The interior is no less
picturesque, with its open ingle-nook, its high-backed settles, its
brick floor, its pots and pans, its pewter and brass utensils. Our
artist has drawn for us many beautiful examples of old inns, which we
shall visit presently and try to learn something of their old-world
charm. He has only just been in time to sketch them, as they are fast
disappearing. It is astonishing how many noted inns in London and the
suburbs have vanished during the last twenty or thirty years.
Let us glance at a few of the great Southwark inns. The old "Tabard,"
from which Chaucer's pilgrims started on their memorable journey, was
destroyed by a great fire in 1676, rebuilt in the old fashion, and
continued until 1875, when it had to make way for a modern "old
Tabard" and some hop merchant's offices. This and many other inns had
galleries running round the yard, or at one end of it, and this yard
was a busy place, frequented not only by travellers in coach or
saddle, but by poor players and mountebanks, who set up their stage
for the entertainment of spectators who hung over the galleries or
from their rooms watched the performance. The model of an inn-yard was
the first germ of theatrical architecture. The "White Hart" in
Southwark retained its galleries on the north and east side of its
yard until 1889, though a modern tavern replaced the south and main
portion of the building in 1865-6.
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