Boar's Head Inn, Eastcheap

Last updated

Boar's Head Inn
Boars Head Tavern (1829).jpg
The Boar's Head Inn in 1829, shortly before demolition. The original Boar's Head sign is in the centre of the building, which was no longer an inn. On the ground floor are a perfume shop and a hat shop.
City of London UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location within the City of London
General information
Type Public house
Location Eastcheap,
City of London,
London
Coordinates 51°30′39.06″N0°5′11.93″W / 51.5108500°N 0.0866472°W / 51.5108500; -0.0866472
Openedbefore 1537
Demolished1831;193 years ago (1831)

The Boar's Head Inn was a tavern in Eastcheap in the City of London which is supposed to be the meeting place of Sir John Falstaff, Prince Hal and other characters in Shakespeare's Henry IV plays.

Contents

Historical basis

The Boar's Head Tavern is featured in historical plays by Shakespeare, particularly Henry IV, Part 1 , as a favourite resort of the fictional character Falstaff and his friends in the early 15th century. The landlady is Mistress Quickly. It was the subject of essays by Oliver Goldsmith and Washington Irving. Though there is no evidence of a Boar's Head inn existing at the time the play is set, Shakespeare was referring to a real inn that existed in his own day. Established before 1537, but destroyed in 1666 in the Great Fire of London, it was soon rebuilt and continued operation until some point in the late 18th century, when the building was used by retail outlets. What remained of the building was demolished in 1831. [1] The boar's head sign was kept, and is now installed in the Shakespeare's Globe theatre. [2]

Neo-Gothic building

The site of the original inn is now part of the approach to London Bridge in Cannon Street. From 1844 to 1935 the Statue of William IV stood on the location of the former inn, before being moved to Greenwich. [3] Near the site, at 33–35 Eastcheap, the architect Robert Lewis Roumieu created a neo-Gothic building in 1868; this makes references to the Boar's Head Inn in its design and exterior decorations, which include a boar's head peeping out from grass, and portrait heads of Henry IV and Henry V. Roumieu's building originally functioned as a vinegar warehouse, though it has since been converted into offices. [4] Nikolaus Pevsner described it as "one of the maddest displays in London of gabled Gothic brick". Ian Nairn called it "the scream you wake on at the end of a nightmare". [5]

Depiction by Washington Irving

Washington Irving, in his The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., wrote "The Boar's Head Tavern East Cheap," as a detective story of sorts, in which the author attempts to locate the real-life tavern of Shakespeare's Falstaff.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Falstaff</span> Character in three of Shakespeares plays

Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, where he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V of England. Falstaff is also featured as the buffoonish suitor of two married women in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Though primarily a comic figure, he embodies a depth common to Shakespeare's major characters. A fat, vain, and boastful knight, he spends most of his time drinking at the Boar's Head Inn with petty criminals, living on stolen or borrowed money. Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is repudiated when Hal becomes king.

<i>Henry IV, Part 1</i> Play by Shakespeare

Henry IV, Part 1 is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written not later than 1597. The play dramatises part of the reign of King Henry IV of England, beginning with the battle at Homildon Hill late in 1402, and ending with King Henry's victory in the Battle of Shrewsbury in mid-1403. In parallel to the political conflict between King Henry and a rebellious faction of nobles, the play depicts the escapades of King Henry's son, Prince Hal, and his eventual return to court and favour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">King William Street, London</span> Street in the City of London, London, England

King William Street is a street in the City of London, the historic nucleus and modern financial centre of London. It is a two-way street linking Lombard Street, at its northern end, with London Bridge, which marks the start of the start of the A3 route to Portsmouth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastcheap</span> Street in the City of London

Eastcheap is a street in central London that is a western continuation of Great Tower Street towards Monument junction. Its name derives from cheap, the Old English word for market, with the prefix 'East' distinguishing it from Westcheap, another former market street that today is called Cheapside.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Pistol</span> Character in several plays by Shakespeare

Ancient Pistol is a swaggering soldier who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. Although full of grandiose boasts about his prowess, he is essentially a coward. The character is introduced in Henry IV, Part 2, and reappears in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry V.

<i>Chimes at Midnight</i> 1965 film by Orson Welles

Chimes at Midnight is a 1966 period comedy-drama film written, directed by, and starring Orson Welles. Its plot centers on William Shakespeare's recurring character Sir John Falstaff and his fatherly relationship with Prince Hal, who must choose loyalty to Falstaff or to his father, King Henry IV. The English-language film was an international co-production of Spain, France, and Switzerland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mermaid Tavern</span> Former tavern in London

The Mermaid Tavern was a tavern on Cheapside in London during the Elizabethan era, located east of St. Paul's Cathedral on the corner of Friday Street and Bread Street. It was the site of the so-called "Fraternity of Sireniacal Gentlemen", a drinking club that met on the first Friday of every month that included some of the Elizabethan era's leading literary figures, among them Ben Jonson, John Donne, John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont, Thomas Coryat, John Selden, Robert Bruce Cotton, Richard Carew, Richard Martin, and William Strachey. A popular tradition has grown up that the group included William Shakespeare, although most scholars think that was improbable.

<i>Falstaff</i> (Elgar) Symphonic work by Elgar

Falstaff – Symphonic Study in C minor, Op. 68, is an orchestral work by the English composer Edward Elgar. Though not so designated by the composer, it is a symphonic poem in the tradition of Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss. It portrays Sir John Falstaff, the "fat knight" of William Shakespeare's Henry IV Parts 1 and 2.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mistress Quickly</span> Character in several history plays by Shakespeare

Mistress Nell Quickly is a fictional character who appears in several plays by William Shakespeare. She is an inn-keeper, who runs the Boar's Head Tavern, at which Sir John Falstaff and his disreputable cronies congregate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Michael, Crooked Lane</span> Church in London, England

St Michael, Crooked Lane, was an ancient parish church situated on the east side of Miles's Lane in Candlewick ward in the City of London. It was rebuilt after the Great Fire of London by Sir Christopher Wren, and demolished in 1831.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Lewis Roumieu</span> English architect

Robert Lewis Roumieu otherwise R.L. Roumieu, was a 19th-century English architect whose designs include Milner Square in Islington and an idiosyncratic vinegar warehouse at 33–35 Eastcheap in the City of London. A pupil of Benjamin Dean Wyatt, he worked in partnership with Alexander Dick Gough between 1836 and 1848.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doll Tearsheet</span> Character in Henry IV, Part 2

Dorothy "Doll" Tearsheet is a fictional character who appears in Shakespeare's play Henry IV, Part 2. She is a prostitute who frequents the Boar's Head Inn in Eastcheap. Doll is close friends with Mistress Quickly, the proprietress of the tavern, who procures her services for Falstaff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boar's Head Inn</span> Name of various pubs, mostly in the UK

The Boar's Head Inn is the name of several former and current taverns in London, most famously a tavern in Eastcheap that is supposedly the meeting place of Sir John Falstaff, Prince Hal and other characters in Shakespeare's Henry IV plays. An earlier tavern in Southwark used the same name, and an inn of the name in Whitechapel was used as a theatre.

<i>At the Boars Head</i> 1925 opera by Gustav Holst

At the Boar's Head is an opera in one act by the English composer Gustav Holst, his op. 42. Holst himself described the work as "A Musical Interlude in One Act". The libretto, by the composer himself, is based on Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2.

The Boar's Head Theatre was an inn-yard theatre in the Whitechapel area of London from 1598 to around 1616.

"Henry IV, Part I" and "Henry IV, Part II" are the second and third episodes of the first series of the British television series The Hollow Crown, based on the second set of plays in William Shakespeare's Henriad. The episodes were produced by Sam Mendes, directed and adapted by Richard Eyre and starred Jeremy Irons as King Henry IV, Simon Russell Beale as Falstaff and Tom Hiddleston as Prince Hal. Much of the cast and crew of both episodes overlap and the plot flows directly from the first to the second. The episodes were first broadcast on 7 July and 14 July 2012 on BBC Two.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ned Poins</span> Character in Henry IV, parts 1 and 2

Edward "Ned" Poins, generally referred to as "Poins", is a fictional character who appears in two plays by William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2. He is also mentioned in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Poins is Prince Hal's closest friend during his wild youth. He devises various schemes to ridicule Falstaff, his rival for Hal's affections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boar's Head Inn, Southwark</span> Former inn in London, England

The Boar's Head Inn was an inn at Southwark in London, owned by Sir John Fastolf, who was the inspiration for the Shakespearean character of Falstaff. While the Boar's Head Inn in Eastcheap is not known to have existed during the reign of Henry IV, this inn may have.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Nixon (artist)</span> English sculptor

Samuel Nixon was a portrait sculptor in London, England.

References

  1. Henry C. Shelley, Inns and Taverns of Old London, Boston, L. C. Page, 1909, p. 21.
  2. Asbury, Nick, White Hart Red Lion: The England of Shakespeare's Histories, Oberon, 2013, p. 52.
    • Saunders, Ann. Historic Views of London: Photographs from the Collection of B.E.C. Howarth-Loomes. English Heritage, 2008. p.57
  3. Crawford, David, The City of London: its architectural heritage: the book of the City of London's heritage walks, Woodhead-Faulkner, 1976, p. 56.
  4. Christopher Hibbert et al., The London Encyclopedia, Macmillan, 2011, p. 263.