The Old Inns of Old England, Volume 2 (of 2): A Picturesque Account of the Ancient and Storied Hostelries of Our Own CountryHarper, Charles G. (Charles George)
History
The Old Inns of Old England, Volume 2 (of 2): A Picturesque Account of the Ancient and Storied Hostelries of Our Own Country
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
England -- Social life and customs; Hotels -- England
In this posy of old inns, whose sweet savour reconciles the traveller to
many hateful modern portents, mention must be made of the “George” at
Odiham. At an inn styled the “George” you do expect, more than at any
other sign, to find old-fashioned comfort; and here, at that little
forgotten townlet of Odiham, lying secluded away back from the Exeter
Road, with its one extravagantly broad and singularly empty street, and no
historic memories much later than the reign of King John, you have a
typical cheery hostelry whose white frontage looks coaching age
incarnated, and whose interior surprises you--as often these old houses
do--with oaken beams and Elizabethan panelled coffee-room and Jacobean
overmantel. The fuel-cupboard, with finely wrought hinges, at the side of
the fireplace, is as celebrated in its way, among connoisseurs of these
things, as the Queen Anne angle-cupboard at the “New Inn,” New Romney. Not
least among the attractions of the “George” is the beautiful old-fashioned
garden at the back, looking out towards the meads and the trout-streams,
that make Odiham (whose name, by the way, originally “Woodyham,” is
pronounced locally like “Odium”) a noted place among anglers.
[Illustration: YARD OF “THE GEORGE,” HUNTINGDON.]
Interesting in a less rural--and indeed a very urban way--is the “Cock”
inn, at Stony Stratford, on the Holyhead Road, with its fine red brick
frontage to the busy high road, its imposing wrought-iron sign, and, in
especial, its noble late seventeenth-century ornately carved and highly
enriched oak doorway, brought, it would appear, from the neighbouring
mansion of Battlesden Park. As may be gathered from the illustration, this
exquisite work of art very closely resembles, in general character, the
carved interior doorways of Wren’s City of London churches, often ascribed
to Grinling Gibbons.
In this posy of old hostelries we must at least mention that fine old
anglers’ inn, the “Three Cocks” in Breconshire, which, like the “Craven
Arms,” between Ludlow and Church Stretton, and those more familiar and
vulgar examples in London, the “Bricklayers’ Arms” and the “Elephant and
Castle,” has conferred its name upon a railway-station. And mention must
be made of the cosy, white-faced “Wellington,” at Broadstairs, occupying a
kind of midway place between the old coaching inn and the modern huge
barrack hotel, and, with its lawn looking upon the sea and the beach,
select and quiet in the very midst of the summer crowds of that miniature
holiday resort.
In any competition as to which old inn had the ugliest frontage, the “Red
Horse” at Stratford-on-Avon, and the “George” at Huntingdon would probably
tie for first place; but the courtyard of the “George” makes amends, and
is one of the finest anywhere in existence, as the illustration serves to
show.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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