OLD INNS OF WIMBORNE. 47 



On the south-east corner of the Church-yard, the modern 

 shop front of a furniture store hides the main body of an old 

 building which \vas once an Inn of the name " Catherine Wheel." 

 It appears thus in the title deeds of 1703, and its name recalls 

 that of St. Catherine's Chapel, which once stood on the land 

 still called St. Catherine's, situated south of Eastbrook bridge. 

 By 1800 the inn had become a barber's shop (noted for a lady 

 barber of reputed attractions); and a little higher up on the 

 other side of the road we find the " Mail Coach Inn," at the 

 corner of Chantry Lane. The " Mail Coach " is now no 

 longer an inn, but is remembered as such by old inhabitants. 

 The house bears the date 1706. As mail coaches did not 

 exist till 1784, we may surmise that the " Catherine Wheel " 

 was the predecessor of the " Mail Coach," and that the business 

 of the former was transferred across the road to the " Mail 

 Coach " about the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. 



Retracing our steps to the Minster we find, in Cheapside, a 

 little below the Church House, " The Bell Inn." We have no 

 record of this Inn earlier than 1801, when it goes by the name 

 of the " Old Bell;" but the name, and its close proximity to the 

 Minster and its famous bells, warrants us as recording it as 

 an old inn. In the 500 odd years of Churchwardens' accounts 

 there are many interesting items concerning the bells, and in 

 1629-30 the great bell was taken down and re-cast in Henry 

 Allen's garden near the Church, by Anthony Bond the bell- 

 founder. That an inn of this name and in close proximity to 

 the Minster, existed in those times seems highly probable. 

 The only other inn which I shall refer to in this paper is one 

 that stood near the Eastbrook bridge and was called the 

 " King's Anns." The premises are now in use as a cycle shop 

 and motor engineering business, carried on by Mr. F. King. 

 Old inhabitants remember this as a coaching inn, and doubt- 

 less coaches taking the Ringwood, Wimborne, and Poole route, 

 would be glad to avoid the narrow winding streets of the 

 town by stopping here, their nearest point of call. 



In 1601 mentioned as belonging to Robert Higdenin his will. 



In 1703, Robert Temple raised a mortgage of 80 on the 



