The Life of Fred Archer 35 
heart of Prestbury. The old smoke-room upstairs has queer 
httle alcoves and a black corner cupboard, and, of course, oak 
beams in the ceiling. The staircases are very winding, with 
unexpected turns and twists and Uttle recesses, and the whole 
place has a sort of lavendery, old-world peace. The black oak 
of the smoke-room is well seasoned by the long churchwarden 
pipes of those Jacobites who escaped the Georgian vicar's 
searching eye, of many Hanoverians, and of all the Vic- 
torians who were anybody in the palmy days of Cheltenham 
Spa, when " Old Q." drove about Prestbury in such a yellow 
coach-and-four that the simple villagers thought he was the 
Prince of Wales. 
In Fred Archer's boyhood the smoke-room was a sort of 
club, where nightly the squire, the parson, the doctor, the 
lawyer, the better-class tradesmen and the aspiring jockey 
Cheswas smoked their churchwardens, drank good ale and 
told tall tales. When William Archer was the landlord, Tom 
Oliver, Isaac Day and William Holman used to meet there and 
discuss sporting matters with their host, the famous steeple- 
chase rider. Jemmy Edwards, the middleweight champion, 
was often there. He used to train at Prestbury, where he and 
Tom Sayers used to spar with Lindsay Gordon, and once in 
Edwards's boxing saloon in the Lower High Street, Gordon, 
by a fluke, got the better of the unbeaten " Earjrwig." Mr. Tom 
Pickernell was there, and he told the tale and fought the battle 
over again in his little house at King's Heath with the syringas 
in the front garden. 
Nowadays the aristocracy have more or less deserted the 
old inn where Jack Mytton, Charretie, the Berkeleys, the 
fascinating and luckless Berkeley Craven, Fulwar Craven and 
a host of other celebrities were formerly to be found. Nowa- 
days the villagers congregate in the tap-room and spin yarns 
about the local heroes, and especially " Freddy." " And," said 
one of them, " that's where you should go o' nights if you want 
to hear tales of Archer from the men who knew him as a boy." 
