Chapter V: Part 5

Our traveller must have come in contact with some very ungallant Englishmen. She describes a dinner at a private house; we are told that 'there are twelve to fourteen guests, who fill the small drawing-room, the ladies sitting in armchairs, whilst the gentlemen stand about, some warming themselves by the fire, often in a not very decent manner. At the dinner-table napkins are found only in houses which have acquired foreign polish, and they are not many. The tablecloth hangs down to the floor, and every guest takes it upon his knee, and uses it as a napkin.... The lady of the house serves the dishes, and there is no end to her questions put to her guests as to the seasoning, the part of the joint, the sauce, etc., they like,' questions which are exceedingly troublesome to a foreigner who is not up to all the technical terms of English cookery. Of course, the hobnobbing and taking wine with everybody--a fashion now happily abolished--comes in for a good deal of censure, which, indeed, is richly deserved. 'Conversation on any subject of interest is out of the question during dinner; were anyone to attempt it, the master would immediately interrupt him with, "Sir, you are losing your dinner; by-and-by we will discuss these matters." The ladies from sheer modesty speak but little; foreigners must beware from saying much, lest they be considered monstrous bold.'

Whilst, after dinner, the gentlemen sit over their wine, the ladies are yawning the time away in the drawing-room, until their hostess sends word down to the dining-room that tea is ready. 'It is said,' continues our author, 'that the slow or quick attention given to this message shows who is master in the house, the husband or the wife.' Long after midnight the guests drive home 'through the streets still swarming with people. All the shops are still open, and lighted up; the street-lamps, of course, are alight, and burn till the rising of the sun.' Has any Londoner ever seen all the shops open and lighted up all night? Did our author have visions?

A London Sunday, of course, is commented on. The complaint raised quite recently by some of our bishops seems but a revival of wailings uttered long ago, for we learn from Mrs. Schopenhauer that in her time (sixty years ago) 'some of the highest families in the kingdom were called to account for desecrating the Sabbath with amateur concerts, dances, and card-playing,' so that it would indeed seem there is nothing new under the sun. 'The genuine Englishman,' says our authoress, 'divides his time on Sundays between church and the bottle; his wife spends the hours her religious duties leave her with a gossip, and abuses her neighbours and acquaintances, which is quite lawful on Sundays.'

We allow Mrs. Schopenhauer to make her bow and retire with this parting shot. Still, that lady was not singular in attributing great drinking powers to Englishmen. M. Larcher, who in 1861 published a book entitled 'Les Anglais, Londres et l'Angleterre,' says therein that in good society the ladies after dinner retire into another room, after having partaken very moderately of wine, while the gentlemen are left to empty bottles of port, madeira, claret, and champagne. 'And it is,' he adds, 'a constant habit among the ladies to empty bottles of brandy.' And he quotes from a work by General Fillet: 'Towards forty years of age every well-bred English lady goes to bed intoxicated.'

M. Jules Lecomte says in his 'Journey of Troubles to London' ('Un Voyage de Desagrements a Londres,' 1854) that he accompanied a blonde English miss to the Exhibition in Hyde Park, where at one sitting she ate six shillings' worth of cake resembling a black brick ornamented with currants.

According to M. Francis Wey's account of 'The English at Home' ('Les Anglais chez Eux,' 1856), at Cremorne Gardens the popular refreshment, and particularly with an Oxford theologian, is ginger-beer. M. Wey probably means shandy-gaff. He agrees with M. Lecomte: the consumption of food by one English young lady would suffice for four Paris porters!

A Russian visitor to London, the 'Own Correspondent' of the _Northern Bee_ Russian newspaper, who inspected London in 1861, asserts, in his 'England and Russia,' that any English miss of eighteen is capable of imbibing sundry glasses of wine 'without making a face.'

In the _Daily Graphic_ of November 1, 1893, a statement appeared, according to which a French journalist at this present day informs the world, through _Le Jour_, that in London--nay, in all England--not one cyclist is to be found, the Government having rigidly suppressed them. Well, M. Levi has told us that there are no umbrellas in London; now we learn that there are no cyclists (how we wish this were true!). What curious information we get from France about ourselves!

When will travellers leave off being Muenchausens?

*XII.*

*OLD LONDON TAVERNS AND TEA-GARDENS.[#]*

*I.--THE GALLERIED TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON.*

[#] This chapter is based on ancient and modern histories of London; on works treating of special localities; on essays in periodical publications; on the Transactions of Antiquarian and other Societies, and as it is not a product of imagination, but of research, nothing new to the student, but a great deal new to the general reader, may be expected; though the stones are old, the house is new.

London abounded in taverns. A folio volume might be filled with accounts of the more important of them, but as we have only a limited number of pages at our command, we shall confine ourselves to the description of one peculiarly characteristic sort of them, namely, the taverns with galleried courtyards, and, in consequence of their great number, our notice of each will have to be brief.

These old taverns, very few of which are now left standing, formed, architecturally, squares, the buildings surrounding a yard, furnished on three sides with outer galleries to the floors above; and the reason why this form of construction was adopted was because then the yards were rendered suitable for theatrical representations, which, before the erection of regular theatres, were usually given in inn-yards. Access to these yards was obtained either through the part of the tavern facing the street, or through the gateway, through which coaches, carts and waggons entered the yard. The stage was erected, in a primitive and temporary manner, behind the front portion of the square, and faced the galleries at the back and sides of it. The yard itself then formed the pit, and the galleries the boxes of the theatre. A yard so surrounded by galleries, with their banisters or open panels, often of elegant design, looked very picturesque; but did this style of construction contribute to the comfort of the guests? Scarcely. The ground-floors of the inn-buildings, on the level of the yard, were given up to stables, coach-houses, store-rooms, etc. Access to the galleries was obtained by staircases, often steep, twisted and narrow; along the galleries were the bedrooms, the doors, and frequently the windows, of which opened on to them, and there were no other means of reaching these rooms. Now, consider that these galleries were open, exposed to all the changes of the weather, to wind, rain, hail, sleet and snow, which must have been very trying, especially at night, when the bedrooms had to be entered by the light of a candle, difficult to keep burning, whilst the wind was driving rain or snow into the gallery. Remember also that the roughly paved yard and the stables surrounding it were full of noises, not only during the day, but all the night through. There were the horses kicking, coaches and waggons constantly coming in through the gateway, or going out, stablemen, coachmen, carters shouting, horses being harnessed to carts, and other vehicles starting early in the morning on their journeys, and the rest of the sleepers in the bedrooms along the galleries must have been sadly interfered with. Nor can the smell arising from the stables and from the manure heap, all confined within the well formed by the surrounding buildings, have added to the comfort of the guests staying at the inn. As the bar of the inn frequently was in the yard, the noises made by its visitors, and the quarrels they occasionally indulged in, and which often would be settled by a fight in the yard, were not calculated to promote sound sleep. But our ancestors were not so particular in these matters; even aristocratic quarters of London were given up to dirt and rowdyism. In St. James's Square offal, cinders, dead cats and dogs were shot under the very windows of the gilded saloons in which the first magnates of the land--Norfolks, Ormonds, Kents and Pembrokes--gave banquets and balls. Lord Macaulay quotes the condition of Lincoln's Inn Fields as a striking example of the indifference felt by the most polite and splendid members of society in a former age to what would now be deemed the common decencies of life. But the poorest cottage and the meanest galleried inn-yard look well in a picture. Be glad that you have not to live in either. But a few generations ago, as we have pointed out, tastes and habits were different, and even now there are old fogeys so wedded to ancient customs that they still patronize the dark boxes yet found in some antiquated taverns, which afford room for four or six customers, who have to sit upright against the perpendicular backs of the boxes, lest they slide off the twelve-inch-wide shelves on which they have to perch and disappear under the table. Strange were the customs of the days referred to. The people seemed to live in taverns, physicians met their patients and apothecaries there, lawyers their clients, business men their customers, people of fashion their acquaintances. 'Even men of fortune,' says Macaulay, 'who might in their own mansions have enjoyed every luxury, were often in the habit of passing their evenings in the parlour of some neighbouring house of public entertainment,' in the company of ill-bred, loud talking, roisterous and spittoon-patronizing smokers. Johnson declared that the tavern chair was the throne of human felicity. To him it was, because there he found his toadies, whom he could bully to his heart's content. But the man who could say

'My mind to me a kingdom is'

did not care to sit on such a throne.

But we have insensibly strayed into side-openings; let us return to the main avenue of galleried taverns. We shall have to mention so many, that we see no better means of preventing our getting confused and losing our way altogether than to arrange them alphabetically according to the signs they were known by.

The first inn thus on our list is the Angel, at Islington. Its establishment dates back two hundred years. Originally it presented the usual features of a large country inn, having a long front, with an overhanging tiled roof; the principal entrance was beneath a projection, which extended along a portion of the front, and had a wooden gallery at top. The inn-yard, approached by a gateway in the centre, was nearly a quadrangle, having double galleries supported by plain columns and carved pilasters, with caryatides and other figures. This courtyard, as it was more than a hundred years, was preserved by Hogarth in his print of a 'Stage Coach.' There is also a view of it in Pinks's 'History of Clerkenwell.' In olden days the inn was a great halting-place for travellers from London, and from the northern and western counties. On the King's birthday the royal mail coaches used to meet there, as shown in an engraving of 1812, in the Crace collection in the British Museum. In 1819 the old house was pulled down, and the present ordinary-looking building erected in its stead, a grand opportunity, afforded by its commanding position, ninety-nine feet above the Trinity high water-mark, at the meeting of so many important roads, being thus stupidly lost.

There was another Angel inn, in St. Clement's, Strand, 'behind St. Clement Kirk.' To this also was attached a galleried yard, but, according to the woodcut in Diprose's 'St. Clement Danes,' there were galleries to the first and second floors on one side of the yard only. And from this house also seven or eight mail-coaches were despatched nightly, and from here also the royal mails used to start on the King's birthday for the West of England. Concerning the public conveyances of those days, the following curious announcement reads amusing: 'On Monday the 5th April, 1762, will set out from the Angel Inn, behind St. Clement's Church, a neat flying machine, carrying four passengers, on steel springs, and sets out at four o'clock in the morning and goes to Salisbury the same evening, and returns from Salisbury the next morning at the same hour; and will continue going from London every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and return every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Performed by the proprietors of the stage coach, Thomas Massey, Anthony Coack. Each passenger to pay twenty-three shillings for their fare, and to be allowed fourteen pounds' weight baggage; all above to pay for one penny a pound. Outside passengers and children in lap to pay half fare. N.B.--The masters of the machine will not be accountable for plate, watches, money, jewels, bank-notes, or writings, unless booked as such, and paid for accordingly.' Why the proprietors should have called their coach a 'machine' is a riddle, and as it took a whole day, from four in the morning till the evening, to get over the eighty-four miles between London and Salisbury, its rate of progress could hardly be called a 'flying' one.

The Angel inn was of very ancient origin, being mentioned in a correspondence dated 1503. In the _Public Advertiser_ of March 28, 1769, appeared the following advertisement: 'To be sold a Black Girl, the property of J.B., eleven years of age, who is extremely handy, works at her needle tolerably, and speaks English perfectly well; is of an excellent temper and willing disposition. Inquire of Mr. Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St. Clement's Church.' The inn was closed in 1853, the freehold fetching L6,800, and on its site the legal chambers known as Danes Inn were erected.

In Philip Lane, London Wall, anciently stood the Ape, an inn with a galleried yard; all that now remains of this ancient hostelry is a stone carving of a monkey squatted on its haunches and eating an apple; under it is the date 1670 and the initial B. It is fixed on the house numbered 14. The courtyard, where the coaches and waggons used to arrive and depart, is now an open space, round which houses are built. A view of the Ape and Cock taverns as they appeared in 1851 is in the Crace collection.

We should be trying the reader's patience were we to enter into a discussion as to the origin of the sign of the Belle Sauvage, the inn which once stood at the bottom of Ludgate, and whose site is now occupied by the establishment of Messrs. Cassell and Company. The name was derived either from one William Savage, who in 1380 was a citizen living in that locality, or, more probably, from one Arabella Savage, whose property the inn once was. The sign originally was a bell hung within a hoop. As already mentioned, inn-yards were anciently used as theatres. The Belle Sauvage was a favourite place for dramatic performances, its inner yard being spacious, and having handsomely carved galleries to the first and second floors at the back of the main building. An original drawing of it is in the Crace collection. In this yard Banks, the showman, so often mentioned in Elizabethan pamphlets, exhibited his trained horse Morocco, the animal which once ascended the tower of St. Paul's, and which on another occasion delighted the mob by selecting Tarleton, the low comedian, as the greatest fool present. Banks eventually took his horse to Rome, and the priests, frightened at the circus tricks, burnt both Morocco and his master as sorcerers. Close by the inn lived Grinling Gibbons, and an old house, bearing the crest of the Cutlers' Company, remains.

The old Black Bull (now No. 122), Gray's Inn Lane, was, in its original state, as shown by a woodcut in Walford's 'Old and New London,' a specimen, though of the meaner sort, of the old-fashioned galleried yard.

The Black Lion, on the west side of Whitefriars Street, was a quaint and picturesque edifice, and its courtyard showed a gallery to the first-floor of the building, rather wider than usual, and with massive banisters, pillars supporting the roof. The old house was pulled down in 1877, and a large tavern of the ordinary uninteresting type now occupies its site.

One of the once famous Southwark inns was the Boar's Head, which formed a part of Sir John Fastolf's benefactions to Magdalen College, Oxford. This Sir John was one of the bravest Generals in the French wars under Henry IV. and his successors. The premises comprised a narrow court of ten or twelve houses, and two separate houses at the east end, the one of them having a gallery to the first-floor. The property was for many years leased to the father of Mr. John Timbs, which latter, in his 'Curiosities of London,' gives a lengthy account of the premises. They were taken down in 1830 to widen the approach to London Bridge. The court above mentioned was known as Boar's Head Court, and under it and some adjoining houses, on their demolition, was discovered a finely-vaulted cellar, doubtless the wine-cellar of the Boar's Head.

Most noted among theatrical inns was the Bull, in Bishopsgate Street, so much so that the mother of Anthony Bacon (the brother of the great Francis), when he went to live in the neighbourhood of the inn, was terribly frightened lest he and his servants should be led astray by the actors performing at the inn. Tarleton, the comedian, often acted there. It was while giving representations at the Bull that Burbage, Shakespeare's friend, and his fellows obtained a patent from Queen Elizabeth for erecting a permanent building for theatrical performances, though the Bull afforded them every convenience, its yard and galleries being on a large scale and in good style. It was at the Bull that the Cambridge carrier Hobson, of 'Hobson's choice,' used to put up.[#] A portrait and a parchment certificate of Mr. Van Harn, a customer of the house, were long preserved at the Bull inn; this worthy is said to have drunk 35,680 bottles of wine in this hostelry.

[#] Though I find it stated in other authorities that he put up at the Four Swans; possibly he resorted to both.

The Bull and Gate, in Holborn, probably took its name from Boulogne Gate, as the Bull and Mouth in Aldersgate Street was a corruption of Boulogne Mouth, and both were, no doubt, intended as compliments to Henry VIII., who took that town in 1544. Tom Jones alighted at the Bull and Gate when he first came to London.

Holborn at one time abounded in inns. Says Stow: 'On the high street of Oldbourne have ye many fair houses builded, and lodgings for gentlemen, inns for travellers and such like up almost (for it lacketh but little) to St. Giles' in the Fields.' We shall have to mention one or two more as we go on.

The Bull and Mouth inn alluded to above in the olden time was a great coaching-place. It had a large yard and galleries, with elegantly designed galleries to the first, second, and third floors. There is a view of it in the Crace collection. Its site was afterwards occupied by the Queen's Hotel, which was pulled down in 1887 to make room for the post-office extension.

The Catherine Wheel was a sign frequently adopted by inn-keepers in former days. Mr. Larwood, in his 'History of Signboards,' assumes that it was intended to indicate that as the knights of St. Catherine of Mount Sinai protected the pilgrims from robbery, he, the innkeeper, would protect the traveller from being fleeced at his inn. But this surmise seems too learned to be true. What did the bonifaces of those days know of the knights of St. Catherine? But in Roman Catholic countries saints were, and are still, seen on numerous signboards, and so the one in question may have descended in English inns from ante-Reformation times, or it may have been the fancy of one particular man, who may have read the story of St. Catherine, and been moved by it to adopt the wheel. St. Catherine was beheaded, after having been placed between wheels with spikes, from which she was saved by an angel. But to come to facts.

There were two inns in London with that sign. One was in Bishopsgate Street, and was in the last century a famous coaching inn, built in the style of such inns, with a coach-yard and galleried buildings round. It has disappeared. The other was in the Borough, and was a much larger establishment, and a famous inn for carriers during the last two centuries. It remains, but has lost its galleries and other distinctive features.

One of the oldest inns in London, bearing the sign of the Cock, stood till 1871 on the north side of Tothill Street. It was built entirely of timber, mostly cedar-wood, but the outside was painted and plastered, and an ancient coat of arms, that of Edward III. (in whose reign the house is said to have been built), carved in stone, discovered in the house, was walled up in the front of the house. Larwood says that the workmen employed at the building of the east end of Westminster Abbey used to receive their wages there, and at a later period, about two centuries ago, the first Oxford stage-coach is reported to have started from that inn. In the back parlour there was a picture of a jolly and bluff-looking man, who was said to have been its driver. The house was built so as to enclose a galleried yard, and it no doubt originally was one of some importance. Under the staircase there was a curious hiding-place, perhaps to serve as a refuge for a 'mass priest' or a highwayman. There were also in the house two massive carvings, the one representing Abraham about to offer up his son, and the other the adoration of the magi, and they were said to have been left in pledge for an unpaid score. There is a water-colour drawing of the house as it appeared in 1853 in the Crace collection. It is supposed that the sign of the Cock was here adopted on account of its vicinity to the Abbey, of which St. Peter was the patron. In the Middle Ages a cock crowing on the top of a pillar was often one of the accessories in a picture of the Apostle.

A sign frequently adopted by innkeepers was the Cross Keys, the arms of the Papal See, the emblem of St. Peter and his successors. There was an inn with that sign in Gracechurch Street, having a yard with galleries all round, and in which theatrical performances were frequently given. Banks, already mentioned, there exhibited his wonderful horse Morocco; it was here the horse, at his master's bidding to 'fetch the veriest fool in the company,' with his mouth drew forth Tarleton, who was amongst the spectators. Tarleton could only say, 'God a mercy, horse!' which for a time became a by-word in the streets of London. At this inn the first stage-coach, travelling between Clapham and Gracechurch Street once a day, was established in 1690 by John Day and John Bundy; but the house was well known as early as 1681 as one of the carriers' inns.

The Four Swans (demolished) was a very fine old inn, with courtyard and galleries to two stories on three sides complete.

Whether St. George ever existed is doubtful; probably the story of this saint and the dragon is merely a corruption of the legend of St. Michael conquering Satan, or of Perseus' delivery of Andromeda. The story was always doubted, hence the lines recorded by Aubrey:

'To save a maid St. George the dragon slew,
A pretty tale if all is told be true.
Most say there are no dragons, and it's said
There was no George; pray God there was a maid.'

But the George is, and always has been, a very common inn sign in this as well as in other countries. We are, however, here concerned with one George only, the one in the Borough. It existed in the time of Stow, who mentions it in the list of Southwark inns he gives, and its name occurs in a document of the year 1554. It stood near the Tabard. It had the usual courtyard, surrounded by buildings on all sides, with galleries to two stories on three sides giving access to the bedrooms. The banisters were of massive size, of the 'footman leg' style. In 1670 the inn was in great part burnt down and demolished by a fire which broke out in the neighbourhood, and it was totally consumed by the great fire of Southwark some six years later. The fire began at one Mr. Welsh's, an oilman, near St. Margaret's Hill, between the George and Talbot inns. It was stopped by the substantial building of St. Thomas's Hospital, then recently erected. The present George inn, although built only in the seventeenth century, was rebuilt on the old plan, having open wooden galleries leading to the bedchambers. When Mrs. Scholefield, descended from Weyland, the landlord of the inn at the time of the fires, died in 1859, the property was purchased by the governors of Guy's Hospital. The George now styles itself a hotel, but still preserves one side of its galleries intact.

Dragons, though fabulous monsters, asserted themselves on signboards; green appears to have been their favourite colour. When Taylor, the water poet, wrote his 'Travels through London,' there were no less than seven Green Dragons amongst the Metropolitan taverns of his day. The most famous of them, which is still in existence, was the Green Dragon in Bishopsgate Street, which for two centuries was one of the most famous coach and carriers' inns. It is even now one of the best examples of the ancient hostelries, its proprietor having strictly retained the distinctive features of former days, the only innovation introduced by him being a real improvement, in the removal of one of the objections to the open galleries of the old inns. He has enclosed these with glass, and on a trellis-work leading up to them creeping plants have been made to twine, so as to give a cool and refreshing aspect to the old inn yard in summer time. Troops of guests now daily dine in its low-ceilinged rooms with great beams in all sorts of angles, and shining mahogany tables. The Dragon is great in rich soups and mighty joints of succulent meat; in old wines, appreciated by amateurs.

The King's Head was another of the many inns once to be found in the Borough. Their great number is easily explained by the fact that London Bridge was then the only bridge from south to north, and _vice versa_, and that therefore the traffic of horses and men had to pass through Southwark--of course, necessitating much hotel accommodation. The King's Head was a great resort of big waggons, for the loading of which a large crane stood in the yard, in consequence of which one side of the yard had a gallery to the second floor only, the crane occupying the space of the lower one, whilst on the other side there were galleries to the first and second floors.

The Old Bell in Holborn, recently pulled down, bore the arms of the Fowlers of Islington, the owners of Barnsbury Manor and occupiers of lands in Canonbury. In its galleried yard the boys used to meet to go in coaches to Mill Hill School.

The Oxford Arms stood south of Warwick Square and the College of Physicians, and is mentioned in a carrier's advertisement of 1672. Edward Bartlet, an Oxford carrier, started his coaches and waggons thence three times a week. He also announced that he kept a hearse to convey 'a corps' to any part of England. The Oxford Arms had a red-brick facade, of the period of Charles II., surmounting a gateway leading into the yard, which had on three sides two rows of wooden galleries with exterior staircases, the fourth side being occupied by stabling, built against a portion of old London Wall. This house was consumed in the great fire, but was rebuilt on the former plan. The house always belonged to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, and the houses of the Canons Residentiary adjoin the Oxford Arms on the south, and there is a door from the old inn into one of the back-yards of the residentiary houses, which is said to have been useful during the riots of 1780 for facilitating the escape of Roman Catholics from the fury of the mob, by enabling them to pass into the residentiary houses; for which reason, it is said by a clause always inserted into the leases of the inn, it is forbidden to close up the door. John Roberts, the bookseller, from whose shop most of the libels and squibs on Pope were issued, lived at the Oxford Arms.

The Queen's Head was another of the Southwark inns. Its inner yard had galleries on one side only, one to the first and another to the second floor. Like all others, the yard was approached by a high gateway from the street, and another under the building between the outer and inner yards.

At Knightsbridge there stood till about 1865, when it was pulled down, the Rose and Crown, anciently called the Oliver Cromwell. It was one of the oldest houses in the High Street, Knightsbridge, having been licensed above three hundred years. The Protector's bodyguard is said to have been stationed in it, and an inscription to that effect was, till shortly before its demolition, painted on the front. This is merely legendary, but there are grounds for not entirely rejecting the tradition. In 1648 the Parliament army was encamped in that neighbourhood; Fairfax's headquarters were for a while at Holland House. There was a house not far from the inn called Cromwell House, and at Kensington there still exists a charity called Cromwell's Gift, originally a sum of L45, but, having been invested in land in the locality, of great value now. Cromwell House was also known as Hale House; a portion of the South Kensington Museum now occupies the site.

To return to the Rose and Crown. Two sides of the yard had a gallery to the first floor, but it was of the poorest description. There were no elegant banisters, the lower part of the gallery was closed up with boards of the roughest kind, about breast high, and irregularly nailed on to the posts supporting the roof. Two water-colour drawings, dated 1857, showing the exterior of the house and the yard, are in the Crace collection. Corbould painted this inn under the title of the 'Old Hostelrie at Knightsbridge,' exhibited in 1849; but he transferred its date to 1497, altering the house according to his fancy. In 1853 the inn had a narrow escape from destruction by fire. Before its final demolition it had been much modernized, though leaving enough of its original characteristics to testify to its antiquity and former importance. The Royal Oak at Vauxhall was an old inn with a galleried yard. It was taken down circa 1812 to make the road to Vauxhall Bridge, then in course of construction.

One of the oldest of galleried inns in London was the Saracen's Head, on Snow Hill. In 1377 the fraternity founded in St. Botolph's Church, Aldersgate, in honour of the Body of Christ and of the saints Fabian and Sebastian, were the proprietors of the Saracen's Head inn. In the reign of Richard II. they granted a lease of twenty-one years to John Hertyshorn of the Saracen's Head, with appurtenances, consisting of two houses adjoining on the north side, at the yearly rent of ten marks. In the reign of Henry VI. Dame Joan Astley (some time nurse to that King) obtained a license to refound the fraternity in honour of the Holy Trinity. In the reign of Edward VI. it was suppressed, and its endowments, valued at L30 per annum, granted to William Harris. The antiquity of the inn was thus beyond question. Stow, describing this neighbourhood, mentions it as 'a fair large inn for receipt of travellers.' The courtyard had to the last many of the characteristics of an old English inn: there were galleries all round leading to the bedrooms, and a spacious gateway through which the mail-coaches used to pass in and out. It was at this inn that Nicholas Nickleby and his uncle waited on Squeers, the schoolmaster of Dotheboys Hall. It was demolished in 1863, when the Holborn Valley improvements were undertaken. A view of the inn as it appeared in 1855 is in the Crace collection.

As there were many inns on the Southwark side of London Bridge for the reasons given when we spoke of the King's Head, so for the same reason a number of inns, some of which we have already mentioned, were on the northern side of the bridge. Besides those already named, there was the Spread Eagle, in Gracechurch Street. The original building had perished in the great fire, but the inn was rebuilt after it. It had the usual yard and galleries to the two floors. At first only a carriers' inn, it became famous as a coaching-house, the mails and principal stage-coaches for Kent and other southern counties arriving and departing from here. It was long the property of John Chaplin, cousin of William Chaplin, of the firm of Chaplin and Horne. The inn was taken down in 1865; the plot of ground which it occupied contained 12,600 feet, and was sold for L95,000.

The Swan with Two Necks is a curious sign, variously explained. It is supposed to mean the swan with two nicks or notches cut into swans' bills, so that each owner might know his. But these nicks being so small as not to be discernible on an inn sign hung high up, there seems no sense in referring to them. More likely two swans swimming side by side, and the neck of one of them protruding beyond that of the other, took some artist's fancy, and induced him to produce the illusion in a picture. However, the origin of the sign does not concern us, but the inn with that sign. There was a famous one in what was Lad Lane, and is now Gresham Street. It was for a century and more the head coach-inn and booking-office for the North. Its courtyard was of great size; the galleries were of somewhat irregular arrangement, there being one only at the back, communicating at one end with a lower and an upper gallery on one side, whilst on the other side there was a gallery unconnected with the others, and which also was wider and more elaborately decorated than the others. A view of it appeared in the _Illustrated London News_, December 23, 1865.

An inn which has been rendered famous by Chaucer's rhymed tales--we cannot honestly call them poetry--of the Canterbury pilgrims is the Tabard, in the Borough. Its history must be pretty familiar to most people. It originally was the property of William of Ludegarsale, of whom the Tabard and the adjoining house, which the Abbots made their town residence, were purchased in 1304 by the Abbot and convent of Hyde, near Winchester. The pilgrimage to Canterbury is said to have taken place in 1383. Henry Bailly, Chaucer's host of the Tabard at that time, was a representative of the Borough of Southwark in Parliament during the reign of two Kings, Edward III. and Richard II. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the Tabard and the Abbot's house were sold by Henry VIII. to John Master and Thomas Master; the Tabard afterwards was in the occupation of one Robert Patty, but the Abbot's house, with the stable and garden belonging thereto, were reserved to the Bishop Commendator, John Saltcote, alias Casson, who had been the last Abbot of Hyde, and who surrendered it to Henry VIII., and who afterwards was transferred to the See of Salisbury. The original Tabard was in existence as late as the year 1602. On a beam across the road, whence swung the sign, was inscribed: 'This is the inn where Sir Jeffry Chaucer and the nine-and-twenty pilgrims lay in their journey to Canterbury, ANNO 1383.' On the removal of the beam the inscription was transferred to the gateway. The house was repaired in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and from that period probably dated the fireplace, carved oak panels, and other portions spared by the fire of 1676, which were still to be seen at the beginning of this century. In this fire some six hundred houses had to be destroyed to arrest the progress of the flames, and as the Tabard stood nearly in the centre of this area, and was mostly built of wood, there can be no doubt that the old inn perished. It was, however, soon rebuilt, and as nearly as possible on the same spot; but the landlord changed the sign from the Tabard to the Talbot; there is, nevertheless, little doubt that the inn as it remained till 1874, when it was demolished, with its quaint old timber galleries, with two timber bridges connecting their opposite sides, and which extended to all the inn buildings, and the no less quaint old chambers, was the immediate successor of the inn commemorated by Chaucer. According to an old view published in 1721, the yard is shown as apparently opening to the street; but in a view which appeared in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of September, 1812, the yard seems enclosed. A sign, painted by Blake, and fixed up against the gallery facing you as you entered the yard, represented Chaucer and his merry company setting out on their journey. There was a large hall called the Pilgrims' Hall, dating of course from 1676, but in course of time it was so cut up to adapt it to the purpose of modern bedrooms, that its original condition was scarcely recognisable. There are various views of the old inn in the Crace collection: one without date, one of 1780, another of 1810, another of 1812 (the _Gentleman's Magazine_ print), one of 1831, and yet another of 1841. The site is now occupied by a public-house in the gin-palace style, which presumes to call itself the Old Tabard.

In Piccadilly, No. 75, there formerly stood on part of the site for so short a time occupied by Clarendon House (1664-1683) the Three Kings tavern. At the gateway to the stables there were seen two Corinthian pilasters, which originally belonged to Clarendon House. The stable-yard itself presented the features of the old galleried inn-yard, and it was the place from which the first Bath mail-coach was started. Later, Mr. John Camden Hotten, and afterwards Messrs. Chatto and Windus, carried on their publishing business on this spot.

In the seventeenth century the Three Nuns was the sign of a well-known coaching and carriers' inn in Aldgate, which gave its name to Three Nuns Court close by. The yard, as usual, was galleried, but within recent years the inn was pulled down and rebuilt in the form of a modern hotel. Near this inn was the dreadful pit in which, during the Plague of 1665, not less than 1,114 bodies were buried in a fortnight, from September 6 to 20.

The Criterion Restaurant and Theatre stands on the site of an old inn, the White Bear, which for a century and more was one of the busiest coaching-houses in connection with the West and South-West of England. In this house Benjamin West, the future President of the Royal Academy, put up on his arrival in London from America. Here died Luke Sullivan, the engraver of some of Hogarth's most famous works. The inn yard had galleries to two sides of the bedchambers on the second floor, connected by a bridge across.

We must once more return to Southwark, for besides the inns already mentioned as existing in that locality, there was another famous one, namely, the White Hart. It had the largest inn sign except the Castle in Fleet Street. Much maligned Jack Cade and some of his followers put up at this inn during their brief possession of London in 1450. The original inn which sheltered them remained standing till 1676, when it was burnt down in the great fire already mentioned. It was rebuilt, and was in existence till a few years ago, when it was pulled down. It consisted of several open courts, the inner one having handsome galleries on three sides to the first and second floors. There are two views of it, taken respectively in 1840 and 1853, in the Crace collection, and it was in the yard of this inn that Mr. Pickwick first encountered Sam Weller.

The White Lion, in St. John Street, Clerkenwell, was originally an inn frequented by drovers and carriers, and covered a good deal of ground; but before its demolition it had already been greatly reduced in size, the gateway leading into the yard having been built up and formed into an oil-shop. Inserted in the front wall was the sign in stone relief, representing a lion rampant, painted white, and with the date 1714. A house on the other side of the central portion also seems to have formed part of the original White Lion. The gate just mentioned led into a yard similar to those attached to other ancient inns. There were, in the east front of the inn, strong wooden beams, which no doubt supported the erection over the gateway, and that there was a yard surrounded by a gallery is proved by the remains of door openings in the upper parts of the back walls of the premises, which had been bricked up. At one time a bowling-green was attached to the tavern, and by the side of it a pond, in which Anthony Joyce, the cousin of Pepys, drowned himself. He was a tavern keeper, and kept the Three Stags in Holborn, which was burnt down in 1666. Pepys records in his Diary, under September 5 of that year: 'Thence homeward ... having ... seen Anthony Joyce's house on fire.' The loss incurred by the fire preyed on Joyce's mind, and is supposed to have led him to commit the rash act.

Here we will close our selection, which embraces all the most important galleried taverns once existing in London. Their disappearance is much to be regretted, though with the requirements of modern travellers it was scarcely to be avoided. But they formed picturesque features of London, which has so very few of them, especially as regards hotels, which in their modern style remind us only of slightly decorated barracks, if they are not perfectly hideous, as, for instance, the architectural nightmare in Victoria Street. But there are plenty of people yet who delight in old-fashioned houses and surroundings--the revival of stage-coaches is proof of it. A galleried tavern with modern improvements would, we fancy, not be a bad spec.

*II.--OLD LONDON TEA-GARDENS.*

Names are often misleading. Mr. Coward is a fierce fire-eater; Mr. Gentle's family tremble when they hear his footsteps on the pavement on his return home from his office, for they know that immediately on his entrance he will kick up a row with every one of them; whilst Mr. Lion lives in awe of his termagant better, or worse, half. We are led into these reflections by the term 'tea-gardens.' It sounds so very innocent; it calls up visions of honest citizens, surrounded by their wives and olive-branches, enjoying, amid idyllic scenes of rural beauties, their fragrant bohea, bread-and-butter, cream and sillabub. But the vision is delusive. Noorthouck, who wrote about 1770, when the tea-gardens were most abundant and flourishing, speaks of them thus: 'The tendency of these cheap catering places of pleasure just at the skirts of this vast town is too obvious to need further explanation; they swarm with loose women and with boys whose morals are depraved, and their constitutions ruined, before they arrive at manhood. Indeed, the licentious resort to the tea-drinking gardens was carried to such excess every night that the magistrates lately thought proper to suppress the organs in their public rooms; it is left to their cool reflection whether this was discharging all the duty they owe to the public.' Certes, the remedy seems hardly adequate when the grand jury of Middlesex, as far back as 1744, had complained of 'advertisements inviting and seducing not only the inhabitants, but all other persons, to several places kept apart for the encouragement of luxury, extravagance, idleness, and other wicked illegal purposes, which go on with impunity to the destruction of many families, to the great dishonour of the kingdom, especially at a time when we are involved in an expensive war, and so much overburdened with taxes of all sorts,' etc. With such an indictment before them, the magistrates must have been wooden-headed indeed if they thought to stop the evil by forbidding the playing of organs at such places. And the evil must have been not only serious, but widespread, seeing there were upwards of thirty of these tea-gardens around London. But our object is not to preach a sermon on the wickedness of the world, but to describe the places where it was practised. We begin with Bagnigge Wells tea-gardens.

Who now, wandering about dreary King's Cross, unacquainted with the history of the place, would believe that this was once a picturesque rural spot? But such it was, and here Nell Gwynne had a summer residence amidst fields and on the banks of the River Fleet, then a clear stream, occasionally flooding the locality. The ground on which the house, a gabled building, stood was then called Bagnigge Vale. Early in the eighteenth century the house was converted into a place of public entertainment, in consequence of the timely discovery on the spot of two wells, one of which was said to be purging and the other chalybeate, and the water of which was sold at threepence a glass or at eightpence by the gallon. But one of the wells seems to have been known by the name of Black Mary's Well or Hole, which may have been a corruption of Blessed Mary's Well, or due to the alleged fact that a black woman leased the well. The gardens, it seems, were largely patronized, hundreds of persons visiting them in the morning to drink the waters, and on summer afternoons to drink tea, and something stronger, too. The grounds were ornamented with curious shrubs and flowers, a small round fish-pond, in the centre of which was a fountain, representing Cupid bestriding a swan, which spouted the water up to a great height. The Fleet flowed through a part of the gardens, and was crossed by a bridge. Two prints are extant (reproduced in Pinks's 'Clerkenwell'), showing the gardens as they were in 1772 and again early in the present century. But in December, 1813, the gardens came to grief; the whole of the furniture and fittings were sold by auction by order of the assignees of Mr. Salter, the tenant, a bankrupt. The fixtures and fittings were described as comprising the erection of a temple, a grotto, alcoves, arbours, boxes, green-house, large lead figures, pumps, cisterns, sinks, counters, beer machine, stoves, coppers, shrubs, 200 drinking tables, 350 forms, 400 dozen bottled ale [which shows that tea was not the only drink consumed there], etc. The house itself remained standing till 1844, when it was demolished; the Phoenix brewery afterwards occupied the site, which is now covered with dreary streets. All that reminds you now of the gardens is a stone tablet set into the wall of a dull house in the neighbourhood, which shows a grotesque head and the inscription: 'This is Bagnigge House, neare the Finder a Wakefield, 1680.' It may be added that at the time the gardens were in existence the place was environed with hills and rising ground, every way but to the south, and consequently screened from the inclemency of the more chilling winds. Primrose Hill rose westward; on the north-west were the more distant elevations of Hampstead and Highgate; on the north and north-east were pretty sharp ascents to Islington. But the ground, which, as shown then, was in a deep hollow, has in modern times been considerably raised above the former level, and no vestige remains of the gardens or the springs. But the gardens were so famous in their day as to cause their name to be adopted by a similar establishment in a totally different direction. Towards the end of the last century the New Bagnigge Wells tea-gardens were opened at Bayswater. Whether these were identical with the new Bayswater tea-gardens mentioned in a London guide we have not been able to ascertain, but probably they were. Sir John Hill, born about 1716, had a house in the Bayswater Road, in whose grounds he cultivated the medicinal plants from which he prepared his tinctures, balsams, and water-dock essence, and though the profession called him a charlatan and a quack, he must have been a learned botanist. His 'Vegetable System' extends to twenty-six folio volumes. His garden is now covered by the long range of mansions called Lancaster Gate, but towards the close of the last century the site was opened to the public as tea-gardens. The grounds were spacious, and contained several springs of fine water lying close to the surface. The Bayswater Bagnigge Wells was opened as a public garden as late as 1854, shortly after which time, the visitors having grown less and less, it was shut up, and eventually seized by the land-devouring speculating builder.