THE OLD INNS OF OLD ENGLAND WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR The Portsmouth Road, and its Tributaries: To-day and in Days of Old. The Dover Road: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike. The Bath Road: History, Fashion, and Frivolity on an Old Highway. The Exeter Road: The Story of the West of England Highway. The Great North Road: The Old Mail Road to Scotland. Two Vols. The Norwich Road: An East Anglian Highway. The Holyhead Road: The Mail-Coach Road to Dublin. Two Vols. The Cambridge, Ely, and King’s Lynn Road: The Great Fenland Highway. The Newmarket, Bury, Thetford, and Cromer Road: Sport and History on an East Anglian Turnpike. The Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford Haven Road: The Ready Way to South Wales. Two Vols. The Brighton Road: Speed, Sport, and History on the Classic Highway. The Hastings Road and the “Happy Springs of Tunbridge.” Cycle Rides Round London. A Practical Handbook of Drawing for Modern Methods of Reproduction. Stage-Coach and Mail in Days of Yore. Two Vols. The Ingoldsby Country: Literary Landmarks of “The Ingoldsby Legends.” The Hardy Country: Literary Landmarks of the Wessex Novels. The Dorset Coast. The South Devon Coast. [_In the Press._ [Illustration: THE ROADSIDE INN.] THE OLD INNS OF OLD ENGLAND _A PICTURESQUE ACCOUNT OF THE ANCIENT AND STORIED HOSTELRIES OF OUR OWN COUNTRY_ VOL. I BY CHARLES G. HARPER [Illustration] _Illustrated chiefly by the Author, and from Prints and Photographs_ LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED 1906 _All rights reserved_ PRINTED AND BOUND BY HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLESBURY. [Illustration: PREFACE] _It is somewhat singular that no book has hitherto been published dealing either largely or exclusively with Old Inns and their story. I suppose that is because there are so many difficulties in the way of one who would write an account of them. The chief of these is that of arrangement and classification; the next is that of selection; the last that of coming to a conclusion. I would ask those who read these pages, and have perhaps some favourite inn they do not find mentioned or illustrated here, to remember that the merely picturesque inns that have no story, or anything beyond their own picturesqueness to render them remarkable, are--let us be thankful for it!--still with us in great numbers, and that to have illustrated or mentioned even a tithe of them would have been impossible. I can think of no literary and artistic work more delightful than the quest of queer old rustic inns, but two stout volumes will probably be found to contain as much on the subject as most people wish to know--and it is always open to anyone who does not find his own especial favourite here to condemn the author for his ignorance, or, worse, for his perverted taste._