Although this 17th C building and formerly disreputable pub has been much changed it still retains some internal chamfered beams.
This 17th C 3 story building on the corner of Union Street and Broad Street hit some ropy times in the 18th and 19th Century. When The Dogg (probably!) was first built it towered over its neighbours, with fine chamfered beams inside. Over the years it became a slightly shambolic rabbit warren as it joined and separated with its neighbours behind it and to the left. Some slightly surprising Victorian doors remained in the late 20th C as a legacy of this – locked and not actually leading anywhere!
By the late 18th C The Dogg had become The Royal Oak, but for a brief time was relocated to the smaller building behind, which had previously been the Dog and Partridge Tap Bar!
Theft was always a problem in this time when all but the rich slept communally
In July 1787.
A man (James Wright – a one man crimewave from Weybread) was charged with stealing a silk handkerchief from the neck of William Pinkney whilst he lay asleep at the Royal Oak.
By 1842, this larger building had reverted to being the main pub – smart enough to hold a creditors meeting, but status was somewhat fragile. and the pub’s reputation slid inexorably downwards – with no stabling the business was always going to rely on the poorer class of customer.
Not too surprisingly men who had been herding cows on the road for many weeks and now had plenty of money in their pockets tended to indulge in food, drink and other entertainments as did other men, both local and from afar, visiting the fairs and markets. The local magistrates took a lenient view of the ladies participating in a spot of private enterprise unless they compounded matters with theft or violence, the latter generally only arising from ladies who had travelled down from Norwich, working with a man in tow. It is only from these court cases we get a glimpse of this side of Victorian life – and the Royal Oak was very much a centre of such transactions in the mid 19thC!
Eventually the pub trundled round to Union Street where it was re branded as The Eagle before being closed in 1906 – having only survived for 6 years! Still a working class pub, the magistrates were scathing when they inspected it - The entrances were so arranged as to conduce secret drinking and no other house in Harleston was liable to the same objection on the ground of either sanitary accommodation, size of rooms or general convenience.
It was said that the sanitary accommodation was the worst of any house in the centre of Harleston.
There is an enclosed courtyard at the back of these buildings which would have been the logical site for a ‘closet’, accessible (I believe) only through the premises – perhaps in the time before plumbed sewerage, this is what sounded the death knell for this ancient pub/pubs.
The Eagle shortly before its closure in 1906.
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