Books: The Inns and Taverns of Pickwick
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B.W. Matz >> The Inns and Taverns of Pickwick
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[illustration: The "Waggon and Horses," Beckhampton.
Drawn by C. G. Harper]
If its comfort, as described in the following paragraph, is to-day
equal to that found by Tom Smart, it is a place to seek for personal
pleasure, as well as a Pickwickian landmark.
"In less than five minutes' time, Tom was ensconced in the room
opposite the bar--the very room where he had imagined the fire
blazing--before a substantial matter-of-fact roaring fire, composed
of something short of a bushel of coals, and wood enough to make
half a dozen decent gooseberry bushes, piled half-way up the
chimney, and roaring and crackling with a sound that of itself would
have warmed the heart of any reasonable man. This was comfortable,
but this was not all, for a smartly dressed girl, with a bright eye
and a neat ankle, was laying a very clean white cloth on the table;
and as Tom sat with his slippered feet on the fender, and his back
to the open door, he saw a charming prospect of the bar reflected
in the glass over the chimney-piece, with delightful rows of green
bottles and gold labels, together with jars of pickles and preserves,
and cheeses and boiled hams, and rounds of beef, arranged on shelves
in the most tempting and delicious array. Well, that was comfortable,
too; but even this was not all--for in the bar, seated at tea at the
nicest possible little table, drawn close up before the brightest
possible little fire, was a buxom widow of somewhere about eight-and-
forty or thereabouts, with a face as comfortable as the bar, who was
evidently the landlady of the house, and the supreme ruler over all
these agreeable possessions."
What happened afterwards is another story. Many other incidents
occurred at Eatanswill during the Pickwickians' stay there, the
narration of which is not our purpose in these pages. One, however,
led Sam and his master hurriedly to leave the town on a certain
morning in pursuit of Alfred Jingle, who had put in an appearance at
Mrs. Leo Hunter's fancy-dress fete, and on seeing Mr. Pickwick there,
had as quickly left if as he had entered it. Mr. Pickwick, on
enquiry, discovering that Alfred Jingle, alias Charles Fitz
Marshall, was residing at the "Angel," Bury, set off in hot haste to
hunt him down, determined to prevent him from deceiving anyone else
as he had deceived him; and so we follow him in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VIII
THE "ANGEL," BURY ST. EDMUNDS
"Beg your pardon, sir, is this Bury St. Edmunds?"
The words were addressed by Sam Weller to Mr. Pickwick as the
two sat on top of a coach as it "rattled through the well-paved
streets of a handsome little town, of thriving appearance."
Eventually stopping before "a large inn situated in a wide street,
nearly facing the old Abbey," Mr. Pickwick, looking up, added,
"'and this is the "Angel." We alight here, Sam. But some caution
is necessary. Order a private room, and do not mention my name.
You understand?'
"'Right as a trivet, sir,' replied Mr. Weller, with a wink of
intelligence; and having dragged Mr. Pickwick's portmanteau
from the hind boot, into which it had been hastily thrown when
they joined the coach at Eatanswill, Mr. Weller disappeared
on his errand. A private room was speedily engaged; and into
it Mr. Pickwick was ushered without delay." Having been settled
comfortably therein, partaken of dinner and listened to Sam's
philosophy about a good night's rest, he allowed that worthy
to go and "worm ev'ry secret out o' the boots' heart" regarding
the whereabouts of Fitz Marshall, as he assured Mr. Pickwick he
could do in five minutes. As good as his word he returned with
his information that the gentleman in question also had a private
room in the "Angel," but was dining out that night and had taken
his servant with him. It was accordingly arranged that Sam should
have a talk with the said servant in the morning with a view of
learning what he could about his master's plans.
"As it appeared that this was the best arrangement that could
be made, it was finally agreed upon. Mr. Weller, by his master's
permission, retired to spend his evening in his own way; and
was shortly afterwards elected, by the unanimous voice of the
assembled company, into the tap-room chair, in which honourable
post he acquitted himself so much to the satisfaction of the
gentlemen-frequenters, that the roars of laughter and approbation
penetrated to Mr. Pickwick's bedroom, and shortened the term of his
natural rest by at least three hours. Early on the ensuing morning
Mr. Weller was dispelling all the feverish remains of the previous
evening's conviviality, through the instrumentality of a halfpenny
shower-bath (having induced a young gentleman attached to the stable
department, by the offer of a coin, to pump over his head and
face, until he was perfectly restored), when he was attracted by
the appearance of a young fellow in mulberry-coloured livery, who
was sitting on a bench in the yard, reading what appeared to be
a hymn-book, with an air of deep abstraction, but who occasionally
stole a glance at the individual under the pump, as if he took some
interest in his proceedings, nevertheless."
This was no other than Job Trotter, the servant to Mr. Alfred
Jingle of No Hall, No Where, and in a few moments the two were in
animated conversation over a little liquid refreshment at the bar.
How Job Trotter and Alfred Jingle not only got the better of the
usually astute Sam and the innocent Mr. Pickwick, and entangled
the latter into a very embarrassing situation at the Young .Ladies'
School in the district; and how the latter extricated himself from
the awkward predicament only to find that the instigators of it had
again hurriedly left the town, is best gathered from the pages of
the book itself.
"The process of being washed in the night air, and rough-dried in
a closet is as dangerous as it is peculiar." This having been the
case with Mr. Pickwick, he suffered as a consequence, and was laid
up with an attack of rheumatism, and had to spend a couple of days
in his bed at the hotel. To pass away the time, he devoted himself
to "editing" the love story of Nathaniel Pipkin, which he read to
his friends, who, having by this time arrived at the hotel, gathered
at his bedside and took their wine there with him.
It was whilst staying at the "Angel" that Mr. Pickwick received
the first intimation that a writ for breach of promise had been
issued against him at the instance of Mrs. Bardell, much to the
alarm and amusement of his friends. He did not, however, hasten
back to London, but accepted Mr. Wardle's invitation to a shooting
party in the neighbourhood, where he again involved himself in a
further misadventure.
[illustration: The Angel Hotel, Bury St. Edmunds. Drawn by
C. G. Harper]
Now all these little untoward events happened whilst Mr. Pickwick
was staying at the "Angel," and. not only have they caused much
amusement to the readers of the book, but incidentally have added
fame and importance to the "Angel" at Bury to such an extent
that the faithful reader of Pickwick who finds himself in the
neighbourhood would no more think of passing the "Angel" than
would the pilgrim to the town omit visiting the famous abbey.
He will find the hotel little altered since the day when Mr.
Pickwick visited it, either as regards its old-time atmosphere
or its Victorian hospitality.
It is a very plain and severe-looking building from the outside,
suggesting a gigantic doll's house with real steps up to the
front door all complete. Although it does not look as inspiring
on approaching it as most Dickensian inns do, its interior,
nevertheless, makes up in comfort what its exterior lacks
in picturesqueness.
It has stood since 1779 and occupies the site of three ancient inns
known at the time as the "Angel," the "Castle" and the "White
Bear," respectively. In such an ancient town as Bury St. Edmunds,
with so many years behind it, the "Angel" could tell a story worth
narrating. Fronting the gates of the ancient Abbey, it occupies the
most prominent place in the town. In the wide space before it the
Bury fair was held, and a famous and fashionable festivity it was,
which lasted in the olden time for several days. Latterly, however,
one day is deemed sufficient, and that is September 21 in each year.
In spite of its sombre appearance from the outside, it is considered
one of the most important hotels in West Suffolk, and is still a
typical old English inn, "a byword for comfort and generous
hospitality throughout the eastern counties." The spacious
coffee-room, its well-appointed drawing and sitting-rooms, its
many bedrooms, have an appeal to those desiring ease rather than
the luxuriousness of the modern style. In addition it has extensive
yards and stables, survivals of the old posting days, with a cosy
tap-room and bar, to say nothing of all the natural little nooks and
corners and accessories which pertain only to old-world hostelries.
There still remains the pump under which Sam had his "halfpenny
shower-bath." And in the tap-room one can be easily reminded of
the scene over which Sam presided and acquitted himself with
so much satisfaction.
As to which was the room occupied by Mr. Pickwick, history is
silent; but when Dickens was on his reporting expedition in Suffolk
during the electoral campaign of 1835, he stayed at the "Angel"
and, tradition says, slept in room No. 11. Mr. Percy FitzGerald,
on visiting it some years ago, ventured to seek of the "gnarled"
waiter information on the momentous question of Mr. Pickwick and
his adventure.
"Piokwick, sir? Why, HE knew all about it," was the reply. "No. 11
was Mr. Pickwick's room, and the proprietor would tell us everything.
A most quaint debate arose," says Mr. FitzGerald, "on Mr. Pickwick's
stay at the hotel. The host pronounced EX CATHEDRA and without
hesitation about the matter. . . . The power and vitality of the
Pickwickian legend are extraordinary indeed; all day long we found
people bewildered, as it were, by this faith, mixing up the author
and his hero."
This is not unusual, and even in these days we find that Dickens's
characters have become so real that no one stops to discuss whether
this or that really happened to them, but just simply accepts their
comings and goings as the comings and goings of the heroes and
heroines of history are accepted, with perhaps just a little more
belief in them. And so we can be assured that the "Angel" at Bury
will be chiefly remembered as the hotel where Mr. Pickwick and his
companions stayed, whoever before or since may have honoured it with
a visit, or whatever else in its history may be recalled as
important.
In 1861 Dickens again visited the town to give his famous readings
from his works, and put up at the "Angel," so that the county hotel
has many reasons for the proud title of being a Dickensian inn.
CHAPTER IX
THE "BLACK BOY," CHELMSFORD, THE "MAGPIE AND STUMP,"
AND THE "BULL," WHITECHAPEL
After Mr. Pickwick and Sam had been so cleverly outwitted by Jingle
and Job Trotter at Bury, they returned to London. Taking liquid
refreshment one day afterwards in a city hostelry they chanced upon
the elder Weller, who, in the course of conversation, revealed the
fact that, whilst "working" an Ipswich coach, he had taken up Jingle
and Job Trotter at the "Black Boy" at Chelmsford: "I took 'em up,"
he emphasised, "right through to Ipswich, where the manservant--him
in the mulberries--told me they was a-going to put up for a long
time." Mr. Pickwick decided to follow them, and started, as will
be seen presently, from the Bull Inn, Whitechapel, for that town.
The reference to the "Black Boy" is but a passing one, and it is
not even recorded that Mr. Pickwick stopped there on his journey
out; but the inn where Jingle was "taken up" was then one of the
best known on the Essex road, and was not demolished until 1857,
when it was replaced by a modern public-house which still displays
the old signboard. In an article in The Dickensian* Mr. G. 0.
Rickwood gives some interesting particulars concerning its history,
from which we gather that originally the "Black Boy" was the town
house of the de Veres, the famous Earls of Oxford, whose principal
seat, Hedingham Castle, was within a short distance of Chelmsford.
It was converted into a hostelry in the middle of the seventeenth
century, and was first known as the Crown or New Inn. It was an
ancient timber structure house, and some of the carved woodwork,
with the well-known device of the boar's head taken from one of
the rooms of the old inn, is still preserved in Chelmsford Museum.
[* 1917, p.214.]
At the close of the eighteenth century the "Black Boy" was
recognised as the leading hostelry of the town, and was known far
and wide. In the Pickwickian days it was a busy posting-house for
the coaches from London to many parts of Norfolk.
[illustration: The "Black Boy," Chelmsford. From an old engraving]
Before Mr. Pickwick carried out his determination to pursue Jingle,
he had occasion to visit the "Magpie and Stump," "situated in a
court, happy in the double advantage of being in the vicinity of
Clare Market and closely approximating to the back of New Inn."
This was the favoured tavern, sacred to the evening orgies of
Mr. Lowten and his companions, and by ordinary people would be
designated a public-house. The object of Mr. Pickwick's visit was
to discover Mr. Lowten, and on enquiry, found him presiding over a
sing-song and actually engaged in obliging with a comic song at the
moment. After a brief interview with that worthy, Mr. Pickwick was
prevailed upon to join the festive party.
[illustration: The "George the Fourth," Clare Market. Drawn
by C. G. Harper]
There were, at the time, two taverns, either of which might have
stood as the original for the "Magpie and Stump"; the "Old Black
Jack" and the "George the Fourth," both in Portsmouth Street, and
both were demolished in 1896. Which was the one Dickens had in mind
it is difficult to say. His description of its appearance runs as
follows: "In the lower windows, which were decorated with curtains
of a saffron hue, dangled two or three printed cards, bearing
reference to Devonshire cyder and Dantzic spruce, while a large
blackboard, announcing in white letters to an enlightened public
that there were 500,000 barrels of double stout in the cellars of
the establishment, left the mind in a state of not unpleasing doubt
and uncertainty, as to the precise direction in the bowels of the
earth in which this mighty cavern might be supposed to extend. When
we add that the weather-beaten signboard bore the half-obliterated
semblance of a magpie intently eyeing a crooked streak of brown
paint, which the neighbours had been taught from infancy to consider
as the 'stump,' we have said all that need be said of the exterior
of the edifice."
The "Old Black Jack" has been identified as the original of the
"Magpie and Stump" by some topographers, whilst Robert Allbut in his
Rambles in Dickens-land favoured the "Old George the Fourth," adding
that Dickens and Thackeray were well-remembered visitors there.
The Bull Inn, Whitechapel, the starting-place of Tony Weller's coach
which was to take Mr. Pickwick to Ipswich, was actually at No. 25
Aldgate, and was perhaps the most famous of the group of inns of the
neighbourhood whence many of the Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk coaches
set out on their journeys. At the time of which we write it was
owned by Mrs. Ann Nelson, whose antecedents had been born and bred
in the business, while she herself had interests in more than one
city hostelry, as well as owned coaches.
Mr. Charles G. Harper has several references to, and interesting
anecdotes about, Mrs. Ann Nelson and her inns in his "Road" books.
In one such reference he tells us Mrs. Ann Nelson was "one of those
stern, dignified, magisterial women of business, who were quite a
remarkable feature of the coaching age, who saw their husbands off
to an early grave and alone carried on the peculiarly exacting
double business of inn-keeping and coach-proprietorship, and did
so with success." She was the "Napoleon and Caesar" combined of
the coaching business. Energetic, she spared neither herself nor
her servants. The last to bed she was also the first to rise,
"looking after the stable people and seeing that the horses had
their feeds and were properly cared for." Insistent as she was
on rigid punctuality in all things, and hard as she was on those
who served her, she, nevertheless, treated them very well, and
gave the coachmen and guards a special room, where they dined as
well at reduced prices as any of the coffee-room customers. This
room was looked upon as their private property, and there they
regaled themselves with the best the house could provide. It was
more sacred and exclusive than the commercial-rooms of the old
Bagmen days, and was strictly unapproachable by any but those for
whom it was set apart.
[illustration: The Bull Inn, Whitechapel. From the water-colour
drawing by P. Palfrey]
The "Bull" began to decline when the railway was opened in 1839,
and in 1868 it was demolished.
There is no doubt that Dickens knew it well, and probably used it
in his journalistic days when having to take journeys to the eastern
counties to report election speeches. In The Uncommercial Traveller
he speaks of having strolled up to the empty yard of the "Bull,"
"who departed this life I don't know when, and whose coaches had all
gone I don't know where."
When, therefore, he wanted a starting-point for Mr. Pickwick's
adventure to Ipswich, the "Bull," which was nothing less than an
institution at the time, readily occurred to him.
There is an anecdote about Dickens and the coachmen's private
apartment, told by Mr. Charles G. Harper. "On one occasion Dickens
had a seat at a table, and 'the Chairman,' after sundry flattering
remarks, as a tribute to the novelist's power of describing a coach
Journey, said, 'Mr. Dickens, we knows you knows wot's wot, but can
you, sir, 'andle a vip?' There was no mock modesty in Dickens. He
acknowledged he could describe a journey down the road, but he
regretted that in the management of a 'vip' he was not expert."
Here Sam arrived one morning with his master's travelling bag and
portmanteau, to be closely followed by Mr. Pickwick himself, who, as
Sam told his father, was "cabbin' it . .. havin' two mile o' danger
at eightpence." In the inn yard he was greeted by a red-haired man
who immediately became friendly and enquired if Mr. Pickwick was
going to Ipswich. On learning that he was, and that he, too, had
taken an outside seat, they became fast friends. Little did Mr.
Pickwick suppose that his newly made friend and he would meet again
later under less congenial circumstances.
"Take care o' the archway, gen'l'men," was Sam's timely warning as
the coach, under the control of his father, started out of the inn
yard on its memorable journey down Whitechapel Road to the "Great
White Horse," Ipswich, an hostelry which forms the subject of the
following chapter.
CHAPTER X
THE "GREAT WHITE HORSE," IPSWICH
"In the main street of Ipswich, on the left-hand side of the way, a
short distance after you have passed through the open space fronting
the Town Hall, stands an inn known far and wide by the appellation
of the 'Great White Horse,' rendered the more conspicuous by a
stone statue of some rampacious animal with flowing mane and tail,
distantly resembling an insane cart horse, which is elevated above
the principal door."
With these identical words Dickens introduces his readers to, and
indicates precisely, the position of the famous Great White Horse
Inn at Ipswich, and a visitor to the popular city of Suffolk need
have no better guide to the spot than the novelist. He will be a
little surprised at the description of the white horse, which in
reality is quite an unoffending and respectable animal, in the act
of simply lifting its fore leg in a trotting action, that is all;
but he will be well repaid if when he arrives there he reads again
Chapter XXII of The Pickwick Papers before he starts to make himself
acquainted with the intricacies of the interior.
That chapter, telling of the extraordinary adventure Mr. Pickwick
experienced with the middle-aged lady in the double-bedded room,
is one of the most amusing in the book, and one which has made the
"Great White Horse" as familiar a name as any in fiction or reality.
There are few inns in the novelist's books described so fully. He
must have known it well; indeed, he is supposed to have stayed there
when, in his early days, he visited Ipswich to report an election
for The Morning Chronicle; and probably a similar mistake happened
to him to that which Mr. Pickwick experienced. So when he says,
"The 'Great Horse' is famous in the neighbourhood, in the same
degree as a prize ox, or county paper-chronicled turnip, or unwieldy
pig--for its enormous size," he evidently was recalling an impression
of those days.
[illustration: The White Horse Hotel, Ipswich. Drawn by L. Walker]
It is an imposing structure viewed from without, with stuccoed
walls, and a pillared entrance, over which stands the sign which so
attracted the novelist's attention. The inside is spacious, with
still the air of the old days about it, and contains fifty bedrooms
and handsome suites of rooms; but Dickens was a little misleading
regarding its size and a little unkind in his reproaches. At any
rate, if the seemingly unkind things he said of it were deserved in
those days of which he writes, they are no longer.
"Never were such labyrinths of uncarpeted passages," he says;
"such clusters of mouldy, ill-lighted rooms, such huge numbers
of small dens for eating or sleeping in, beneath any one roof,
as are collected together between the four walls of the Great
White Horse Inn."
Here on a certain very eventful day appeared Mr. Pickwick, who was
to have met his friends there, but as they had not arrived when he
and Mr. Peter Magnus reached it by coach, he accepted the latter's
invitation to dine with him.
Dickens's disparaging descriptions of the inn's accommodation lead
one to believe that his experiences of the "over-grown tavern," as
he calls it, were not of the pleasantest. He refers to the waiter
as a corpulent man with "a fortnight's napkin" under his arm, and
"coeval stockings," and tells how this worthy ushered Mr. Pickwick
and Mr. Magnus into "a large badly furnished apartment, with a dirty
grate, in which a small fire was making a wretched attempt to be
cheerful, but was fast sinking beneath the dispiriting influence
of the place." Here they made their repast from a "bit of fish and
a steak," and "having ordered a bottle of the most horrible port
wine, at the highest possible price, for the good of the house,
drank brandy and water for their own." After finishing their scanty
meal they were conducted to their respective bedrooms, each with a
japanned candlestick, through "a multitude of torturous windings."
Mr. Pickwick's "was a tolerably large double-bedded room, with a
fire; upon the whole, a more comfortable looking apartment than Mr.
Pickwick's short experience of the accommodation of the 'Great White
Horse' had led him to expect."
Whether all this was ever true does not seem to have mattered much
to the various proprietors, for they were not only proud of the
association of the inn with Pickwick, but made no attempt to hide
what the novelist said of its shortcomings. On the contrary, one of
them printed in a little booklet the whole of the particular chapter
wherein these disrespectful remarks appear. Indeed, that is the
chief means of advertisement to lure the traveller in, and when he
gets there he finds Pickwick pictures everywhere on the walls to
dispel any doubt he might have of the associations.
It is not necessary to re-tell the story of Mr. Pickwick's
misadventure here. It will be recalled that having forgotten his
watch he, in a weak moment, walked quietly downstairs, with the
japanned candlestick in his hand, to secure it again. "The more
stairs Mr. Pickwick went down, the more stairs there seemed to be
to descend, and again and again, when Mr. Pickwick got into some
narrow passage, and began to congratulate himself on having gained
the ground floor, did another flight of stairs appear before his
astonished eyes. . . .Passage after passage did he explore; room
after room did he peep into"; until at length he discovered the
room he wanted and also his watch.
The same difficulty confronted him on his journey backward; indeed,
it was even more perplexing. "Rows of doors, garnished with boots
of every shape, make, and size, branched off in every possible
direction." He tried a dozen doors before he found what he thought
was his room and proceeded to divest himself of his clothes
preparatory to entering on his night's rest. But, alas! he had got
into the wrong bedroom and the story of the dilemma he shortly found
himself in with the lady in the yellow curl-papers, and how he
extricated himself in so modest and gentlemanly a manner, is a story
which "every schoolboy knows."
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