the end of the sixteenth century, and the Bell, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire (132), may well have started as a monastic hospice in the thirteenth century, for wall paintings of that date have been found on interior walls, although the building is mainly sixteenth-century and carries the date 1697.
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131. The George Inn, Norton St Philip, Somerset |
The Church and religious houses were not alone in providing accommodation for travellers, and there are many old inns still surviving which met the needs of the traveller. One of the finest is the Mermaid, Rye, East Sussex (133), rebuilt in 1420 on the site of an earlier tavern destroyed in 1377. Another is the Saracen’s Head, Southwell, Nottinghamshire (134), an inn used by kings and nobles since the twelfth century.
By the end of the sixteenth century, hospices run by religious orders had been replaced by inns run by private enterprise, while more and more alehouses and taverns began to provide accommodation for the traveller. Many private houses began to be turned into inns to satisfy
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