Another trip to Glastonbury. Another visit to the Outlaws. Ma Outlaw needs to be taken to Shepton Mallet so Pa Outlaw needs entertaining.
Another trip to Glastonbury. Another four hours on the M5 on a Friday. Four hours became five as somebody managed to tie up two fire engines, two ambulances and the two outside lanes by coming a bit too close to the barrier on the central reservation just south of junction 9. I'm sure that they hadn't intended to do so, and I do hope that they're recovering well, but it was something that we both could have done without.
Another trip to Glastonbury. Another chance to delve into the past for some bygone boozers in this Somerset setting. Previous visits have produced posts on the High Street and Northload Street. This one will concentrate on the area around the Market Place. Why limit myself to such a small area? Well, it so happened that this visit coincided with the sodding Frost Fayre, making it impossible to move freely around town for the mass of hippies with dogs on string, who had gathered to hopefully extract money with their off-key renditions of Streets of London and Annie's Song played on lengths of bamboo into which holes had been drilled at seemingly random positions. And from whom were they hoping to extract money? Well, the hoards of visitors who seemed all too ready to exchange their cash for cheap, seasonal, crap. All locally produced cheap, seasonal crap of course. Including those lovely, not so cheap, Peruvian jumpers. Were their origins really closer to Highbridge than Huánuco?
Somewhere in the middle of this mass of humanity and caninity is the Market Place, where four streets, Northload, High, Magdalene and Benedict converge. And somewhere around here once stood the Red Lion Inn.
The Red Lion used to occupy the former gatehouse of Glastonbury Abbey. The main arch was enclosed and formed one of the inn's main rooms.
Quite from when it dates I'm uncertain, but it appears that the Red Lion was in operation at least by the end of the 18th century. The section on the abbey precinct on the British History site, has this sentence: 'By the later 18th century the main gateway had become one of the principal rooms of the Red Lion inn; its crenellated and turretted top was taken down in 1810'. Glastonbury Antiquarians have a picture showing the Red Lion in c1800, still in possession of its crenellations, and William Robinson in his 1844 publication Glastonbury Abbey states: 'In the year 1806, there was a carving over a door-way at the back of a very ancient building then called the Red Lion Inn...'.
A least a couple of centuries old, but the earliest recorded innkeeper that I've found is Maria Fry who's listed in the 1822 and 1830 editions of Kelly's directory. In the second half of the century, according to three censuses, it was in the care of George and Elizabeth Barnett who were there until 1881 or later. By 1891 mine host would've been Albert Browning and ten years further down the line, Frederick Brown.
Below is a colourized postcard of the Red Lion. The process was invented in the 1880s and peaked in popularity in the final decade of the 1800s and the first few years of the twentieth century. Very often photographs of pubs were taken with the landlord standing in front, so perhaps the individual below is Albert or Frederick. If it's Frederick it would've been taken just before the Red Lion closed. It last roared in 1904.
The large red lion sign is reminiscent of the one from the former Red Lion in Hartington. I wonder what became of it?
In spite of being exposed to the elements for over a century there are still traces of the building's former life on the arch above the door. The words 'spirits' and 'liquor' are still quite easily discernable.
So,that's the Red Lion dealt with. What about the Lamb?
The Lamb Inn appears in numerous directory and census entries, the latter suggesting that it was towards the south-east end of Northload Street. It was - and still is. Except that it isn't.
No longer the Lamb, it is however still trading as the Who'd A Thought It. Hopefully it won't need to fully feature in any future post.
Well, that was a quick one. Hopefully Mr. Barrier-Basher's recovery will be equally rapid.
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