Posted by: Blog Administrator
on Aug 2, 2011
Tagged in:
Work Experience ,
Wessex ,
village ,
Sherston ,
Saxon ,
Rattlebone ,
King Edmund Ironside ,
John Aubrey ,
Inn ,
Ethelred the Unready ,
Cnut ,
Canute ,
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
We recently spent an afternoon in the village of Sherston with work experience students looking at the development of the village. A prominent feature is the Rattlebone Inn, standing at the corner of the market place of what was a planned medieval town. The inn sign shows a Saxon warrior wielding an axe, commemorating the legend of John Rattlebone.
F0018 The Rattlebone Inn. The building dates from around 1700 when several new houses were built in Sherston.
We must turn now to John Aubrey, who recorded the following piece of doggerel that was used by old women and children in the mid 17th century;
“Fight well Rattlebone,
Posted by: Blog Administrator
on Feb 8, 2011
Tagged in:
writing ,
Wootton Bassett ,
Wiltshire ,
White Hart ,
Wheatsheaf ,
unique ,
The Rattlebone ,
The Green Dragon ,
talks ,
sign ,
Sherston ,
Sally Pussey’s Inn ,
Sally Pursey ,
Russia ,
Richard II ,
regal ,
Red Lion ,
Pub Names of Britain ,
pub names ,
property ,
popular ,
Peter the Great ,
Pembroke Arms ,
nursery rhyme ,
novel ,
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Moonrakers ,
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Martin Chuzzlewitt ,
Lion and Fiddle ,
Leslie Dunkling and Gordon Wright ,
landowners ,
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King Canute ,
John Rattlebone ,
John of Gaunt ,
Inn ,
hostelries ,
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Blue Dragon ,
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Alderbury
Some of the most popular talks I give are those dealing with the meaning of inn and pub names. Currently we don’t have a great variety of pub names in Wiltshire but we do still have some interesting ones. The Green Dragon at Alderbury was used by Charles Dickens in Martin Chuzzlewitt, as he was staying nearby while writing this novel. Dickens used many hostelries in his books and in this case he renamed it the Blue Dragon; perhaps the sign was somewhat faded to a pale blue and he misinterpreted it as it would have been unlikely that the name was on the building.
The Green Dragon at Alderbury
The green dragon came from the earls of Pembroke and many of the early names used the badges of great families. The red lion of John of Gaunt, the black bear of the earls of Warwick and the white hart of Richard II are still common today. From the 18th century the full coat of arms was often used so that in Fovant we have the Pembroke Arms. The association with the badge or coat of arms often indicated that the family owned the property or were the chief landowners in the area.
