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Image of the day – 188
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
This photo was taken in Cirencester, peering in through an entrance to a courtyard beyond. If you are familiar with the town, I wonder if you know where this is? *The answer is at the bottom of the post.
There’s an invitation in this photo
That’s why I called it ‘Come right in!’ There seems to be an unspoken welcome here. What appeals to you most in this picture? Is it the warmth of the light? Or perhaps the sparkle of the decorative lights at the far end? Or the open doors beckoning you to enter? In days of yore, this double doorway might have allowed a horse to be brought inside for stabling, feeding, watering and grooming to recover for use the following day. The carriage would have remained on the street outside.
‘Days of yore’, this funny old expression is a poetical way of saying long ago. ‘yore’ is an Old English word closely related to the modern word ‘year’. So the sense is ‘in the days of years ago’. There’s a large garden at the back of the hotel, with a lawn scattered with tables and chairs, a lovely place to eat and drink with friends or family in the summer months. I imagine the horses sometimes being turned out to graze in a grassy field here, what a treat for them!
Shelter for travellers
Travelling on horseback or by horse and carriage was a slow affair, requiring regular stops for meals or to shelter for the night, and that’s why the old routes between towns in Britain are liberally scattered with pubs, inns and hostels. Practically every village of hamlet would have had one and towns would have had many more. They’re not hard to spot, although these days many have been converted to other uses.
It wouldn’t always have been necessary to pay for accommodation, friends or family along or near the route would have made travellers welcome and on dry, warm, summer nights it would have been possible to pull off the main roads and sleep outside or in the carriage. The simplest and cheapest way to travel would have been to walk, and people often did exactly that. For an example look no further than the old story of Dick Whittington. In Roman times there were parallel systems for official/military and public use. Every 30 to 50 km (a day’s journey) there were mansiones or official stops with good accomodation, fresh horses, dining areas, and perhaps even baths. And between these were mutationes, (literally ‘changes’) for a brief stop, a fresh horse, and perhaps some refreshments but without overnight facilities. Non-official, privately run facilities included cauponae and tabernae, some of these were a bit rough and disreputable, some were well appointed with courtyards, kitchens, and decorated dining rooms. Several modern English terms come from these words – mansion, mutation, and tavern are notable.
The Bible is usually regarded as a religious book, but it’s also a good historical source as well. Read the book of Acts, for example, to get a good idea of what travel by land and sea was like 2000 years ago. See for example Acts 28:11-16 where a place near Rome called ‘Three Taverns’ is mentioned (Tres Tabernae).
* It’s the Corinium Hotel in Gloucester Street, once the Corinium Court Hotel.
See also:
- Corinium Hotel – Website
- Dick Whittington – Wikipedia
- Tres Tabernae – Website
- Tre Taverne – Wikiedia
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