Bars (Drinking establishments) -- England; England -- Social life and customs; Hotels -- England; Taverns (Inns) -- England
In the absence of documents it is not easy to discriminate between the
Church Inn and the Church House. Old inns near the church bearing
ecclesiastical names may be of either origin, or may have served for both.
The _Bell_ is very common all over England. It is always found near the
church, and the sign is of the highest antiquity. Chaucer tells us that
the _Tabard_ in Southwark was “juste by the Belle.” The _Bell_ at Finedon,
in Northamptonshire, puts in a claim to be one of the very oldest in the
country, and the old _Bell Tavern_ which formerly stood in King Street,
Westminster, is mentioned in the expenses of Sir John Howard, Jockey of
Norfolk, in 1466. At the _Bell_, in Warwick Lane, died the good Archbishop
Leighton in 1684. “He often used to say that if he were to choose a place
to die in, it should be an inn; it looks like a pilgrim’s going home, to
whom this world was all as an inn, and who was weary of the noise and
confusion in it.... And he obtained what he desired.”[8]
Not unusual in this situation is a _Lamb Inn_. The _Lamb_ at Eastbourne
has a small but well-proportioned crypt, vaulted and groined. There is a
_Lamb and Flag_ near the old parish church at Brighton, Sudbury, and at
Swindon; and a _Lamb and Anchor_ in Bristol. These owe their origin to a
carving of the _Agnus Dei_, but may sometimes point to a house of the
Knights Templars, for the _Agnus Dei_ appeared on their coat of arms. The
_Bleeding Heart_ is an emblem of the five sorrowful mysteries of the
Rosary, and the _Heart_, generally found as the _Golden Heart_, is in
honour of the Blessed Virgin. The _Anchor_ is suggestive of a church inn,
but we have not been able to trace a house bearing this sign to any very
remote period. At Hartfield, there is an _Anchor Inn_ close to the church,
evidently ancient, and having a delightful old-fashioned garden. It was
formerly occupied by a church institution where the poor were fed and
housed in return for such labour as their age and skill would permit,
founded by the Rev. Richard Randes, a rector of the parish some two
hundred and fifty years ago. The house contains evidence of having existed
long before this date.
At least one church has, by the vicissitudes of time, become an inn; the
_George Hotel_ at Huntingdon, itself very old and picturesque, enshrines
in its cellars and lower walls all that is left of St. George’s Church.
The stones of St. Benedict’s Church in the same town were used two
centuries ago in building the _Barley Mow Inn_ at Hartford, and some
figures and panelling may be seen in the tap-room of the _Queen’s Head_,
close by where this church stood. At the _Old Red House_, about four miles
north of Newmarket on the road to Brandon, the bar-counter is formed out
of the rood-screen turned out of the neighbouring church at a
“Restoration” about five-and-twenty years ago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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