The “Peahen,” standing at the meeting of Holywell Hill and the London Road, has of late been rebuilt in a somewhat gorgeous and baronial style, but is the lineal descendant of a house of the same name in existence so far back as 1556. The name of the “Peahen” is thought to be unique. [Illustration: THE “GEORGE.”] Continuing the line of hostelries past the “Peahen” and the “Key,” into Chequer Street, there were the “Chequers,” the “Half Moon,” and the “Bell”; and in French Row the “Fleur-de-Lis,” and the “Old Christopher,” still remaining. The “Great Red Lion” in the market-place, has been rebuilt. Near it, in George Street, on the old road out of St. Albans, is the “George,” one of the pleasantest old places still left, with an old red-brick front and a picturesque courtyard. There was an inn on this site certainly as early as 1448, when it was mentioned as the “George upon the Hupe”—whatever that may mean. In those times it was a pilgrim’s inn, and had an oratory chapel. Nothing so interesting as that survives, but the old house has its features. The room to the right of the archway, used in old times, when a coach plied from the “George” to London and back every day, as a booking-office and waiting-room, remains in use as a parlour and rendezvous for the country-folk on market days, and all the summer the courtyard is like a bower with flowers and vines. Under the gable can be seen a spoil snatched from the destruction of old Holywell House in 1837—the decorative carving from the pediment, a work representing Ceres, surrounded with emblems of agriculture its products, and attended by Cupids and shameless creatures of that sort. To and from the “George” went daily the “Favourite” London coach, until the first of the railways came in May 1858, and ran it off the road. William Seymour, who used to drive it, then descended to the position of driver of an omnibus plying between St. Albans and Hatfield, but even that humble occupation was soon swept away by railway extension. He then became landlord of the “King Harry” inn at St. Stephens, and died at last, May 30th, 1869, in the Marlborough almshouses, St. Albans. Two other coaches in those days plied between St. Albans and London, generally taking three and a half hours. One came and went from the “Woolpack,” and the other, the “Accommodation,” from the “Fleur-de-Lis,” French Row.