WHEN PARSONS WERE PUBLICANS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 258, 2 June 1944, Page 10

WHEN PARSONS WERE PUBLICANS

A Mint For Invercargill ? "WOU do not need to be a heavy drinker to admire, or even frequent, our inns,’ says Norman Wymer in a recent issue of "London Calling." You can even be a strict teetotaller and still enjoy their warm comforts arid rich hospitality. To the Englishman, his inn, above all places, has long been a home from home. It will be interesting to see whether something like this will now appear in Invercargill.

NE of the most remarkable facts about the English inn is that during its stormy passage of 800 years or so it has gradually developed from something dirty and uncared for-and sometimes even evil-into a place with a great world-wide tradition, he continues. It is a place where duke and dustman feel equally at home; where young and old delight to "drown © their sorrows" or celebrate their good fortune over a tankard of beer; or where travellers still prefer to break their journeys. It is, moreover, a place where many a business man meets to bring off a deal, for the social atmosphere of the old English inn still prompts sound business. English inns are to-day showing that same warm welcome to the thousands

of sailors, soldiers and airmen from the Dominions and Colonies, the U.S.A. and Europe, whom war has brought together in our small, homely island. Only the other day I played darts with an American soldier

in the bar parlour of an old Devon inn. There. were several Americans in the bat at the time, and I am sure they all felt just as at home as I did. Inns of a kind have been in existence in England at least since the twelfth century-and they probably existed well before that. At first the Church was "mine host" of England. The clergy saw to all the catering and entertaining that really mattered, but there were also ale-houses in many villages, and here the cottagers could drink, dance, and make merry in the evening after a heavy day’s work on the land. The beer was home-brewed, and of high quality, but these alehouses achieved an evil reputation as being dirty, and the scenes of drunken brawls. L The inns — or guest houses as they were called-started by the Church were very different. They were set up mainly in parishes frequented by pilgrims, and were clean and comfortable, if few and far between. In the early Middle Ages there were few travellers and comparatively little demand for accommodation. But when travel increased, so did the number of hostelries. The inn and the road grew up’ together. The inns were built at strategic points along the highways. Sometimes they were placed at the junction of four roads, so that travellers on each could benefit, but often they were built along some lonely track, as a safeguard against any wayfarers being left stranded at night,

In many cases, whole towns have since sprung up around these isolated hostelries, but you will still find many of our oldest inns standing desolate, miles from the nearest house. In peacetime they serve the needs of modern motorists as efficiently as they did those of the horse wayfarers of earlier times. But there were two other factors that caused the growth of the inn-the decline of the power of the Church and the development of our wool trade, for which we soon became world famous, Public Entertainer No. 1 When the Church lost its powerespecially after Henry VIII.’s dissolution of the monasteries-the inn became England’s public entertainer number oné. The sixteenth century saw inns springing up all over England, and the architecture that the Tudors put into them was magnificent. . . beautiful heavy oak beaming, both inside and out, low-pitched ceilings, superb galleried courtyards, and ample stabling facilities. Although, unhappily, few of the galleries remain intact to-day-an interesting example is The George in Borough High Street, just over London Bridge from the City-you can still find many. Tudor inns dotted over the country. It was in these courtyards that English dramia was born. It was here that Shakespeare, Marlowe and many others were first acted, and it was on the basis of the inn yard that the theatre we know to-day was first designed. While drama proper was being started in the larger hostelries of the towns, "light entertainment" and "musichall" were finding their birth in the little country ale-houses, itinerant bands of players travelling from one to another, carrying their props in handcarts. Fascinating Signs Not the least fascinating feature of the inn is its sign. At first it ---T merely a pole with

a bundle of hay on the end. Then came the custom for an itinetant knight to have a shield bearing his coat of arms displayed on any house where he spent a night, provided that he had found it comfortable

-thus giving a friendly tip to any further knights later seeking hospitality on , the same road. This practice led to innkeepers spending large sums on having the most elaborate signs painted. Great artists like Hogarth, Millais, and George Morland were sometimes commissioned to paint them, while Jean Tijou, who (continued on next page)

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fashioned much of the magnificent wrought-iron work at Hampton Court, is believed to have made some of the iron signs. Wide and varied are the signs displayed on our old inns, but invariably they have a purpose. Maybe they are named after some epic English victory as, for instance, The Szracen’s Head, The Spaniard, Admiral Benbow, Tratalgar Arms, The Nelson Inn or The Duke of Wellington. Perhaps they signify a local industry as in The Fleece, The Saddlers’ Arms, The Cheshire Cheese, or The Hammer Pond. There may be _@ sporting flavour as in The Fox and Hounds or The Huntsman, and, of course, you will find many bearing mames connected with coaching daysCoach and Horses, The Groom, Nag’s Head, Bridle and Bit, and so on, It is no exaggeration to say that nearly every old inn in England has an inter-

esting history. Many have associations with our great men and women of the past. Yes, women, too! Wasn't Queen Elizabeth one of the greatest innlovers of all time? Dotted about our countryside are

many inns where she is reputed to have stayed the night, and at least one of them-The Elizabeth of England in Worcestershire-is named after her. There is The Swan at Lichfield which Dr. Johnson used to frequent; The Sir John Falstaff in Kent, immortalised by Shakespeare in Henry IV.; The Angel at Bury St. Edmunds, rendezvous for Dickens’s Mr. Pickwick; The Lion at Shrewsbury where Dickens himself stayed. There is The Leg of Mutton at Brecon, on the Welsh border, where Sarah Siddons was born and where Owen Nares died last year, and The Jolly Farmer at Farnham, birthplace of Cobbett. Pepys, Ben Jonson, Sir Walter Raleigh, Chaucer, Jane Austen, have all been closely associated with our inns, some of which are still standing. And in more recent times Daphne Du Maurier chose The Jamaica Inn in the heart of Bodmin Moor as the scene for one of her novels. Where Kings Scratched Their Signatures In Portsmouth is the four-hundred-year-old Star and Garter where Nelson, Admiral Keppel, Sir John Franklin, Wellington and kings from George II. down to George V. used to wine and dine. There is a window in this inn on which many famous men and women have scratched their signatures. Many of our old inns have unhappily been destroyed during the air raids of this war. Perhaps one of the saddest losses is The Old George at Portsmouth where Nelson frequently stayed -with Lady Hamilton and where he spent his last night before Trafalgar. His last act was to address the crowds in the streets from the first-floor bay window of the building. Then he made his way down the back stairs and through the crowds on Southsea Common, who fell on their knees in prayer before him, bidding him God-speed as he set off to win one of Britain’s greatest victories. és