Often these can be found inserted under the jettied first floor of a medieval building. However, the unglazed shop front continued to be used and still is today for some trades – butchers and greengrocers; and examples can still be seen – for instance, the butcher’s shop, Brenchley, Kent, a sixteenth-century timber-framed building.
Inns and alehouses form another class of building designed for public use, those constructed of timber being some of the oldest and certainly the most picturesque. Alehouses and taverns must have existed in all medieval towns and, although most were probably secular in origin,
in many towns and villages they had to compete with ‘church ale’ brewed and sold by the church. As we have seen, a church house, situated close by the churchyard, was usually used for this purpose. After the Reformation, however, the brewing of church ale ceased, and in a few cases the church house actually became the alehouse – for instance, the Fox and Goose Inn, Fressingfield, Suffolk.
More often, however, alternative accommodation was provided, either purpose-built premises close to the existing church house (which perhaps explains the close proximity of many to the church) or more likely an existing house or shop was adapted. These ale – or beerhouses were a common feature of many towns and villages from the seven-
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teenth to the nineteenth century, and it is known in many instances that farmhouses and cottages were used, providing the occupants with additional income. In most cases alehouses died out during the nineteenth century, but some developed into the public houses known today. One of these alehouses, the Fleece, Bretforton, Hereford & Worcester (129), a farmhouse until 1840, has survived despite recent ‘improvements’, and the original concept is still much in evidence and gives some idea of what the old alehouses were like. Originally there was no bar; instead a hatch served all three bars. Behind the hatch was the ‘tap-room’, which also served as a beer-cellar. The beer, which as in most of these houses was brewed on the premises, was stored in a shed at the rear, brought into the tap and served from the hatch. Recently the hatch has been enlarged, and hand pumps have been installed. The building is now owned by the National Trust.
Although alehouses and taverns often provided limited accommodation for the traveller, their primary function was to sell ale, and in medieval times accommodation for travellers was usually provided by religious orders. Monasteries had a rule of hospitality which laid down that no traveller calling at the gates could be refused food and shelter. Hospices were often provided away from the monasteries, either on busy routes leading to or in towns which were popular centres for pilgrims visiting shrines. Greyfriars, Worcester (130), is one example of a guesthouse built for the Franciscans in about 1480. It has a lower and an upper hall, the whole fagade being sixty-nine feet long with an archway leading into an inner courtyard flanked by two original wings.
Following the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s, the hospices began to disappear, and they passed into secular hands, often being run by the lord of the manor. Fortunately a few of these old guesthouses still survive; notable examples include the Star Inn, Alfriston, East Sussex, founded in the thirteenth century, parts of which date from about 1450; the King’s Head, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, a timber-framed building dating from about 1450 which almost certainly started as a hospice attached to the Greyfriars monastery founded in 1386; the Falstaff, Canterbury, Kent, built in 1403, and the Pilgrim’s Rest, Battle, East Sussex.
The George Inn, Norton St Philip, Somerset (131), was a hospice built by the Carthusian priory of Hinton and also served as a storehouse for the local wool trade. The original stone building dates from 1397, but a fire destroyed the upper floors which were rebuilt at the end of the fifteenth century in timber. There are other inns which incorporate parts of old hospices or which have been rebuilt on the site of an old hospice: the Ostrich Inn, Colnbrook, Buckinghamshire, founded in 1106 as a hospice, was rebuilt early in the sixteenth century; Ye Olde Bell, Hurley, Berkshire, founded as a hospice in 1135, was rebuilt at
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