Diss Family History Group

Historic Scole Inn and its great Round Bed

MY STORY last week about the new manager at the Scole Inn prompted mine host at the Diss Cherry Tree, Mr. Sid Talbot to show me a picture of the inn as it looked in 1655. The picture, he said, had been in the family for many years. It portrays the arch across the road and it looked very interesting so I started delving into the records of the inn. And as some of you may know, it is quite a fascinating story. For those who don’t, I think it's well worth writing about.

It was a John Peck, of Norwich, who first had the idea of an inn at Scole, then - in the 1600s - a coaching stop. There was, he told his friend, the Rev. Toby Dobbin, Rector of Frenze, a great deficiency of accommodation there and he proposed to build an inn.

And this he did. In 1655 he had built “The White Hart” - at Scole Inn in a commanding position, for the roads to Norwich, Ipswich, Yarmouth, Bury St. Edmunds and Thetford, converge there.

The entire brickwork was completed in a year - quite a feat when it is realised that the walls in places are 27in. thick. The building was well advertised by the famous sign, an arch of wood extending across the road and carved by Fairchild for £1057.

The Norfolk Directory of 1843 tells of the sign being destroyed some 60 years earlier. Some schools of thought have it that the sign was made of iron, but the great Norfolk historian, Francis Blomefield, writing in 1736. says: “The sign is very large, beautiful all over with a great number of images of large stature carved in wood.”

And Blomefield should have known because he was born at Fersfield and educated at what was then the Guildhall Grammar School, Diss.

Twenty couples

The Norfolk Directory also speaks of a round bed capable of holding 15 to 20 couples. This was also believed to have been destroyed about the same time as the sign.

It must have been a most peculiar bed, from all accounts. As I said it was circular and the feet of the couples who occupied it all converged to the centre. A separate curtain of thin wood came from the centre to ensure privacy for them.

The Directory names Henry Haynes as licensee and post master, and George Scutts as clerk. Scutts became postmaster of Scole, which was then the head post office of the district.

According to his notes there was a three-times-a-week coach service between Norwich and London, via Scole and Bury; a four-horse daily mail service calling at Norwich, Scole, Ipswich, Colchester and London: a daily service - the Phenomena driven by Tom Wiggens - from Norwich to Bury calling at Scole; and a four-horse coach calling at Yarmouth, Becclcs, Bungay, Harleston, Scole, Ipswich and on to London.

The approach to Scole from Norwich, I understand was notified by a clarion call on the horn from the top of the hill, and the horses would be brought from the stable at the inn into the courtyard for the change-over.

And by the way the fare from Scole to London was 15s. if you rode out-side and 30s. inside!

Trade declined

With the opening of the railway, the coach trade declined and with it the inn trade.

In 1864 the Scole Inn Estate was sold by auction. That was the inn, including cellars, bar, two sitting rooms, ballroom, seven bedrooms, attics, scullery pantry, the post office and other buildings containing five bedrooms and other rooms, besides the outhouses and about 20 acres. The whole lot went for £670 to Tacons, the Eye brewers.

At the beginning of this century the big room on the ground floor was used as a parish room and the room above as a reading room, with the hostess being Mrs. Ling. When she died her husband, Sidney Ling, took over until 1914, when he died, and William Webb, Mrs. Ling’s grandson, became the licensee.

During the first world war the North Midland Mounted Brigade officers and N.C.O.s lived at the inn.

After Mr. Webb died in 1922 the inn passed into the hands of Capt. Wade-Palmer, who carried on the work of restoration which Mr. Webb had started.

Fireplaces were unblocked, false staircases removed and the one-time post office was brought back as the dining room. Old doors were found and put back in their original positions.

One important event which the inn can claim is in the Church register - “Charles the Second passed through Scole in his progress to Yarmouth, and brake his fast at the White Hart at the charge of the Right Hon. Lord Cornwallis, upon the 27 Septr. in the 23rd year of his reign 1671.”