THE INNS OF OLD ENGLAND.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVII, Issue 982, 31 December 1908, Page 22

THE INNS OF OLD ENGLAND.

“ Whoe’er has travelled life’s -dull round, Where’erhis stages may have been, May sigh to think how oft he found The warmest welcome—-at an Inn.” There are a great many old houses in different parts of England which have been inns and hotels and posthouses for many generations, and have evep been in the hands, and under the control of, the same family Without changing, but the traveller will generally find that there has been some sort of alteration either structurally, or, to coin a word, “furniturally.” One of these is the “Feathers Hotel,” at Ludlow, in Shropshire, The only addition to the house that has ever been made during two hundred and twenty-five years is a rather modern gas-lamp in front and the signboard stuck at an angle against the side of the house over the entrance gate. The edifice is plastered all over with queer carvings of oak, and the interior is a perfect marvel of delight

for the antiquarian. The place is filled from roof to cellar with the most exquisite specimens of, Chippendale,. Sheraton, and Hepplewhite. The ceilings are the work of a famous Italian who came over here when the house was first inaugurated; and the glassware, the value of which it is absolutely impossible to fix because of its extreme rarity, is stated to be amongst the finest known. Yet this is merely a country inn, patronised largely by commercial travellers, with only here and there a strayed tourist blown by accident off the beaten ways of summer excursionists. The C Gorge Inn, in the village of Norton St. Philip, Somerset, is supposed to be the oldest licensed village ale-house in England, the licence dating from 1397. The building, which is of great age, attracts large numbers of visitors, whilst innumerable cyclists make it their rendezvous. Its appear-' ance is eminently picturesque, each storey overhanging that beneath, whilst the front is broken by bay windows, a porch, and a flight of stone steps leading to a doorway in the wall. At the back of the premises are more quaint doors and windows, a turret built against the wall, and an outside stair; in the yard there still remains a portion of the old gallery which in the Middle Ages was found in so many hostelries. Each gable is surmounted by a curious chimney, and a peculiar feature of the interior is the nipper floor, this being of plaster. This ancient inn, as may be imagined, is not without a history. When it was built, five hundred years ago, the lands of Norton St. Philip belonged to Hinton Abbey,- three miles distant, the ruins of which -are well worth a visit. In those days Norton was noted for its cloth fair, and the inn, it is supposed, was built by the monks of Hinton as a hostel for the traders. • In June. 1685, it was occupied by the Duke of Monmouth, who, at Norton St. Philip, gained the one success of his otherwise disastrous campaign. His outposts managed to repulse the advance guard of Faversham s- army with the loss of more than a hundred men. Against this, however, must be recorded the attempt on Monmouth’s life. There was a reward for his body, living or dead, and as he stood at the window of the eGorge Inn he was shot at. But the would-be assassin missed him, and the unfortunate Duke was reserved for a worse fate on Tower Hill. Another “celebrity” who is said to have slept at the George is Oliver Cromwell. When Holborn was called “the Heavy Hill” to Tyburn the Blue Boar, now used as a railway parcel office, was. a wayside inn, where one night, while drinking cans of beer, Oliver Cromwell and Ireton, in the. disguise of common troopers, secured the fatal .missive of Charles I. to his Queen in France, which is known as the “saddle letter.” The Royal courier, who came with a saddle on his head that night to engage a posthorse for his journey to Dover, did not know that in the flap of the saddle he bore a billet fraught with grave disaster to the Royal writer, of which he was deftly robbed by the roystering troopers, who hailed him on his way as “an honest fellow.” That meeting a,t the Blue Boar wayside inn opened the first important act of the great tragedy of the Civil War.