Page:The George Inn, Southwark.djvu/11

 One by one the old coaching inns of London have disappeared, leaving behind them little or nothing but a name to remind us of those days when a glamour of romance attached to travelling by road, and when the hospitality of an inn was measured by an atmosphere of cosiness and comfort which do not obtain in hotels to-day, in spite, or perhaps because, of their luxuriousness.

Happily there remains the "George Inn" in Southwark to recall for us the allurement which those old inns possessed.

The object of the writer of this book has been to gather into a permanent form, as a memento for habitués and visitors, all that is known regarding this survival of the old coaching era.

If the following pages prove of interest to the reader equal to that the writer has experienced in collecting and arranging the material, the task will not have been in vain.

He has to thank Mr. Philip Norman, LL.D. for permission to quote from The Inns of Old Southwark and for the use of two of the pictures from it; and Miss Murray and Mr. T. W. Tyrrell for the use of several photographs.