Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION NINE.
SOCIAL HISTORY.
III. INNS: OLD AND NEW.

Inns are the handmaids of locomotion. When the stage-
coaches were in full swing roadside inns were a necessity ;
but when the coaches went off the roads at the opening of
railways, those old inns suffered, and only a few of them
remained to reap the advantages to be derived from the
cyclist and motor-car traffic. Those old inns afforded a warm
welcome to the travellers of their day, but a different style
of comfort on the road is now required.

The accommodation for travellers at Dover in ancient
and modern times is a fruitful topic. Owing to Dover's
position on the Continental Passage route, there have been
inns here from a very early period ; and they became more
necessary after the Guest House of Dover Priory and the
Hospital of the Maison Dieu ceased to entertain strangers.
These religious houses had not been giving much hospitality
to travellers for a good many years before the Reformation,
consequently the inns and victualling houses were numerous
in Dover all through the Reign of Henry VIII. Near the
close of his reign, in the year 1545, special regulations were
made that all inns and victualhng houses in this town should
have signs painted on boards, one foot square, hung over
the hall doors, so that the public might know which were
public-houses and which not. All innkeepers and victuallers
had to give a bond of ;^io, which was immediately forfeited
in cases of disorder in any of the houses. The order as to
the painted signboards v/as enforced with but two exceptions,
it being mentioned that " The Lion " and the "Arms of
England " had had their special signs from time out of mind,
therefore they were not required to alter them. In the records
of Dover, as found in the Egerton MSS. in the British
Museum, the list of victualling houses and inns in Dover at
that time, and the beds they contained, were as follows: —

St. James's Street.
Jasper Jure — " The Plough " (three beds).
Francis Serlis — "The Angel" (three beds).
Rowland Edridge — "The Swan" (three beds).
Roger Fisher — " The King's Arms " (three beds).



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Johanna Barber (widow) — "The Signe of Jesus" (three beds).
Richard Malbine — " The Town Arms " (three beds).
John Stockham — " The Black Bull " (three beds).

The Lane Next the Mayor's
(Probably that was Dolphin Lane, as the Mayor was a sheep

farmer and brewer.)
Alys Rockingham (widow) — " The Porter " (three beds).

Uppwall (Chapel Street).
George Matthew — " The Angel " (six beds).
Anthony Rede — " The Crown and Key " (six beds).
William Price — "Adam and Eve " (three beds).
WiUiam Lome — " The Black Anchor " and " The Corn
Sheaf " (eight beds).

Biggin Street.
Andrew Davy — " St. Andrew's Cross " (three beds).
Thomas Jaxon — " The Cock " (nhie beds).
Simon Fry — " The Anchor " (two beds).
John Miles — " The Lilly Pot " (eight beds).
Richard Wilmington — " The Greyhound " (four beds).
Thomas Everedge — " The Helmet " (four beds).
Margery Wilshire — " The Broad Axe " (three beds).
Edward Foster — " The Ship " (four beds).
Richard Rogers — " The Sun " (four beds).
Johanna Vaughan (widow) — " The Crown " (eight beds).
Roger Bund — " The Half Moon " (three beds).
James Dowell — " The Unicorn " (three beds).
William Dawson — " The Goat's Head " (three beds).
Cuthbert Digeson — " The Tailor's Shears " (four beds).

The inns were not so numerous as the victualling
houses. The following is the list of them, but it does not
mention the streets in which they were situated : —
" The Rose " (twelve beds and stabling) — Thomas Foxley.
" The Maidenhead " (seven beds and stabling) — Dawson

Parnell.
" The Ship " (six beds and staViling) — Hugh Brackett.
" The Angel " (six beds) — William Green.
" The Spread Eagle " (three beds and stabling) — Hugh

Fludd.
" The Arms of England " (eight beds and stabling — John

Bowlle (Mayor).
" The Bear " (four beds and stabling) — John Gilbert.



SOCIAL HISTORY 417

" The Lion " (sixteen beds and stabling) — William Fisher.
" The Woolsack " (ten beds and stabling) — Thomas Vittery.
" The Senior " (eight beds and stabling) — Richard Elham.

In the reign of Queen EUzabeth, innkeepers and
victuallers were prohibited from going to the seaside on the
arrival of Passage Boats to procure guests. In the Stuart
times the " Shakespeare " Inn, then called " The George,"
was estabhshed. " The Cock " Inn and " The King's
Head " (still existing in the Pier) were established in the
Reign of James I. " The Ship Tavern," " The London "
Hotel, and '' The Yorke " Hotel, all notable houses for
travellers, flourished in the Pier District at the close of the
Eighteenth Century. To " The Ship " the Duke of WeUing-
ton was carried on the shoulders of Dover Burgesses when
he landed at Dover after the Peace of 1814, and when His
Grace had been set down in his room he ordered the landlady
to provide for them all an unlimited supply of buttered
toast. " The Yorke " Hotel is mentioned in Miss Berry's
Journal as " a cheerful house overlooking the sea." At the
" London " Hotel, in Council House Street, Madame
Bonaparte stayed in 1805, when, owing to a family quarrel,
she was not allowed to land in France. " The Ship " Hotel
was kept in later years by Mr. John Birmingham, who was
afterwards the well-known host of the "Lord Warden"
Hotel.

Inns and ale-houses very rapidly increased in Dover in
the early part of the Nineteenth Century. At the annual
Licensing Sessions in the year 1837 twenty-one new licences
were granted; and in 1846 the public-houses averaged one
for every one hundred of the inhabitants. The tide of travel
through Dover very largely increased during the latter part
of the Nineteenth and the first decade of the Twentieth
Century ; but, owing to the hurried way in which Continental
travellers have been coming and going in recent years,
without much waiting for wind and tide, a smaller propor-
tion of them sought the hospitality of the inns of Dover.



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