George Inn

18th and early 19th century posting inn

The George Inn occupied this site from 1614 to 1869 when it was removed to be replace by a store. The column to the left of the car in the photgraph survives to this day and a nearby plaque commemorates the inn's existance.

In the 1700s and early 1800s the inn held the monopoly for mail coaches. As the roads improved with the introduction of turnpikes, the speed of coaches also improved, with the journey to London from York taking 96 hours in 1706 and 30 hours in 1818. By 1836 the journey had been cut to 20 hours, but the advent of the railways in the 1840s took the business away from coaches and thus from coaching inns so that by 1869 the George was considered redundant and removed.

Commemorative plaque.

Photo: taken Sunday morning, 29 April 2007.
Photo Copyright Dave Woodcock 2008.