey to London. It is plain that people use the roads to-day quite as much for pleasure as business. The railway takes the business man from one end of England tothe other, faster, cheaper, and more comfortably than even the motor-car has yet achieved on the turnpike. Relaxation from work means for many thousands a journey by road, and it is in making suitable preparation for those who take their pleasure in this way that the new inn should devote at least half of its energies. The time may not be ripe in England for the adoption of the café system of the Continent. Perhaps the climate is somewhat against it. But some improvements, which a study of the French and German methods would suggest, might easily be taken in hand. The argument of the old teetotaller, not always expressed, perhaps, but certainly present, was that the more uncomfortable and disreputable the public-house the less temptation there would be to go into it. One can understand the point of view as with an effort one can realise the horror of the Puritans for anything in the form of an image in a Church. But people do not want nowadays to use the inn as a place in which to get drunk; a drunken man, to say nothing of a drunken woman, is a universal object of pity and scorn. What is demanded is a wholesome, clean and pleasant place in which to have something to eat and drink without beingtold by anyone, publican or teetotaller, what form the refreshment shall take.
Herein is one of the reasons for the movement in favour of reformed public-houses. The People’s Refreshment House Association, Ltd., which has now over seventy public-houses under its management in different parts of the country has shown how licensed premises may be improved and made to pay at the same time. Proof of this is to be found in the balance-sheet of the Association which has shown a regular annual payment of its maximum dividend of five per cent. since 1899, with over £1,000 placed to reserve. Of course, the Association is frankly a temperance body, but it would be just as well if those people who shy at the idea of public-houses becoming controlled by bigotry would consult the dictionary and discover for themselves the real meaning of the word temperance. Having done so, they will, perhaps, realise that in pursuit of moderation there is no reason whatever why the interests of “the trade,” the reformer, and the public should not be identical, for all these prefer the temperate man to the drunkard. The fact that about 80 per cent. of the licensed houses of England are tied to brewers should not standin the way of improvement; indeed, in some cases, particularly in the provision and upkeep of suitable premises, brewers have done more than could possibly be undertaken by private owners or the public-house Trusts of which, by the way, there is one now in nearly every county. Without going into the many vexed questions, most of which are matters for the trade alone, surrounding the tied house, it may not unreasonably be hoped that the brewer will see more and more in the future how his duty to the public and his interests alike demand a broader and more enlightened policy than the crude idea of monopoly of sale.
The “White Horse” Inn, Stetchworth, Newmarket
Improvements, however, cannot be entered upon with much hope of success without the sympathy of the licensing justices, and it is as much to be desired that they should recognize that the public interest lies in the direction of the reformed public-house as that the brewer should realise that licensed premises are not solely to be run as drinking shops. The restrictions in very many parts of England which have been put in the way of improvements and extensions are absurd. Wherever specially free facilities have been granted for the sale of intoxicating liquor—as at the White City in 1908—nothing hasresulted which in any way caused the authorities to regret having trusted the public not to make beasts of themselves. The Bill introduced by Lord Lamington in the House of Lords crystallised the views of reformers, who desire to make the public-house more attractive. It provided that licensing justices should not interfere with the provision of accommodation for the supply of tea, coffee, cocoa, or food; with the substitution of chairs and tables for bars; with the provision of games, newspapers, music, or gardens, or any other means of reasonable recreation. It also asked that the Licensing Bench should allow the improvements of premises in the direction of making them more open and airy than at present and more healthy generally. There are numerous cases in which the action of justices in refusing to grant facilities for improvement has been almost incomprehensible, and amply justified the implied rebuke contained in the Bill. In London the continental café—or rather an English adaptation of the idea—has been established with success, and though the metropolis is commonly judged by other standards than those of the countryside, the way in which the café has been received seemsto indicate not only the desire for freer and more enlightened management, but also the possession by the public of sufficient moral fibre to make use of the increased facilities temperately and in reason.
New inns have been erected in recent years—not many of them it is true—with the object of supplying the wants of to-day in a liberal and broad-minded way. Occasionally the assistance of architects of acknowledged position has been enlisted in making the buildings themselves more attractive and less vulgar than has been only too common, and if the effect of environment upon morality and behaviour counts for anything these new inns should be an improvement in every way upon the bulk of those built at any rate during the Victorian period. The inn at Sandon, on Lord Harrowby’s estate, may be mentioned as a case in point. TheFox and Pelicanat Haslemere, the architects of which were Messrs. Read and Macdonald, is another, which has, by the way, a sign painted by Mr. Walter Crane. There is theSkittles Innat Letchworth, designed by Messrs. R. Barry Parker, and Raymond Unwin. In this last instance the conditions under which the building was erected were much easier thanthose which commonly obtain in older settled districts, where many interests have to be considered. At Garden City the question regarding the sale of alcoholic liquors is one on which there is considerable divergence of view. About the necessity for providing a well-designed and conducted house for the general refreshment of travellers and as a centre for social intercourse there would appear, however, to have been no doubt whatever. TheSkittlesis referred to here simply as a nicely-planned building of very attractive appearance which seems to embody most of the improvements one would wish to see in the design of modern inns. The architects have contrived cleverly to combine the idea of the continental café and the English country inn. The rooms are large and airy, there is plenty of seating accommodation, and a billiard-room is one of the attractions. There is an entire absence of ornamental decoration, a form of embellishment which still continues to appear in nine out of every ten newly equipped public-houses, in the country as well as in towns. Of course, it is perfectly plain that with a new house of refreshment which is not to hold a licence, anything may be done. Directly an architectis commissioned to design a fully-licensed inn his difficulties commence. He is hedged about by all sorts of restrictions. It is inconceivable, however, that the cause of true temperance can be injured by the provision of a good, convenient building for a licensed victualler’s trade, instead of the vulgar atrocity which is so common.
It is not at all certain that the classification of compartments such as saloon bar, private bar, public bar, tap-room, bar parlour, and so on, is not out of harmony with modern requirements. No doubt this division has its conveniences, in the same way that the three classes of compartments, which some railway companies still keep up is found on the whole of benefit. But, to take the café again as an illustration, there appears to be no necessity there for such rigid distinctions, and many of the greater railway companies have found no ill results from the total elimination of at least second class. Some of the new tube railways have only one class, and if one form of public convenience is found to answer without class distinction, why not another?
Some of the new inns which have architectural character have been disfigured by flaring advertisements. The licensed tradeshould know whether publicity of this kind given to particular brands of ale and spirits, on the whole contributes to the good of the house on which the announcements are displayed; but there can be little doubt that one result is to vulgarize the building. In cases where the landlord of the property sets his face against advertising of this kind, the inn seems by contrast to proclaim its respectability and on that account must attract some custom, at all events. A very good building, as yet not spoilt by advertisements, is theBell, on the high road between theWake Armsand Epping, and another is theWhite Horse, Stetchworth, Newmarket, which Mr. C. F. A. Voysey designed for Lord Ellesmere. TheWheatsheaf, Loughton, is a new inn designed by Mr. Horace White, which is as yet free from objectionable signboards, and is a very good type of building for the smaller country public. There are also various good inns designed by Mr. P. Morley Horder, in Gloucestershire, andThe George and Dragon, Castleton, erected some sixteen years ago, is a licensed house of excellent design, by Mr. W. Edgar Wood.
For a model wayside inn of the smaller class, where the internal treatment showsgood taste with the utmost simplicity commend us to theWhite Hartat West Wickham. It replaces a very ancient wooden house which had proved past repair, and is probably unique amongst modern inns in that it is designed for the convenient drawing of all the malt liquors direct from the wood. Another more ambitious house by the same architects (Messrs. Berney & Son) at Elmers End, with an elaborate half-timbered front, recalling Black Forest architecture, has anticipated the requirements of the Children’s Act. The well-proportioned tea room is approached by a colonnade at the side of the building and isolated from the bars.
Among brewers who have had the foresight to erect inns of better accommodation and more pleasing design than most of those put up during the latter part of last century are Messrs. Godsell & Co., of Stroud, an example of whose houses we illustrate in theGreyhound Inn; and the Stroud Brewery Co., whosePrince Albertat Rodborough, Gloucestershire, and theClothiers’ Arms, are excellent specimens of the modern country inn. These three were from the designs of Mr. P. Morley Horder. Good taste is by no means lacking in some of the many houses owned by Messrs.Nalder & Collyer, Ltd., in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex. This firm have also restored the old-fashioned type of signboards.
Other inns of recent date and of distinctive design are theRed Lion, King’s Heath, Worcestershire, by Messrs. Bateman & Bateman; theWentworth Arms, Elmesthorpe, Leicestershire, by Mr. C. F. A. Voysey; theGeorge, Hayes, Kent, by Mr. Ernest Newton; theDuck-in-the-Pond, Harrow Weald, by Mr. R. A. Briggs; theMaynard Arms, Bagworth, Leicester, by Messrs. Everard & Pick; the remodelledWhite Hartat Sonning-on-Thames, by Mr. W. Campbell Jones; theDog and Doublet, Sandon; theHundred House, Purslow, Shropshire (a modern reconstruction); theGreen Man, Tunstall, Suffolk; theOld White Houseand theElm Treeat Oxford, by Mr. Henry T. Hare; and various temperance inns, amongst which are theOssington Coffee House, Newark, by Messrs. Ernest George & Yeates; theBridge Inn, Port Sunlight, by Messrs. Grayson & Ould (now fully licensed); and the Bournville Estate public-house, by Mr. W. Alexander Harvey. In London two finely designed interiors are theCoal Hole, in the Strand, by Mr. W. Colcutt, and theCopt Hall, in Copthall Avenue, by Mr. P. Morley Horder.
INN FURNITURE
It will not come as any surprise to readers who have so far dipped with us into the pages of the past, to learn that mediæval inns, and indeed those of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, have very little to show in the way of furniture. Our ancestors had far less done for them when they put up for the night than we are accustomed to to-day in the most primitive districts. Travellers did not even expect a bed. They were thankful enough if they could get some sort of rough bedstead on which to lay their own bed which they brought with them. Of course, these were people of some means. Whenever Royalty travelled the train of waggons required to convey furnishing equipment frequently extended to formidable dimensions. On the other hand, the accumulation of wealth in the sixteenth century soon began to raise the standard of furnishing at the inn, and a diary kept by a Dutch physician named Levinus Lemnius, who madean adventure into England during Elizabeth’s reign, is worth quoting as an indication of the rapid improvement which was taking place. The good doctor evidently had not been used to luxuries, for he says: “The neate cleanliness, the exquisite fineness, the pleasaunte and delightful furniture in every poynt for the household, wonderfully rejoyced me, their nosegayes, finely entermingled with sundry sortes of fragreunte flowers in their bedchambers and privy roomes with comfortable smell cheered mee up and entirely delyghted all my sences.” He probably stayed at the best hostelries which could be found, and it would be unwise to conclude that all inns of the period had so many charms as those to which he refers.
One feature of the furnishing of old inns which adds not a little to the picturesqueness of the interiors is the high-backed settle, with wings or arms. This is universal all over England. It varies considerably in different localities, for the local handicraftsman has worked according to tradition, and he has also in most cases made the settle for a particular place and to serve a special purpose. Of course, the original reason for its design was to keep out draughts from the constantlyopening door, and this purpose is still strong enough to make the settle a very convenient, not to say necessary, fixture in most inns, in spite of all sorts of modern draught-excluding devices. It scarcely seems likely that the high-backed settle will ever be entirely superseded. It is not particularly comfortable according to present-day ideas of comfort in seats, which seem to revolve round upholstery. But it is very clean. It will not harbour dust, and if well made it will stand the assaults of time for centuries. The old Elizabethan and Jacobean settles were extremely heavy. It was evident in those days that sturdiness was inseparable from strength, and considering the possible rough usage to which seats in the inn might well on occasion be put, the heavy timbers of which they were constructed seem to have been well advised. They very often had fine carving, and were constructed with the seat forming a lid to the boxed-in lower part. It was in the eighteenth century that settles became of little account, and they were then plainly made by carpenters simply to serve a useful purpose. There is a good example of a carved settle in theUnion Inn, Flyford Flavel, Worcestershire; and in many an oldinn in Berkshire, a county which has retained its ancient character perhaps more than any other, are heavy old oak settles guarding the warm fireside. In the tap-room of theGreen Dragon, Combe St. Nicholas, near Chard, is a settle finely carved of fifteenth-century origin. Judging by its character it must at one time have been in some ecclesiastical building. TheGreen Dragonwas monastic. The settle after a time developed into the fixed partition, its back stretched up to the ceiling, and a door was placed at the end, the partition being continued beyond to the opposite wall. Considerations of light sometimes prevented this being carried out entirely but a modern compromise was effected by glazing the screen above the high settle back and putting glass panels in the door. The development of the ingle-nook came about through chimney-corner and settle being combined in one feature.
The “Woodman” Inn, Farnborough, Kent
The settle in some form or other is the best possible seat for the inn, particularly if space is limited. It might be pleasanter to have small tables and chairs, but in many an old building there is only enough room for a couple of long seats and a table. A long bench upon which people can sit in a rowside by side is the best seat in existence for saving space. Light furniture is utterly unsuitable for inns. For one thing it is usually nothing like strong enough, and even if it be it commits an artistic sin in looking too fragile for its purpose. Take the respective merits of the very many forms in which the old Windsor chair has been made, and the modern bent-wood chair. Now the latter is without doubt the strongest seat for its weight which has been invented in modern times. It is one of the few successes in chair-making which can claim to be the direct outcome of scientific methods. It has absolutely no ancestors whatever, and can attach itself to no tradition. It is a bald product of the application of science to furniture, and when the Austrian inventor finally made it perfect he had achieved utility, nothing more, nothing less. The bent-wood chair is in pretty nearly every concert hall in the world. It has conquered completely the restaurants and cafés of the Continent, and it is to be seen often in old inns of the English countryside. Now, the last is a regrettable fact. The Austrian bent-wood chair or settee looks positively effeminate in the country inn with its thin polished legs, its slender-looking back,and perforated, mechanically made seat. Something is called for of a greater weight of timber, which shall look more in keeping with the building and more in accordance with the solid unimpassioned, phlegmatic way of life of rural districts. Let us have the chair or settle made by the village wheelwright or carpenter, rather than the product of an Austrian factory.
But in the Windsor chair we have a type which can certainly compete with bent-wood in strength if not in lightness. The Windsor chair, besides, is capable of much greater variety of form than the Austrian production. It has a tradition of its own and has as great a celebrity as its more modern competitor. It is heavier and sturdier. It savours somewhat of the kitchen, but although it cannot be regarded as the last word on art craftsmanship, it is not altogether unpleasant to look upon, and is much more comfortable in use than many a chair with greater pretensions to artistic appearance. It is still made by hand and costs very little. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the smaller inns contained many chairs, a few of which are still to be met with, simply made by the village joiner on the lathe. They had plain woodenseats, and there was very great diversity of “members” in the turned rails. They called for comparatively little skill to make, and beyond their bare proportions showed small ingenuity in making the form comfortable for the body. Frequently they had rush seats. Within recent years chairs of this kind have been sought for and made the base of many extremely interesting seats, designed and constructed by modern craftsmen.
The oldest form of inn table is the trestle. It dates back to the Middle Ages, and although nothing like so much used to-day, it still survives in many an old tap-room. It was originally even a simpler affair than it is now, being merely a board with movable trestles underneath. It could readily be moved and pushed away if space were required on special occasion. At thePlough Inn, Birdbrook, Essex, an old thatched house, is a red brick floored tap-room which contains several fine trestle tables and settles of simple design and perfect utility.
But the simple table, chair and settle, beyond which the public part of the inns of the Middle Ages and the smaller alehouses for centuries were unfurnished, except, perhaps, for a stool or backless bench, are nothingcompared with the splendid legacy of sixteenth and seventeenth-century carved oak furniture still left to us in many of the historic hostelries in the shires. Later enthusiasm in collecting has no doubt been responsible for the fine specimens of furniture such as those to be seen at theLygon Arms, Broadway, Worcestershire, and it is extremely difficult to say with certainty how many of the genuinely old pieces to be found in other famous inns originally belonged to the building. There is theFeathers, Ludlow, where in the beautiful old dining-room is a fine collection of furniture, hardly in accord with the period of the ceiling, the carved oak overmantel, and other permanent features of the room. The Jacobean and Chippendale chairs are the result of enlightened purchase in later days. One of the finest Jacobean staircases in an inn is that at theRed Lion, Truro.
Very little furniture of the Renaissance period, from the Elizabethan carved oak to the mahogany of the later eighteenth century, is peculiar to inns. An exception is the bar, which, of course, was a fixture and part of the inn structure. Our modern bar with its almost invariable ugliness, its row of vertical handles for drawing beer, and its aggressivecash register, is a poor survival of the Jacobean bar, an example of which is still in existence at theMaid’s Head, Norwich. It is worthy of recollection that the high stools which enable one to sit at a bar are quite of modern origin. Bar lounging evidently did not become a habit until the nineteenth century. People sat down and had their refreshments at ease.
A table which was sometimes found in Jacobean inns of the larger and more important kind was the one upon which the game of “shovel-board” was played. “Shovel-board” tables were very long, sometimes even as much as ten yards. They were about three feet or three feet six inches wide, and the game played resembles in principle our own deck billiards. Indeed the “shovel-board” table is thought to be the direct ancestor of the modern billiard table, without which, of course, no inn of any size nowadays is complete. The extreme vagueness of the early history of the game of billiards, however, scarcely justifies any dogmatic statement as to its relationship with “shovel-board.” A Charles II billiard table with a wooden bed, cork cushions, and corkscrew legs is in the possession of Mr. Robert Rushbrooke, ofRushbrooke, which seems to show that “shovel-board” tables and billiard tables existed at the same time. This, however, does not do away with the contention of those who assert that the modern game was elaborated from the simpler pastime beloved of Henry VIII and Charles II. The last long “shovel-board” table in an inn was definitely stated by Strutt, in his “Sports and Pastimes of the People of England,” to be at “a low public-house in Benjamin Street, Clerkenwell Green.” It was three feet broad and thirty-nine feet long.
As “shovel-board” tables were very expensive pieces of furniture, it is doubtful whether any but the most important inns ever had them. The game was played frequently on tables of much smaller dimensions, and the name of “shovel-board” is usually used nowadays to designate a particular form of extending table with hidden leaves. The long Elizabethan and Jacobean tables—rather mistakenly known as refectory tables—which stood on stout turned legs connected by thick rails, were ideal boards for the old game. At Penshurst are, at the present time, two of the finest specimens of long trestle tables in the country. They date from the earlyfifteenth century and measure twenty-seven feet long by three feet wide.
Innkeepers, of course, had to keep abreast of the times in the matter of furnishing, and in the coaching era the old hostelries were furnished in the latest and most approved fashion. Hence it is that the Georgian inns, where they have not been denuded of their treasures by enterprising collectors, or turned inside out by some unfortunately advised landlord who preferred Victorian horsehair and mahogany, still contain many interesting pieces of the time of Chippendale, Heppelwhite, and Sheraton. A warning may not be out of place to those who imagine that these famous names applied to furniture really indicate that the cabinet-making was done by the craftsmen themselves. Without unimpeachable documentary evidence, it is utterly impossible to ascribe any fine piece of mahogany to any one of the three great cabinet-makers of the eighteenth century. The names indicate nowadays certain periods which are fairly definitely fixed, and certain easily recognizable styles of work. In many an old inn you will see in the coffee-room or commercial room side tables, dining tables, card tables, chairs, settees, mirrors, long-caseclocks, bureaux, and corner cupboards which may typify any or all of the great periods of the eighteenth century, and it is quite likely that down in the hall or in the corridors and kitchen you will discover specimens of Jacobean chests, gate-leg tables, dressers, a “bread-and-cheese” cupboard, perhaps, and other relics of even an earlier age. The fact was, of course, that pieces of furniture were bought as they were required, and when an inn had a history running well into two centuries it would have been remarkable indeed if a heterogeneous collection had not been got together. It is only the modern craze for collecting which has robbed the inn of so many of its treasures. The experts will tell you that the fact of a piece of furniture being old is no guarantee whatever of its worth, excepting whatever value may be attached to mere length of years. A joiner in the country, say in Shropshire or Yorkshire, might not make a piece of furniture for mine host of theChequersorBlue Lionas well or in such good taste as would the first-class cabinet-makers of London. It is quite likely that he would invest it with some local character, and if this is well preserved in the piece it has its worth on this account alone. But countrymade Chippendale, Heppelwhite, or Sheraton furniture, although charming enough, has rarely any exceptional value. Wherever the contents of a large country house was offered for sale, the innkeeper as a man of some substance would buy, and it is this fact which explains in some cases the finds of really valuable furniture which have been made at old inns.
The “Wheatsheaf” Inn, Loughton, Essex
The sort of advertisement—common enough then as now—which attracted local competition can be realised by the following, from theKentish Gazetteof September 21st, 1790, which announced the sale in the Isle of Thanet of: