Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/54

 when another building was erected on a portion of the ancient site, occupying the centre of the large court-yard. This edifice remained, bearing the sign of the Angel, until the year 1854, when it finally disappeared. Some twenty-five years ago, it was described by an old inhabitant of Leicester in the following words :— "The front of this inn was in the yard which is now occupied by Morley and Sons. It was a posting Inn, and was occupied by Mrs. Whitehead for many years, her son conducting the business for her. After her death he became the proprietor. The sign, a hanging one, bore the representation of an Angel in vivid colours." The locality of the old hostelry is now pointed out only by the popular name of a partly covered passage from Cheapside to Gallowtree Gate, "the Angel Gateway." One surviving relic of this famous inn is a farthing token, issued in the year 1667 by Nathaniel Baker, which bears on the obverse his name encircling the figure of an angel, and on the reverse "1667 in Lester" — surrounding his initials N.B. conjoined.

About the year 1894 there was dug up on the site of the old Angel Inn a fragment of stone bearing the Arms of Hastings, Wake, Peveril of Cornwall and another coat.

The Inn is mentioned in 1547, when Henry Grey, of Bradgate, Marquis of Dorset, stayed there. At the end of the 16th century it belonged to the Herrick family, having been conveyed in 1570, with other property, to John Herrick for the term of 1,000 years for the annual rent of a rose flower. His eldest son, Robert, by his Will, dated 1617, gave the White Hart Inn to Dorcas, one of his nine daughters, who was then unmarried. It was valued in the previous year at £200, "which is well worth it and more," wrote Robert Herrick, in one of his letters. It lay outside the East Gate, and became a favourite place of resort in the early years of the 18th century. When George the First was crowned, in September, 1714, the Corporation of Leicester, after attending St. Martin's Church, and listening to an appropriate sermon, returned to the Town Hall, whence they were "to decently walk to the White Hart to an Ordinary," the Corporation to allow "a bottle of wine between two of all such as shall have tickets that dine, and as much ale 30