Wheatley Hospitality (3)

Hostelries, Hospitals, and Hotels all offer shelter.  The Good Samaritan took the injured man to an inn.  During the Civil War, 1642-6, The Bell and other inns nursed and buried casualties at parish expense.  When the King reinforced bridge defences, Wheatley homes and inns quartered soldiers for a quartermaster’s billet (chitty), redeemable after victory.  During World War II an inn housed Wheatley’s mortuary. Railway passenger VIPs waited at the Railway Hotel for carriages from Garsington Manor, Cuddesdon Palace and Shotover House.  A Railway Tavern downhill, (later Sandpiper   and Common Room), was nicknamed ‘The Rampant Cat’.

Long before that, The Swan stood on Louse Hill, above Crown Square, The Chequers at the bottom of Friday Lane, The Maidenhead  at Mitcheldene, High St, and The Red Lion became New Club.

Bypassed and lonely, The Crown stretched itself to Crown Tap (Doctor Fleury’s house on Church Road) from where ‘Crown Lane’ still cuts through to the new turnpike (London Rd).  A coffee house needed no licence.  The Millers of Shotover paid for building The Merry Bells to create jobs and to tackle the nationwide alcohol problem; indirectly it gave Wheatley a village hall.  Willowdene, The Bridge and The Rose and Lilly were private hotels.

Stop Press: The King and Queen 2013, in the picture are Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, after 20 years of Charles I and Henrietta, who replaced William III and Mary: bets are now being taken for the next contenders … Wills and Kate ?