The following will be a survey of those hostelries recorded at one time or another as existing in Crewkerne, and which are now no more. Some have been gone for many years, or even centuries; but others are recent enough to be well-remembered by current Crewkerne residents and, indeed, five of the older houses were operating during my own time...
The following are historical sketches of Crewkerne's other older inns, both those still in existence, and the ones that are no more. Since I first undertook these researches Crewkerne, like the rest of the country, has seen some dramatic attrition affecting the town's inns. When I last revised the list there were ten establishments that were at least 100 years...
In looking back and revising the eighth chapter of this study I've been given pause as to retaining the title "In Living Memory". My reason for this - not surprisingly after a hiatus of nearly 20 years - is that at least three of my previous informants have since gone under the wire. However, I have reflected that those individuals...
In 1900 George Hilborne Jolliffe and Henry J. Coston concluded an agreement granting Mr. Coston a twenty-one year tenancy of the George Hotel. As far as I am able to ascertain Henry John Coston was born in 1863 at King’s Lynn, Norfolk. All the evidence suggests that he was an energetic and thrustingly entrepreneurial proprietor. Mr. Coston consistently applied this...
During his period in the 1990s as proprietor of the George, Mr. Gary Gilmore acquired a two-gallon glazed pottery spirit jug. It is a fairly common object but its curiosity value to Mr. Gilmore lay in its being imprinted “George Hotel, Crewkerne, C.F. Flowerdew, Prop.” Little else, beyond the occurrence of his name in various deeds and directories, remains of...
“…Notwithstanding that the supper last night was unexceptionable – that the punch was like the nectar of the gods – that the cigars were veritable wafters away of care – that our cosy evening’s gossip was not perhaps uninteresting – and that the bed was an irresistible inviter of repose, ‘ the sheets smelling of lavender’…” ...
Anyone enquiring deeply into the history of the George – and of Crewkerne generally – will be presented with a plethora of John Slades. It is possible to number at least six (three of whom were at some point contemporaneous with one another) who may with some justice be considered to have a connection – however tenuous – with the...
The least documented period in the history of the George Inn lies between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries. At some time in the late 1600s title to the freehold of the George passed from the Hutchins family and became part of the property appertaining to the Manor of Easthams. Ownership of the Manor was acquired in 1694 from the Freke...
"It would hardly be possible to exaggerate the historical importance of this experiment of the posts of the Plymouth Road. It ranks as the greatest social invention of a century which also produced the coffee house, the printed journal and the turnpike road."J. Crofts, Packhorse, Waggon & Post The experiment referred to...
An Account of the George Hotel At Crewkerne Together with Historical Sketches of the Other Old Inns – both extant & defunct - Of that Ancient Somerset Town By Patrick Carroll Copyright: Patrick Carroll 2012 In Memory of my mother, Anne Carroll (1905-1998), whose final years were made more comfortable through the kindness of Crewkerne people. * * * * * * * * * * * “Yet a gentleman may not...