This now belongs to Lady Burdett Coutts, and was shown two years ago at the Tudor Exhibition. In the year 1588, the inn was kept by Thomas Wright, a native of Shrewsbury: ‘Thear was chosen with me at that time out of the school, George Wrighte, son of Thomas Wrighte of London, vintener, that dwelt at the Bores Hed in Estcheap, who sithence, having good inheritance descended to him, is now clerk of the king’s stable, and a knight, a very discreet and honest gentleman;’ as we learn from the ‘Liber Famelicus’ of Sir John Whitelocke, edited by J. Bruce (p. 12). On March 31, 1602, the Lords of the Council wrote to the Lord Mayor, granting permission to the servants of the Earl of Oxford and the Earl of Worcester to play at the Boar’s Head in Eastcheap:[29] which seems to indicate that the house was an important one, probably with a yard. In the year 1623, ‘John Rhodoway, vintner at the Bore’s Head,’ was buried at St. Michael’s, Crooked Lane. This person may have kept the tavern in Shakespeare’s time. Two seventeenth-century trade tokens were issued from ‘the Bore’s Head, neere London Stone,’ as it is called in the rare tract called ‘Newes from Bartholomew Fayre.’ These tokens are undated, but it seems likely that they were struck before 1666. One of them gives the name of John Sapcott as the landlord. The Boar’s Head tavern was burnt in the Great Fire, and rebuilt of brick four stories high, with its door in the centre. Many allusions to this second Boar’s Head have been preserved; one of the quaintest was an inscription on a tombstone in the neighbouring churchyard of St. Michael’s, Crooked Lane, which I lately saw at the back of St. Magnus Church, whither it migrated when its first resting-place was covered by the approaches to new London Bridge. The epitaph runs thus: ‘Here lieth the bodye of Robert Preston, late drawer at the Boar’s Head Tavern Great Eastcheap who departed this life March 16 Anno Domini 1730, aged twenty-seven years.’ ‘Bacchus to give the toping world surprise, Produc’d one sober son, and here he lies. Tho’ nurs’d among full hogsheads, he defyd The charm of wine, and every vice beside. O reader, if to justice thou’rt inclined, Keep honest Preston daily in thy mind. He drew good wine, took care to fill his pots, Had sundry virtues that outweighed his fauts (_sic_). You that on Bacchus have the like dependence, Pray copy Bob in measure and attendance.’