There seem to have been at least two Beggars Bush pubs in London; one in St Giles north of the Thames and one in Southwark south of the river. Beyond that little can be reliably said about the Southwark example. It was probably in Gravel Lane  near Paris Garden. It was there in the reign of William III (1688-1702). It may have been in existence earlier during the period that Southwark was the centre of theatrical activity in London, and the home of writers such as John Fletcher. It is likely to be the inn referred to in the ballad London’s Ordinarie c.1685.

In Notes and Queries. “C.V.H.S.” claimed to own an old pewter tankard of the time of William III, inscribed “at ye Bager’s Bush in Grauel Leane”. Philip Norman replied that this referred to the “Beggars Bush Inn”, Gravel Lane, Southwark, which was mentioned by W. J. Meymott in his History of the Manor of Old Paris Garden, (1881 for private circulation).

Thomas Fairman wrote in Early London theatres: in the field (1894) “Opposite the Castle in Holland Street were two other hostelries — The Next Boat and The Beggars’ Bush. The ‘next boat’ to Blackfriars and the Middlesex shore: a choice of stairs for taking ship — Falcon Stairs, Paris Garden Stairs, and, further west a few yards. Bull Stairs and Old Barge House Stairs. Of these names all exist to-day, except Paris Garden Stairs; and if we cross the river homewards, by Blackfriars Bridge, we are traversing, within a few feet, the line of the ancient ferry, in the wake of Elizabethan play-goers, at a distance of three centuries” (p.289 ).

W. Rendle, the antiquarian and historian of Southwark places the Beggars’ Bush pub close to Paris Garden Stairs, though does not give any source. In an article in 1885 he places it adjacent to the infamous stew Holland’s Leaguer close to the Falcon with its stairs to the river. The area is shown on The Map of Early Modern London.

In The Inns of Old Southwark and their Associations completed from Rendle’s notes by Philip Norman F.S.A. it is suggested that The Beggars’ Bush, Holland’s Leaguer, and Mock Beggar Hall “are probably identical, referring to different phases of the same place”. This seems unlikely – the identification of Holland’s Leaguer with Mock Beggar Hall arises from the re-use of a woodcut which had been used in one of several earlier ballads about the former in the ballad The map of Mock-begger Hall, with his scituation in the Spacious Countrey called Anywhere (1633?). There is nothing in the text to support this. The re-use of woodcuts was common – indeed the other woodcut in the Mock–beggar ballad had also been used before. The association of the Beggars Bush with Holland’s Leaguer is an extension of this. The stew was in an old manor house. It may have been the lodging house Beggars’ Hall recorded in 1688, although that might equally be the Beggars Bush.

There may have been more than one Gravel Lane. However, J. Holden MacMichael wrote that Gravel Lane could have been the one near the Falcon Stairs, Southwark or the one in Houndsditch. A prisoner examined at Southampton gaol in 1615 referred to a “Gravell Lane near Holborne” which would fit the location of the inn north of the river at St Giles, although it may simply be misdirection to the interrogator.

J. Larwood and J.C Hotten, English Inn Signs, (1951, p. 152) say this was “a notorious house  in Southwark in the 17th and 18th centuries.  Later it was re-christened the Horse [sic] & Hounds, after a hare had been hunted and killed on the premises, and afterwards cooked and eaten there”. Apart from the typo this story is told elsewhere and doesn’t seem likely. They also say generally, “it is stated that such signs were really Badger’s Brush, signifying houses where there was badger baiting.” This seems unnecessary; badger baiting was legal in England until 1835, so there was no need for euphemistic/coded names. Also, foxes have brushes, not badgers.

This book is a modern updated edition of Jacob Larwood and John Camden Hotten The history of signboards from earliest times to the present day (2d ed., London, 1866). Both editions include, without comment, a version of the ballad Londons Ordinarie which lists pubs and the characters of their patrons, including the line, “And the Spendthrift to Begger’s Bush” which is entirely consistent with the literary usage.

OS Grid

TQ320800

Sources

Notes and Queries,10 s. VII, 1907, p.209, and p.271
William Rendle, F.R.C.S. The Old Playhouses at Bankside in the time of Shakespeare, Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer, vol. VII, January June 1885 p.207-8

William Rendle, F.R.C.S. & Philip Norman, F.S.A., The Inns of Old Southwark and their Associations London 1888, p.357

The map of Mock-begger Hall

Patricia Fumerton. “Remembering by Dismembering: Databases, Archiving, and the Recollection of Seventeenth-Century Broadside Ballads.”. Early Modern Literary Studies 14.2/Special Issue 17 (September, 2008) 2.1-29

VCH ‘The borough of Southwark: Manors’, A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 4 (1912), pp. 141-151.

Thanks

John Pile