Description:A Wills Cigarette card. The Inn is an original coaching inn on the A5 Watling Street at Four Crosses. The timber-framed right-hand side of the building dates from 1636, and has been heavily restored over the years. The left-hand side is a later addition, dating from about 1700.
The heyday of the Four Crosses Inn seems to have been in the 18th century. Its location on the Watling Street made it an important stopping-off point on the journey from London to Ireland. People travelling from London tended to sleep at Birmingham, dine at the Four Crosses and then sleep again at Newport, before going on to Chester the following day [according to Lord Hatherton].
The Four Crosses' important role as a provider of accommodation and horses for transport on the road from London to Chester and Ireland came to an end with the coming of the railways but it appears, from Lord Hatherton's journal, that it continued in a smaller way with post horses until 1861.
Lord Hatherton's Journal, 17th April, 1861:
"With Rogers (Lord Hatherton's woodsman) to Four Crosses. At the Four Crosses we 'had something to drink' for the honour of the old inn and to please the landlord who was shocked at me asking for ale and porter and Mr Rogers for brandy. The beverages were both excellent – the ale quite superior.
The innkeeper (Lovatt), a very respectable, hard working man took some ale with us and then said he had a favour to ask of me, that he might give up posting. He had in his time kept post horses, some three or four pairs of them, had horsed coaches and, after the railroads had stopped that traffic he still kept a fly to carry people to and from the stations. Mr Giffard of Chillington till the last had had his post horses from the Four Crosses and Ivetsy Bank. I, of course, assented. But here was an end of the last effort to maintain posting on the old Roman and Saxon Road."
From the Hatherton Journal, Staffordshire Record Office.