At the Bird in Hand token

Description

17TH CENTURY LONDON TOKEN.

At The Bird in Hand, Tavern Farthing token, (D817.)

Curriers Alley, (shoe lane, Fleet Street).

Copper, 1.22g, 16mm.

aVF-VF.

This token comes with an old SEABY ticket from the 1960's, 27/6.

This Tavern of the same name below, appears to be relatively close walking distance to the site of Curriers Alley but not the same tavern.

"Until earlier this century the Bird in Hand tavern occupied the position of number 17 Long Acre with an entrance in Conduit Court. It was a picturesque two storey old hostelry with dormer windows projecting from the quaint rickety roof and a cladding of numerous sign boards on the outside walls. On one such board the words of an appropriate famous proverb were stylishly written in a rhythmic flow of words so infrequently encountered in our day of modernists:

‘A bird in the hand is better far
Than two that in the bushes are’.
Alas, along with most of the other alleys of Long Acre, Conduit Court has been subjected to the treatment suffered by a good many of London’s treasured byways. All that now greets us are the plain high brick walls characterlessly built in a fashion as though to hide from view the old tavern. However, the site of the entrance to the Bird in Hand can still be traced where there is an inlet on the east side about half way along the Court."