with steepish roofs of tiles, dormer windows and railed balconies
supported below by pillars of stone, above by pillars of wood,
standing about two sides of a courtyard in which the carrier's long
covered carts from Horsham or Rochester are waiting, nothing at all
remains. The last of it was finally destroyed in 1875, and the Tabard
Inn of the new fashion was built at the corner as we see.

The old hostelry, which besides its own beauty had this claim also
upon our reverence, that it represented in no unworthy fashion the
birthplace as it were of English poetry, owes of course all its fame
to Chaucer, who lay there on the night before he set out for
Canterbury as he tells us:

When that Aprille with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote....
Bifel that, in that season on a day
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay
Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At night was come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a companye
Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle
In felawshipe, and pilgrims were they alle,
That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde;
The chambres and the shelter weren wyde,
And wel we weren esed atte beste
And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste,
So hadde I spoken with hem everichon,
That I was of hir felawshipe anon
And made forward erly for to ryse,