Old Country Inns of England

e earliest times, it was an inherent tendency of the Teutonic races to combine and form guilds. There were guilds for the building of bridges, for the relief of poor pilgrims, and for almost

s, others as similar to our modern clubs, and a third class of writers assert that they w

omprised all ranks, wage-earners, manufacturers, and merchants. The weakness of such a body was that there was no community of interests as regards the internal economy of the industry. That is to say, the merchants and masters would not be in

rters, indeed, were in the twelfth century being bought from the King, which rendered fraternities dependent for their existence on the royal will alone. The weavers of London lived in a quarter by themselves, with their own courts and raised their own taxes, suffering no intrusion from

emn procession and miracle play on the annual festival. Behind the religious association the union for trade purposes remained. When the secular powers of the craft guild were more clearly defined, in the fifteenth century, under the style of a

gh not under any compulsion to do so, still occasionally render service of a kindred nature. The work of the Plumbers' Company, a few years ago, in arranging for the examination and registration of plumbers will be called to mind; the Apothecaries' Company has also d

xamples of the halls of the craft guilds now derelict and converted to less noble purposes. Part of the King's Head at Ayles

ts at strikes, and securing that all disputes as to the rate of pay should be settled by the arbitration of their own warden. Vainly the serving-men of the Saddlers strove to form a guild of their own on the harmless pattern of a religious body with their own festival at Our

d, by the way, was a commonly accepted emblem of St. Blaise. Many St. Crispins or Jolly Crispins survive to represent the shoemaker. St. Hugh was another patron of the shoe trade, and there was once a St. Hugh's Bones in Clare Market. Simon the Tanner is an old house in Long Lane, Bermondsey. A later age absurdly re-named inns frequented by the labouring class as The Weavers' Arms, Carpenters' Arms, Bricklayers' Arms, etc., etc. These inns, a common occurrence in every large town, are often of old foundation, and incidentally commemo

ers' Arm

paying various forms of precarious and unskilled labour, such as coal whippers and porters, found it profitable to become owners of public-houses where the unfortunate men were kept waiting for a job which was generally awarded to th

leece, S

at one time required to exhibit a Woolpack as a token of the leading commodity in the town. There is a very fine old Golden Fleece Inn at South W

land, Scotland and Ireland. The Golden Ball was another mercers' sign, from the arms of Constantinople, which was formerly the centre of the silk trade. The Elephant and Castle was the crest of the Cutlers' Company. However, the Elephant and Castle, at the corner of Newington Causeway, has a quite different origin. The skeleton of an elepha

of London. The Northwood, or Norwood, extended from near the Green Man at Dulwich to Croydon, where there is another Green Man Inn. The Green Man at Leytonstone sta

t the manner in which beer was anciently carried about before the invention of brewers

lanes, touching here and there a market town, extend through the Eastern and Midland counties, right up to the North of England. Lonely and deserted, practicable only by the pedestrian or the rider of a sure-footed pony, scarcely ever used except by the county officials, whose duty it is to maintain the right of way, they remain as an ideal hunting gro