3-101-179 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

White Hart Inn Yard, Southwark, c1881. View of south London coaching inn, showing 'the great extent at one time of this Inn, and the depth of its fall from its "most high and palmy state."... Although according to Mr Rendle, no part of the Inn as we see it is 200 years old, the "White Hart" dates back to the year 1400. Here, half a century later, in 1450, Jack Cade, at the head of the commons of Kent, established his head-quarters: "The Kentish capteine being advertised of the king's advance, came first into Southwarke, and there lodged at the "White Hart." (Holinshed). Shakespeare, in Henry VI., pt.2, act iv., sc.8, makes Cade say: "Hath my sword, therefore broke through London Gates, that you should leave me at the "White Hart", in Southwark?". The reference mentioned by Marks is also included by Edward Walford in Old and New London. "A double tier of bedroom galleries, with old clumsy balustrades, ran round the two sides of the straggling area, and a double row of bells to correspond, sheltered from the weather by a little sloping roof, hung over the door leading to the bar and coffee-room. Two or three gigs and chaise-carts were wheeled up under different little sheds and pent-houses".' Description by Alfred Marks.