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MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
CHAPTER I.
The Three Cranes in the Vintry.
Adjoining the Vintry Wharf, and at the corner of a narrow lane
communicating with Thames Street, there stood, in the early part of the
Seventeenth Century, a tavern called the Three Cranes. This old and
renowned place of entertainment had then been in existence more than two
hundred years, though under other designations. In the reign of Richard
II., when it was first established, it was styled the Painted Tavern,
from the circumstance of its outer walls being fancifully coloured and
adorned with Bacchanalian devices. But these decorations went out of
fashion in time, and the tavern, somewhat changing its external
features, though preserving all its internal comforts and accommodation,
assumed the name of the Three Crowns, under which title it continued
until the accession of Elizabeth, when it became (by a slight
modification) the Three Cranes; and so remained in the days of her
successor, and, indeed, long afterwards.
Not that the last-adopted denomination had any reference, as might be
supposed, to the three huge wooden instruments on the wharf, employed
with ropes and pulleys to unload the lighters and other vessels that
brought up butts and hogsheads of wine from the larger craft below
Bridge, and constantly thronged the banks; though, no doubt, they
indirectly suggested it. The Three Cranes depicted on the large
signboard, suspended in front of the tavern, were long-necked,
long-beaked birds, each with a golden fish in its bill.
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