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    Pub Name History: Thirty Popular Pub Name Origins
    Pub Name History: Thirty Popular Pub Name Origins
    Pub Name History: Thirty Popular Pub Name Origins
    Ebook108 pages1 hour

    Pub Name History: Thirty Popular Pub Name Origins

    By Albert Jack

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    About this ebook

    The pub was once described by seventeenth-century diarist Samuel Pepys as the ‘heart of England while the church is its soul’. These days I would say he is only half right. There remain over 56,000 pubs in Great Britain, half of which are filled with youngsters who play loud music on a jukebox that sounds like somebody is hitting his lawnmower with a hammer, while the next-door neighbour shouts at him over the fence. The other half, however, are the perfect place to while away an afternoon with a pint and fine conversation while quietly contemplating what to do next. Well, that’s what I do.

    The pub histories told in this collection are some of my favourite pubs and are extracts from my popular book The Old Dog and Duck (There are many more histories in there.) So take a seat in your favourite armchair by the fireside and join me on a pub crawl along memory lane and around history corner. We may be some time.

    Contents

    1 – The Blind Beggar
    2 – The Bucket of Blood
    3 – The Case is Altered
    4 – The Crooked Billet
    5 – The Eagle and Child
    6 – The Elephant and Castle
    7 - The Flying Dutchman
    8 – The French House
    9 – The Garibaldi
    10 – The George and Dragon
    11 - The Green Man
    12 – Harry’s Bar
    13 – The Hero of Inkerman
    14 – The Horse and Hounds
    15 – Jack Straw’s Castle
    16 – The John Snow
    17 – The Marquis of Granby
    18 – Molly Maguires
    19 – Molly Malone’s
    20 – The Oddfellows Arms
    21 - Pickled Parson
    22 – The Red Lion
    23 – The Royal Oak
    24 - The Seven Sisters
    25 – The Star and Garter
    26 – The Volunteer
    27 – JD Wetherspoon
    28 – The White Hart
    29 – The White Lion
    30 – The Widow’s Son

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlbert Jack
    Release dateNov 13, 2015
    ISBN9781311358547
    Pub Name History: Thirty Popular Pub Name Origins

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      Pub Name History - Albert Jack

      Introduction

      As long as there has been alcohol, people have gathered together to drink it. Many pub names offer helpful signposts to the very long history of communal drinking in the British Isles. Archaeologists have found evidence of brewing in the Middle East dating as far back as the eighth century bc. Although brewing in Europe goes as far back as 3000 bc, sadly they haven’t yet found any Druid watering holes (the Standing Stone?).

      So, officially, it was the industrious Romans, after they invaded in 45 bc, who first began to establish tabernae (‘huts’ or ‘shops’ – the origin of our word ‘tavern’) along their new road networks. These provided food, drink and accommodation for workers, soldiers and travellers alike.

      They were the alcoholic equivalent of today’s motorway service stations. The Romans traditionally despised beer as the drink of the conquered indigenous peoples of Britain: their tipple of choice was wine.

      The weather in Britain was much warmer then and vines and wine-making flourished, even if the locals preferred their own homebrew. When the taberna was fully stocked with wine, some grapes would be displayed outside the building by way of an advert (the Bunch of Grapes – or Crooked Billet if the birds got there first).

      After their empire began to crumble early in the fifth century and the Romans had decamped back to Italy, the Anglo-Saxons then took charge. Many of the larger Roman-established towns were abandoned and people moved into much smaller villages and settlements.

      Unlike their Mediterranean predecessors, the new settlers came from colder, more northerly climes and their drink of choice was ale. (Ale, incidentally, before the importation of hops in the fifteenth century, was the English term for beer.) The oldest alcoholic drink on the planet, beer has historically been seen in a much more positive light than it is today.

      For instance, the Mesopotamian story explaining how man evolved from the beasts and became civilized involved his being given lots of beer by a god. Ale was central to the Anglo-Saxon sense of community. One person in the village would brew it and his home would become the local drinking spot, mustering place and centre for gossip.

      In a precursor of the modern pub sign, the Saxon brewer would fix a bush (also the source of berries for flavouring the beer) outside his house to show the ale was ready for drinking (the Bush). These alehouses became so popular that in 965 King Edgar decreed that they should be restricted to one per village.

      When the Normans took over in 1066, they were keen to impose order on their new domain, mainly so they could work out just how much tax they could get away with demanding (the point behind the Domesday Book) and for a couple of hundred years at least they ignored alehouses. The kings concentrated on building new towns and castles; it was the Church that redeveloped the idea of the Roman tabernae.

      A network of monasteries all over the British Isles created guest-houses to offer lodging and refreshment to travellers. Many monasteries were renowned for the ale they brewed and for the quality of their entertainment. Contemporary depictions of monks (think of Friar Tuck) often showed them bingeing on food and drink.

      The Dove (the biblical symbol of peace – the bird returning to the ark with the first green shoot, marking the end of the flood and God’s anger with mankind) was commonly used as a sign for a monastic guest-house.

      As the Middle Ages continued and Crusades and pilgrimages became increasingly popular (Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem), the monasteries couldn’t cope with the demand and enterprising locals set up inns nearby. Their signs (to draw in a largely illiterate clientele of pilgrims and travellers) may well have mimicked easily recognizable images from the decorations inside churches, such as the Lamb, the Ark and various martyred saints (the Crown and Arrows). These hostelries were a large step up from scruffy local alehouses and some became celebrated landmarks. There is an area of north London named after a famous medieval pub, the Angel.

      In 1393 a law was passed that all landlords must identify their premises with a sign: ‘Whoever shall brew ale in town with the intention of selling it must hang out a sign, otherwise he shall forfeit his ale.’

      The principal reason for the legislation was so that the royal ale-tasters could easily identify inns when they arrived in a village or hamlet in order to inspect the quality of the ale and to collect any taxes due.

      It made sense for a landlord to display a popular image that could easily be remembered, and many early pub names can be identified from this period, such as the Plough, the Star and the Tabard (a tabard was a sleeveless jacket – a loose-fitting medieval bodywarmer – which was worn by everyone, from ploughmen to knights). The Tabard in Southwark was the famous inn (sadly burned down in 1669) where Chaucer’s pilgrims set off on their journey in The Canterbury Tales.

      The Crusades and the popularity of chivalry had triggered huge interest in the legends of St George and King Arthur. Following his father’s disastrous reign, Edward III looked to these old stories for inspiration in his re-branding of the monarchy (and the ruling classes). He gathered together a band of special knights (the Star and Garter), much in the manner of King Arthur, and chose a patron saint for England who embodied the knightly virtues he so admired (the George and Dragon).

      He also encouraged the use of heraldry, which had a knock-on effect on the names of pubs. Every noble family had its own coat of arms, and alehouses and inns on their lands were often named after them, such as the Red Lion, the White Hart and the Bear and Ragged Staff.

      But things were far from that simple. These were turbulent times: feudalism had been destroyed by the Black Death and, much to the horror of the ruling classes, working men were demanding a better life. Alehouses were the places they gathered to complain of their lot and plot their uprisings. Although the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was soon squashed, the changes it set in motion couldn’t be suppressed as easily.

      The English hero the working classes chose as their favourite symbol was very different from King Arthur. Robin Hood was an outlaw who robbed from the rich and gave it all to the poor. To call your hostelry after him was thumbing your nose at the noble families who owned most of England and consequently most of England’s pubs. To this day, the pubs named after Robin Hood outnumber those named after King Arthur ten to one.

      When Henry VIII divorced his first wife in 1533 and started dissolving the monasteries, some innkeepers (canny businessmen) rushed to change the names of their inns if they seemed a little too religious to something ostensibly more loyal, such as the King’s Arms.

      Meanwhile others started spinning different stories

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