DICK TURPIN AND HIS ROOM

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 137, 26 June 1937, Page 11

DICK TURPIN AND HIS ROOM

Hidden Gell in Ancient Inn - i ■

JJ^HEKE 2s much speeulation at Iver - Heath regardiug the future of the ancient Crooked Billet Inn, which will shortly close its doors and fransfer its name and licence to a modern hqtel nearing completion at Five * Points, some little distance along the high road, says a speeial correspondent of the London Observer. Tnnkeeper Harold Jeapes, carrying. an oil-lantern — the inn has used no other f orm- of illumination — took me over the old house, with its great beams and its horn window of eighteen panes, and then across the yard to the-thatchedi wooden walled stable where, it is supposed, "Dick Turpin kept bonny Blaclc Bess. Innkeeper Jeapes. pointed. to: a window. "Turpin is said to have slept in that ro'om on many occasions,'' he' said. "If he-was surprised by the Bow street runners, he had to firop only a matter of eight feet and run a few yards to jump into the saddle."Geographically, .this would be a flne haven for highwaymen, for the Oxford road is Just a mile and a half away, and the Bath .road two miles. It.dsknown fromi records that Turpin stayed (it-'an inn "in this district wheTC^ courts were held, and by eavesdroppingcould hear the amount of xansom placed upon his head. "Courts were held in the big room upstairs until half a century ago; some of the ■ old people remember them. There, are, too,-, some surviving fittings that were used for the- courts, and there was a lot of derelict ofBcial papers, but all, these have disappeared." Mr Jeapes led the way through the beer cellara on:the ground floor, where there is a wonderful oak beam-neaTly twenty-five feet in length supporting the old court raoom Up the ereaking stairway, I was shown the surviving horn window, which, before the inn was enlarged, was in* the main wall. To this day one can see through it almost as clearly as through glass. In an old;bedroom Mr Jeapes showed, in the wallpaper, the ontline of -ftj shallow door. "Behind 'that door," .he . said,.. " is. a. dark unventilated cell

where they kept prisoners about to] come for trial. A very unpleasant* cell, I assure you." .Walls of old brick are two feet in thickness. The old chimneys are «open vertically to the sky; often, tha; fire-" places are strewn with. leaves -'frofca the . surrounding. pine forest. In the kitch* en is the Crooked Billet ;s onljr ' water supply — a quaint pump whieh. drawS the f> water .from a well deep down un-> the three .thatched stables - — -the one used for change-horses ln the coaching der "the eopper, 'Just outside is one o £ days. t- .. ' '* , As might be expected, good Quoen Bess is alleged to havo slept in .the inn while en route for Windsor,. Smd,' Queen Victoria, , on. a , similar jouauey, "is said to have pau'sed there for a "brief sj>ace.' Proclamatfons, ' ifc -i* -aMOrred, were once read from. the. doorgftep of the Crooked' Billet.' ' . While there ii a, wealth of .oak beams and. other wood in the inn which hav« defied . the mysterious eeuturies, oth«r be'ams . are hidden under false ceilin^., "I .often . wonder what will be found/if . the" plaCe is pulled down," said Mra Jeapes, 'speculatively. . The . .three, thatched . wooden s^ablcs beaf tdstimony to the stout oak bf old England and the ancient * builde^s. In Black Bess'a box there are trea trunk supports in the waiiL Black/ Bess'a hayrack is. still there," but the imanager is missing. The wooden gable.' wall ha* warped -under the centuries^ but au casual glance looks good enough. for another long innings. . * 3 Mr, Jeapes, before beconiing landlord was 'a cinema camera man, who travelled the world. He accompfcni^d the jDuke of Windsor on his Japanese tour shortly after the war, and, with his considerable experience of life, i* a hard-headed man of aff-airs. Landlord Jeapes is moving from tbe old house t'o thie new. Just exactly what is going to happen to the ancient buidding is not -clear; it may, in the .course of events, make way for . n broader highway nnder the national programme, Its quaint history, whatever it is — and authentie records would appear to be lacking— will probably fco forgotten, but ft is to be hoped 'that such things as the. horn window, Ihefine old timbers/and Black Bess's ha-yj rack will .be .preserved., i