Pies, Pints, and Pillows: Accommodations in 1480s London

Please join me in welcoming Toni Mount back to the blog, this time celebrating the publication of The Colour of Darkness, the latest installment in the Sebastian Foxley Medieval Murder Mysteries. I love this series and have great appreciation for the way Toni truly transports her readers to the 15th century. Today, she shares some insight into eating, sleeping, and accommodations in 1480s London.

Welcome, Toni!

~ Samantha

Pies, Pints & Pillows: Eating, Sleeping and Accommodation in 1480s London

Guest Post by Toni Mount

If you ever find yourself time-travelling back to London in the year 1480 – first of all, don’t drink the water. But do head straight to one of the city’s bustling taverns or inns where you’ll find surprisingly good pots of steaming stew, bread, ale and maybe even a decent bed for the night – if you’re lucky.

Forget what you think you know about medieval food. Londoners in the late fifteenth century have more on their plates than just gruel and bread (though, to be fair, there is plenty of that too). The city’s taverns and inns aren’t just stops for tired travellers – they’re community hubs, feeding everyone from local tradesmen and pious clerics to dusty pilgrims and scheming merchants.

What’s the Difference? Inn vs Tavern

Let’s get our terms straight. An inn in 1480s London is more than just a pub with rooms – it’s a full-service operation offering food, drink, stabling for horses and a place to sleep. Inns typically cater for travellers, especially those with coin to spend. Taverns, on the other hand, focus more on serving wine, ale and food, often to local city dwellers, merchants and minor officials.

Then there are alehouses, usually simpler and often run by women (known as alewives), offering – as you might expect – ale and not much else. If you imagine a smoky room – but not tobacco smoke as this weed hasn’t been discovered yet – with benches and a welcoming fireplace, then you aren’t far off the mark.

It’s in such places as these that you may bump into someone like Sebastian Foxley – busy solving a mystery, dodging danger or just trying to get a quiet pint while keeping an ear out for city gossip.

The Grade I listed George Inn in Norton St Phillip, Somerset, might be the oldest place in England where you can still buy a drink. © Historic England Archive

The Medieval Menu: What’s for Dinner?

If you wander into a London inn around dinnertime in 1480, you might be greeted by the scent of something hearty bubbling in a cauldron over the fire. Stews – called pottages – are the usual meal. These thick mixtures of meat, root vegetables, herbs and grains, such as oats or barley (cheap) or wheat (more upmarket), are warming, filling and endlessly adaptable. Think of them as the medieval version of whatever’s-left-in-the-fridge soup.

Bread is a staple of every meal. Usually coarse, dark and made from rye or barley but, for those with deeper pockets, manchet bread, a fine white loaf made from wheat, is a luxury worth showing off.

What about meat? First, you need to be aware that in medieval England, the word ‘meat’ refers to anything edible that’s not bread or green stuff (these being known as ‘worts’), therefore, ‘meat’ can also refer to fish, cheese, nuts or mushrooms, etc. Desserts, as we would call them, are known as ‘sweetmeats’, so don’t be surprised by what you are served. In a sizable inn near the city gates or close to the Thames, you can expect roast beef, pork or fowl, all cooked on the open hearth. On fast days, which happen frequently – at least twice a week, as proscribed by the Church calendar – inns serve fish instead with herring, eel and even lamprey making regular appearances.

Side dishes may include cheese, pickled vegetables or pies, the latter often more crust than filling. But the crusts – called ‘coffins’ – aren’t usually meant to be eaten. They are more like edible cooking pots, designed to hold fillings during baking and then tossed aside to the poor or animals.

My book A Year in the Life of Medieval England shows just how much the medieval menu shifted with the seasons. Want a springtime pottage recipe or details on Lenten fare? She’s got you covered.

Some quite famous Inns

By 1480, several inns have already built reputations in and around London. One of the most famous is The Tabard Inn in Southwark. Yes, it’s that Tabard Inn, immortalised by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales nearly a century earlier. Located near the southern end of London Bridge, The Tabard is a popular launch point for pilgrims heading to Canterbury but it was also a hotspot for food, ale, and gossip – The Colour of Sin, a previous Seb Foxley mystery in which he joins a pilgrim band bound for Canterbury.

Another historic spot is The George Inn, also in Southwark. Though the structure you see today dates from the seventeenth century, an earlier inn stood on that site and would have served travellers, tradesmen and the occasional shady character.

Inside the city walls, The Boar’s Head Inn in Eastcheap is known for its lively crowd and meaty fare. This is the kind of place where drink flows freely and secrets are whispered over trenchers of food.

The Panyer Inn, Seb Foxley’s local in Paternoster Row, really exists, as do The Mitre, The Mermaid, The White Bear, The Cardinal’s Hat, The Barge and many others which feature in Seb’s life. It’s easy to imagine our hero stepping into a shadowy tavern in Cheapside to buy a well earned cup of ale, scanning the room for a suspect or a clue while the scent of fresh bread, smoke and roasting meat fills the air.

Hospitality or Hustle?

But don’t romanticise medieval inns and taverns too much. Not all hospitality is warm and welcoming. Inns can be loud, chaotic places. You might share a bed (or a straw pallet) with a stranger or discover that your ‘roast beef’ is actually some mystery meat. Prices aren’t standardised and cheating customers, especially those from out-of-town, isn’t uncommon.

Food safety? Well, sometimes standards aren’t exactly high. Ale may be watered down, sour or served in short measure and stews can include yesterday’s leftovers. But there is comfort to be found: a fire crackling in the hearth, the buzz of conversation, musicians playing and games of chance to pass the time. Inns and taverns are where news is exchanged, deals are struck and stories (true and otherwise) swapped over a shared jug of ale.

A Toast to the Past

So next time you pass a historic pub or see a crooked wooden sign swinging above a door, think of London in 1480, a city teeming with life, rumour and intrigue. An inn or tavern is more than a place to drink, eat and rest your weary feet for a while – it’s a reason to gather, gossip and socialise. And if you’re ever in doubt about which alley to take or which inn to trust, well… maybe bring Seb Foxley along.

In The Colour of Darkness, the latest Seb Foxley adventure, midsummer in medieval London is a joyous festivity but, for some, there is nothing to celebrate when Death stalks the city’s sweltering streets. As livelihoods are brought to ruin and trust withers in the heat, artist-cum-sleuth, Seb Foxley, finds trouble has come to his own doorstep. Plague rears its hideous head; fire, theft and murder imperil the citizens.

A beautiful young woman enchants the men of London and the mob shrieks that witchcraft is to blame when waxen dolls, spiked with pins, are discovered. With such horrors in his possession and discovering that guilt lies too close at hand, can Seb unravel the mysteries and save those he loves before it’s too late?

Join Seb Foxley in this intriguing and danger-riddled new adventure, The Colour of Darkness, out now.

The Sebastian Foxley Medieval Murder Mysteries series by Toni Mount – start with The Colour of Poison to explore a richly detailed London through the eyes of a reluctant sleuth.