8 THE DOVER ROAD 



back to the twelfth century, and their fabric to some 

 time subsequently to the fire of 1676, are nearly all 

 either utterly demolished, or are put to use as railway 

 receiving offices. The "Queen's Head" is gone; the 

 " George," most interesting of all that remain here, 

 is threatened ; the " Spur " is left, little changed ; 

 the " Half Moon " is still the house for a good chop 

 or steak and a tankard of ale ; but the " White Hart," 

 where is it ? Where the " Tabard," the " King's 

 Head," the " Catherine Wheel," the " Boar's Head," 

 the " Old Pick my Toe," or the " Three Widows " ? 

 In vain will the curious who pay pilgrimage to 

 Southwark seek them. There still are many cavernous 

 doorways, stone-flagged passages, and great court- 

 yards ; but nothing more romantic than railway vans 

 is to be seen in the most of them, and the yard Avhere 

 Sam Weller w^as first introduced to an admiring public 

 is quite gone. 



The most romantically named of the Southwark 

 inns now left is undoubtedly the " Blue Eyed Maid," 

 so named, possibly, in connection with Tamplin's 

 " Blue Eyed Maid " coach that used to run between 

 Southw^ark and Rochester in the twenties. The 

 building, though, does not share the romanticism 

 of its name. Near it, let into the seventeenth-century 

 brick frontage of No. 71, High Street, is the old sign 

 of the " Hare and Sun," the trade-mark of Nicholas 

 Hare ; and this, together with the stone half-moon 

 sign in the yard of the " Half Moon Inn," is the sole 

 relic of the many devices that once decorated the street. 

 The hop trade has taken almost undivided possession 

 of the place nowadays. The Hop Exchange is over 

 the way, and hop-factors are as frequently to be 

 met with here as diamond-merchants in Hatton 

 Garden ; and with their coming the old-fashioned 

 appearance of Southwark High Street is gone. 



Even when Hogarth painted his " Southwark Fair," 

 in 1733, the street was suburban, and in the distance, 

 seen betw^een the crowds gathered round old St. 



