FAMOUS INN CLOSED

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2714, 8 March 1916, Page 6

FAMOUS INN CLOSED

.. $ ONE OP THE FEW HAUNTS OF SHAJDJSPEARE. An inn which dates frcm the time of Queen Elizabeth, the Three Pigeons at Brentford Market Place, was recently closed as redundant, under an. order of the Middlesex Licensing Justices. Jlr. Ualliwell, in his illustrations to "The Merry Wives of Windsor," says with reference to the Three Pigeons: "This liouse is interesting as being, in all like; lihood, one of the few haunts of Shakespeare not removed, and as being, indeed, the sole Elizabethan tavern existing in England Tvhioh, in the absence of direct evidence to the, contrary, may fairly be presumed to have been occaBonally visitpd bv him." Peele lays the scenes of- some of hlb "Merry Jests' 'at the Three Pigeons, and. two 6cenes in the comedy "Sho Stoops to Conquer" are laid at the inn; in one of them Tony Lumpkin singing a song in praise' of it. Brentford anu the Three Pigeons are familiar to readers of Dickens. Oliver Tis was made to tramp through Brentford with Bill Silcos to thn burglary At Slioppcrton, and mention is made of the inn in "Out Mutual Friend'." The inn played an important part in the political life of Brentford, and it is recorded that in the reign of Charles II a general sessions of the peace for the trial of prisoners was held, within its walls.