BEST WESTERN The George Hotel takes its name from St George and in the 19th century the hotel’s sign depicted St George and the Dragon. The earliest reference to The George is made by George Farquhar, the famous dramatist, who stayed there in 1707 whilst quartered as a recruitment officer. It was here in fact that he wrote his plays, “The Recruiting Officer” and “The Beaux Stratagem”; the latter of these was actually written about life at The George itself and characters were based on the family who ran the inn at the time.
The George of the eighteenth century would have been a coaching inn with an archway in the centre through which the coaches passed to reach the inn-yard behind. This would have been blocked in soon after the coaches stopped running and now forms the main entrance to the hotel. The building would have been galleried, and Snape’s map of 1781 shows it as a compact square of buildings around a courtyard – the entrance being on Bird Street.
