Inns and Taverns of Old London | Page 5

the hall, were three rooms--'the middle
chamber,' 'the corner chamber,' and 'Maister Hussye's chamber,' with
garrets or 'cock lofts' over them. Over the great parlour was another
room. There were also rooms called 'the Entry Chamber' and 'the Newe
chamber,' 'the Flower de Luce' and 'Mr. Russell's chamber,' of which
the position is not specified."
[Illustration: TABARD INN, SOUTHWARK, IN 1810.]
When, in 1575, the old Tabard, the inn, that is, of George Shepherd's
water-colour drawing of 1810, was demolished, making way for the
present somewhat commonplace representative of the ancient hostelry,
many protests were made on the plea that it was sheer vandalism to
destroy a building so intimately associated with the genius of Chaucer.
But the protests were based upon lack of knowledge. Chaucer's inn had
disappeared long before. It is sometimes stated that that building
survived until the great Southwark fire of 1676, but such assertions
overlook the fact that there is in existence a record dated 1634 which
speaks of the Tabard as having been built of brick six years previously
upon the old foundation. Here, then, is proof that the Tabard of the
pilgrims was wholly reconstructed in 1628, and even that
building--faithful copy as it may have been of the poet's inn--was burnt
to the ground in 1676. From the old foundations, however, a new

Tabard arose, built on the old plan, so that the structure which was torn
down in 1875 may have perpetuated the semblance of Chaucer's inn to
modern times.
Compared with its association with the Canterbury pilgrims, the
subsequent history of the Tabard is somewhat prosaic. Here a record
tells how it became the objective of numerous carriers from Kent and
Sussex, there crops up a law report which enshrines the memory of a
burglary, and elsewhere in reminiscences or diary may be found a
tribute to the excellence of the inn's rooms and food and the
reasonableness of the charges. It should not be forgotten, however, that
violent hands have been laid on the famous inn for the lofty purposes of
melodrama. More than sixty years ago a play entitled "Mary White, or
the Murder at the Old Tabard" thrilled the theatregoer with its tragic
situations and the terrible perils of the heroine. But the tribulations of
Mary White have left no imprint on English literature. Chaucer's
pilgrims have, and so long as the mere name of the Tabard survives, its
recollection will bring in its train a moving picture of that merry and
motley company which set out for the shrine of À Becket so many
generations ago.
Poetic license bestows upon another notable Southwark inn, the Bear at
Bridge-foot, an antiquity far eclipsing that of the Tabard. In a poem
printed in 1691, descriptive of "The Last Search after Claret in
Southwark," the heroes of the verse are depicted as eventually finding
their way to
"The Bear, which we soon understood Was the first house in
Southwark built after the flood."
To describe the inn as "the first house in Southwark" might have been
accurate for those callers who approached it over London Bridge, but in
actual chronology the proud distinction of dating from post-deluge days
has really to give place to the much more recent year of 1319. There is,
preserved among the archives of the city of London a tavern lease of
that date which belongs without doubt to the history of this hostelry, for
it refers to the inn which Thomas Drinkwater had "recently built at the
head of London Bridge." This Thomas Drinkwater was a taverner of
London, and the document in question sets forth how he had granted
the lease of the Bear to one James Beauflur, who agrees to purchase all
his wines from the inappropriately named Drinkwater, who, on his part,

was to furnish his tenant with such necessaries as silver mugs, wooden
hanaps, curtains, cloths and other articles.
A century and a half later the inn figures in the accounts of Sir John
Howard, that warlike "Jacke of Norfolk" who became the first Duke of
Norfolk in the Howard family and fatally attested his loyalty to his king
on Bosworth Field. From that time onward casual references to the
Bear are numerous. It was probably the best-known inn of Southwark,
for its enviable position at the foot of London Bridge made it
conspicuous to all entering or leaving the city. Its attractions were
enhanced by the fact that archery could be practised in its grounds, and
that within those same grounds was the Thames-side landing stage
from whence the tilt-boats started for Greenwich and Gravesend. It was
the opportunity for shooting at the target which helped to lure Sir John
Howard to the Bear, but as he sampled the wine of the inn before
testing his skill as a marksman, he