Every year I make the annual pilgrimage south to visit old childhood haunts and enjoy a few days with family on Exmoor. This year, however, our West Country trip started further north, near Bath in fact, and somehow turned into a literary & historical pub crawl.

All in the interests of research, you realise: every day is a school day if you are an author.

First West Country stop

The George Inn  This is one place I have long wanted to visit, situated just south of Bath in the pretty village of Norton St Philip and I wasn’t disappointed. It was like stepping back in time. Apparently the inn has had a licence to sell alcohol since 1397, possibly a local licence from Hinton Priory, since the government didn’t start licensing alehouses until the 1550s. And please ignore the “diverted traffic” sign. It is not sending cars through that impressive stone entrance arch!

The George is a beautiful building dating back to the 14th century with the upper storeys added a hundred years or so later. It began life as a wool store for the nearby Hinton Priory with accommodation for merchants coming to the annual wool fairs. It’s easy to imagine weary travellers arriving here and finding themselves in the galleried courtyard.

We stopped there for lunch, and what impressed me most was the friendliness of the staff and their evident enthusiasm for their workplace. They were only too happy to point out that the toilets are now housed under the gallery in what used to be the stables, and they invited us to look into “the dungeon” – more likely an old  store room! – which  now makes a lovely venue for small parties and meetings.

But I promised you literary references…

Literary Reference #1

Do you recognise these stairs?  The George has been a location for several films: The Remains of the Day, Tom Jones, Moll Flanders, to name but a few. As soon as I saw the gallery and stairs,  I remembered the scene from the 1995 film of Persuasion, starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds (and the best adaptation, IMO) . Anne Elliot was staying at Lyme and made her way down to breakfast via these stairs, where she bumped into William Elliot, her cousin and heir to Kellynch Hall.

And history too —

Norton St Philip is steeped in history. It was the site of a  battle during the Monmouth Rebellion and in 1685 the George became the headquarters for Monmouth’s army in the ill-fated rebellion, and Judge Jeffreys used the inn as a courtroom during the Bloody Assizes. A board on one of the inn’s outer walls gives a good  overview of the rebellion and the nearby battle of Sedgemoor.

Literary Reference #2

Samuel Pepys: Public domain via Wikipedia

By the 17th century, the George was a stage on the  coach route from London to the South West. In 1668 Samuel Pepys and his family  travelled from Salisbury to Bath and stopped at Norton St Philip (which Pepys calls Philips-Norton).

He visited the church there and the family “dined well”, but probably not at the George. However as the inn is on the road through the village he must have passed close by.

As with any very old building, the inn has undergone more than one rebuild over the years and in the bar there were two photos on the wall showing some of the changes. A major restoration took place in the 1990s, funded by the then owners, the brewers Wadworths.  The work included archaeological investigations that showed the roof timbers were replaced around 1431!  If you want to read more about the conservation, then there is a lot more information here

As you can see from the photos, it is a lovely old building, and when we arrived it had been freshly decorated for Christmas and everything looked spectacular.

We peeped into the dining room with its beautiful panelling and wonderful fireplace, and  which overlooks the road, then lunched at a small table in the bar, with the beautiful beamed ceiling above and lovely pictures and tapestries adorning the walls.

Moving on

From the George, we drove on to Exmoor and our hotel for the  next three nights. I love this part of the world, even when overcast and wet. In fact, my latest book, Rescued by the Rakish Lord, is set around here.  It’s not out until April 2026, but I  can give you a sneak peek of the cover:

Back to Exmoor…

We found ourselves driving for miles along narrow, steep-sided lanes overhung with trees and taking it slowly through the fast flowing water in the fords.

Next stop

The Royal Oak at Withypool may not look quite as impressive as the George from the outside but it was a lovely old inn, warm and friendly and full of creaking boards and uneven floors. This is hunting country. Horses clip-clopped their way past our bedroom window each morning and in the evenings locals and their well-behaved dogs visited the bar with its roaring log fire.  You can find lots of lovely photos of the Royal Oak on their website.

Despite the weather we took a wander through the village and crossed the beautiful bridge over the River Barle.

Literary Refs #3 and #4

Lorna Doone: British Library via wikimedia commons

According to the Royal Oak’s information book, Maxwell Knight owned and ran the inn during the 1930s. He was a spy-master, naturalist and broadcaster, upon whom Ian Fleming based the character of M.

Also, R.D. Blackmore stayed at the inn whilst writing Lorna Doone.

Looking at this illustration from an early version of the book, the artist might well have been thinking of the Royal Oak when he drew this!

Eisenhower: Public Domain via Wiki Commons

And one final note on the Royal Oak. Amongst its more famous guests was General Eisenhower, who stayed there soon after D Day in 1944. The inn still has his letter of thanks.

Phew! That’s more than enough for now.  Look out for Part II  – Exmoor ponies, Porlock and a short trip south into Devon to see a rather unusual standing stone…

TO BE CONTINUED…

Happy travels!

Sarah