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10 MARKET PLACE From before the time of the foundation of the town of Kingston upon Hull in 1299, and for the following twenty years or so, the north of England was under constant threat from marauding Scottish armies. The threat posed by the fall of Berwick in 1318 was enough for the burgesses of Hull to request some form of fortification for the defence of the town. As a consequence, by 1322, the ditches surrounding the town had been deepened to form substantial moats and fortified gates had been built to protect the points of access to the town. Also the first sections of the curtain wall were constructed. There is clear archaeological evidence for the use of brick to build the town walls rather than stone, and at that time, the use of brick to such an extent was almost unique to Hull.
According the ‘Trout’ files housed in the Hull Local Studies Library, the White Horse Inn started trading in the year 1321. His evidence for this is missing sadly, but the location of the property is not difficult to ascertain as White Horse Yard or White Horse Entry can be found on the 1853 and 1886 Ordnance Survey plans of the town [see later]. The western end of the yard or entry fronted Market Place, with the address of 9-10 being quite definite. The date of the inception of the inn is however a little less certain provided me mistrust Trout because of his lack of supportive evidence. Located at the western end of Horrox plot 38 ‘The Changing Plan of Hull’, the Market Place frontage of the plot is not mentioned in the town rental of 1347, which indicates that there was no building on the site at that time. Forty years later, in a document BRA 6/D-163 Hull City Archives, dated 16 th November 1387, the boundaries of plot 38 (the High Street end) are clearly stated as “messuage of John Colthorpe, late of Richard de Barton to the south; land of the said John Colthorpe to the west” (i.e. the Market Place frontage). This document similarly indicates there was no building on the site at this time. Document D-169 dated August 1391, is a deed made between John de Skeryngton, William son of Peter, Walter son of Geoffry and John Clark, chaplains; and John Tutbury for the conveyance of a tenement in Hulle (High) Strete. The document is endorsed: “evidence of a new(?) tenement of John Tutbury near Whythors” (sic). Clearly, by 1391 the White Horse had been built. A further document of the same date, D-171, being also a conveyance to John Tutbury of a tenement in Hulle Strete which abutted onto Barton Lane which, according to Horrox, was clearly the early name for White Horse Entry. From these it would appear that John Colthorpe, who was the town mayor in the late 1380’s and must therefore have been a man of some local substance, had built the edifice which was to be the White Horse Inn about 1389-90. There is then a gap in the documentation, after which the next item of interest is dated 15 th June 1438, by which time the owner of the property was Sir William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk. This document was a grant of land enclosed by a brick wall, from the earl to John Bedford and John Steton for a lane together with a postern-gate in the said wall, near the inn of ‘le Whitehorse’. The boundaries of the land in question are described as: the inn of the said Earl ‘le Whitehorse’ to the west, tenement of Bedford and Steton to the east, lane leading to the street from the said inn to the south. Exactly when the de la Pole family acquired the land and inn is unknown. When they lost it however is known. The last of the Pole’s, then Duke of Suffolk was attained in 1514, whereupon all his property fell to the Crown. It was then granted to Sir William Sydney who took over the lordship of Hull and Myton. The ownership of the property is confirmed by document M-112, which states that the tenant of the White Horse was Alice Norrey, widow, who was a tenant at will of the said Sir William. According to the Bench Books which recorded events in the town, there was during the reigns of King James I and King Charles I, much concern in official circles about the proliferation of unlicensed tippling-houses and other placed where retailed alcohol could be purchased by the public. BB V pp.119, dated 21 st October 1630 states for example:
Consequently, as a result of the afore mentioned entry, there appears in BB V pp. 153, dated 28 th February 1632, a comprehensive list of all licensed premises within the boundary of the borough by ward. An Act of Parliament dated 4/5 Edward VI Cap. XXV (1552) restricted the number of inns in the town of Hull licensed to retail wine, to a meagre four. Of others, ale houses, and all other retailers of alcohol, there is a total of 29, making a total of 33 when the inns are included. Of this number it is of interest to note that those so licensed, 14 licensees were women. The inn holders named are Robert Barnard (Humber ward); James Robinson, Anthony Iveson, and John Little (all of Trinity ward). It can be said with some conviction, but with little else in support, that of these, the White Horse was one of them, another was perhaps the King’s Head High Street (Humber ward), of the remaining two it can be theorised that they were either the George Inn, George Yard; the Seven Stars, Mytongate; and the Reindeer, also on Market Place, all of which it can be proved by documentary evidence were trading by that time. The Wenceslaus Hollar plan of the town made about 1640, which was primarily made to show the town defences, clearly shows on the east side of Market Place, half way between Scale Lane and Church Lane a structure not unlike a Norman tower arx.. it is this author’s conjecture that the White Horse inn and the tower were one and the same. It is known that the building was still standing when Hollar made his plan, and there is no other building of a suitable size or significance shown on that part of the street. Obliviously the inn was not designed as a castle keep, it was far too small, its largest dimension had to have been less than 40 feet on the street frontage. Bearing in mind however the turbulent times in which it was built, it would not be surprising it a wealthy merchant family such as the de la Pole’s decided to build his new house in a form that could, if necessity demanded, be made defensible. There is no other building mentioned in the Calendar of Ancient Deeds and Documents that even vaguely fits the location of this structure so surely and carefully drawn by Hollar. An attempt has been made by this author to enlarge upon the depiction by Hollar based on the architecture of other large buildings in the town such as Holy Trinity Church, which was substantially brick built with stone trim.
The story of Hull during the English Civil War is told within this web site at: http://www.yorkshirehistory.com/siegesframe.htm Perhaps as a consequence of the war, there is a hiatus in the records for this property, which resumes on the 19 th December 1672. At this date the Ordnances of the Trade Guild of Innkeepers (doc. M-478) were recorded. This document states “And them [the innkeepers] to congregate in the Lord’s Chamber or the White Horse of the said town…” The title ascribed to the chamber within the White Horse certainly implies that the property was owned by a lord, whether the lord in question was a de la Pole or a Sydney is not important. The same document also states that William Riley was elected the first Master and Warden of the guild, which argues that he was the innkeeper of the White Horse. What also seems certain is that the inn was then a premier hostelry in the town and probably had been for a long time. An Act of Parliament dated 4/5 Edward VI Cap. XXV (1552) [mentioned previously herein] restricted the number of inns in the town of Hull licensed to retain wine, to not more than four, it seems therefore certain that this property was one of those four, and consequently can be dated at least as early as the date of the Act. There then follows yet another hundred year before the Trout files once again come to the rescue. They tell that the Hull Advertiser for the 14 th August 1744 contained an advertisement stating that:
Yet another isolated morsel appears in the Deeds Registry in the East Riding Archives at Beverley. It is a deed of Lease and Release between William Spencer and wife from York, John Lawson and wife from Hull, and John Wray, merchant of Hull. The deed concerns two thirds of a messuage, dwelling house or tenement on the east side of Market Place known by the name of the White Horse Inn, with yards, stables and outbuildings……. In the occupation of Ann Jackson and ….. Thompson. This I think dates to the 1760’s, without access to my original files, it is impossible to verify. However, ten years later the inn keeper was recorded as a Mr. Bean, confirmed by an advertisement in the York Courant of the 1 st December 1778, which states that the Hull and York Diligence arrived at the White Horse in the Market Place three times a week. This is an important factor in the development of the coaching trade in and out of the town, and is perhaps the first, but similarly it is the only record of a coach franchise at the White Horse. Such franchises were to become fought over to the point of violence some time later, but more about this when we discuss the Cross Keys inn/hotel. The term diligence in this and related issues refers to a type of ‘slow coach’ not the express service of the faster stage coaches and Royal Mail coaches. It is now a derelict word in this context and its definition has to be interpreted rather than simply ‘looked up’. However, such diligences - as a coaching service - were one of the ranks of public coaching hierarchy. If one begins at the lowest end of the scale, the Carrier’s wagons were a regular service usually on market days, operated at walking pace, with large cumbersome carts; next were the Diligences, which were more comfortable than a Carrier’s wagon, and slightly faster one suspects, then came the Stage coaches, some of which were dangerously fast even to imperilling their passengers; and finally the pinnacle of the road services, the Royal Mail Coaches whose black and maroon livery is still universally recognised. Even this is a very basic description, as there were several other categories of road coaches. Regardless of a considerable search, it has not been possible to arrive at a single work that describes these matters in detail, but if any reader can provide such, www.yorkshirehistory.com would be very pleased to hear of it. In 1788, George Hadley published his work “A History of Hull” in which he wrote concerning the staircase of the White Horse, “ which was so large and the ascent so gradual that horses have been known, when they got loose, to walk up into the hayloft ”. The main point of interest here, while not as entertaining as the concept of horses wandering around the upper levels of an inn, is that Hadley was writing in the past tense. This can therefore only mean that at the time of his writing, the White Horse had gone. As stated earlier, the O.S. plans of the town show the location of White Horse Entry. The plan of 1853 can be twinned with an illustration from a business card dated 1846 which shows a depiction of the Market place entrance to the Entry or Yard. The shop fronts are all very typically Georgian in their style of architecture, and could easily have been built to replace the earlier, and without doubt less fashionable, structure, if indeed it was demolished in the 1780’s as the Hadley evidence suggests. It was not uncommon either for Georgian façades to be added to the frontages of older buildings, which means some remnants of the White Horse may have survived yet longer.
Click on image for a larger version The 1886 O.S. plan is marked with the legend “+ Site of MANSION” which description was perhaps not uncommon for an inn of this kind. It is also perhaps coincidence that the alignment of the Entry to the east, at the High Street end, lines up almost exactly with the southern boundary of another of Hull’s oldest hostelries, the King’s Head, which spanned Temple’s Entry.
It is easy to condemn those who have passed before us for their lack of interest in things historical. The removal of the White Horse from the building fabric of the town was perhaps in hindsight a sad thing, but when this is compared with the wanton destruction of scores of buildings several centuries old which flanked Mytongate and other Old Town thoroughfares in the 1960’s and 70’s even into the present day, we cannot condemn others for wanting a new style town. Progress it seems will almost certainly win over historic substance. So, the loss of the White Horse, whilst poignant, is nonetheless a fact, and cannot be undone no matter how much some might want it. Sentimentality should not get in the way of research, no matter how tempting it can sometimes be!
I originally closed the history of the White Horse with some lines from William Shenstone: Whoe’er has travelled life’s dull round, CONSULTED SOURCES
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Designed by Richard Hayton 2006 |
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