Searching for Regency London

by Ann Lethbridge

New Cover!

This is my December book The Gamekeeper's Lady out in the UK, isn't it gorgeous? Drooling here. I don't yet have a copy but I am very pleased with this new style and the cover itself. So like my heroine.

Regency London

You would think after a day of tramping around Hampstead, I would have had the sense to go home and have a nice cup of tea. Not.

That evening I took the underground to Southwark. This is Southwark Cathedral, at night of course. I must say blogger is being very slow with pictures today, which may limit the number I post this time, so please excused the short post.

This was originally a priory and was not a cathedral during the regency era, but it was one of England's first Gothic churches and stands at the entry to London Bridge, the only way into London for many centuries.

The real reason for my visit to Southwark is of course the coaching inn. One of the few remaining where one can still see the galleries.

This is the George Inn in Southwark. Only one of its sides - the south side now remains. I wanted to see it at night.





I also went there during daylight hours.


The George can be traced back to 1542 although it is likely that an inn existed here prior to this. Built around three sides of a courtyard - the style became known as an 'inn-yard'. The inn served as an Elizabethan inn-yard theatre. Its wide, double-tiered balconies were an excellent vantage point for the Elizabethan plays. William Shakespeare lived and worked in the area and there is no doubt that he would have frequented the Inn on a regular basis and even possibly have played there, though not in the building we see now, the original inn burned down in 1676, but was rebuilt the same as the old one.



Coaches would have left from here to go through Tunbridge Wells to Dover during the Regency.



Well that is all from me today, so until next time, Happy Rambles.