Attached to the church of St. Magnus the Martyr, whose tall and beautiful tower forms so striking an object in views of London Bridge, is a grim little plot of land, once a churchyard green with grass and open to the sunshine, but now only to be reached through the vestry, and hemmed in by tall buildings to such an extent that sunshine will not reach down there, and the earth is bare and dark. There stands the well-preserved stone to the memory of Robert Preston, once "drawer"--that is to say, a "barman"--at the famous "Boar's Head," Eastcheap. The stone was removed from the churchyard of St. Michael, Paternoster Royal. Planted doubtless by some sentimental person, a small vine-tree grows at the foot of the stone.
[Illustration: PRESTON'S EPITAPH, ST. MAGNUS-THE-MARTYR.]
Among minor epitaphs that may be noticed to persons in some way engaged in the licensed victualling trade, is that in the churchyard of Capel Curig, on the Holyhead Road, to Jonathan Jackson, who died in 1848, and was "for many years a most confidential waiter at Capel Curig inn."
Here and there, scattered in the byways of the country, rather than situated in towns, inns may be found that have some attribute out of the common, in the way of privileges conferred or usurped. Thus, the licence of the "White Hart" inn at Adwalton, near Drighlington, Yorkshire, has, or had, the unusual privilege of holding the charter for the local fair, granted by Queen Elizabeth in 1576 to John Brookes, the then landlord, who under that charter held the exclusive right to levy tolls and direct the entire conduct of the gathering.
This royal grant recalls a once-celebrated inn on a road in Derbyshire greatly travelled in the coaching age. In a now lonely position on that very bleak and elevated highway, the road between Ashbourne and Buxton, stands the inn known as "Newhaven House." A haven of some sort was sorely wanted there in coaching days, and accordingly this great building was ordained by the Duke of Rutland, one of those two overawing noble landlords of the district, who had merely to say, in their off-hand manner, "Let it be done," for almost anything to be done, forthwith.
It was in the flamboyant days of George the Fourth that the "Newhaven" inn arose, and his Majesty himself stayed one night "under its roof," as the guide-books carefully say, lest perhaps we might suspect him of sleeping on the tiles. Those were the days when travelling Majesties still did picturesque things, more or less in the manner of the Caliphs in the _Arabian Nights_; and the great George, by some mysterious exercise of kingly prerogative, granted the house a perpetual licence, by way of signifying his content with the entertainment provided. That perpetual licence must once have been a very valuable asset of the Manners family, for the house was, in the merry days of the road, one of the best-appointed and most thriving posting and coaching establishments of the age; but in these times it is very quiet and very empty, save for the great Newhaven horse- and cattle-fairs, in spring and autumn, now the two red-letter days of the year for the once-busy hostelry.