I.

INNS AND TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON.




CHAPTER I.

FAMOUS SOUTHWARK INNS.


Unique among the quaint maps of old London is one which traces the
ground-plan of Southwark as it appeared early in the sixteenth
century. It is not the kind of map which would ensure examination
honours for its author were he competing among schoolboys of the
twentieth century, but it has a quality of archaic simplicity which
makes it a more precious possession than the best examples of modern
cartography. Drawn on the principle that a minimum of lines and a
maximum of description are the best aid to the imagination, this
plan of Southwark indicates the main routes of thoroughfare with a
few bold strokes, and then tills in the blanks with queer little
drawings of churches and inns, the former depicted in delightfully
distorted perspective and the latter by two or three half-circular
strokes. That there may be no confusion between church and inn, the
possibility of which is suggested by the fact that several of
the latter are adorned with spire-like embellishments, the
sixteenth-century cartographer told which were which in so many