The Tabard

The Tabard was an inn in Southwark established in 1307, which stood on the east side of Borough High Street, at the road's intersection with the ancient thoroughfare to Canterbury and Dover.

It was built for the Abbot of Hyde in Winchester, who purchased the land to construct a place for himself and his ecclesiastical brethren to stay when on business in London.

In those times, the Tabard would have been filled with pilgrims, drunks, travellers, criminals, and prostitutes (colloquially known as the "Winchester Geese").

The inn's proprietor was a man named Harry Bailey:[1] Bifel that in that season on a day,In Southwerk at the Tabard as I layRedy to wenden on my pilgrymageTo Caunterbury with ful devout corage,At nyght was come into that hostelryeWel nyne and twenty in a compaignyeOf sondry folk, by aventure yfalleIn felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde;The chambres and the stables weren wyde,And well we weren esed atte beste;The antiquary John Stow wrote in his Survey that by the 16th century it was among several inns at this location in Southwark: "many fair inns, for receipt of travellers, by these signs: the Spurre, Christopher, Bull, Queen's Head, Tabard, George, Hart, King's Head" &c.[2] Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the mid-16th century, "the Tabard of the Monastery of Hyde, and the Abbot's Place, with the stable and gardens thereunto belonging" were sold to John and Thomas Master.

His son Robert Mabbe pledged a share of the inn to the goldsmith Affabel Partridge for a loan.