The Silent Woman: Pub sign # 4

Oh dear, I've done it again, found an inappropriate historic topic for a festive blip.

I should have guessed guessed the history behind this pub sign in Wareham Forest might not be cheery. There is so much political incorrectness in the origin of the pub name that I'm not even going to attempt to correct it. This is what the website says:

Once a smugglers haunt, legend has it that an "unusual" Landlady (one who talked too much, heaven forbid!) gave away the smugglers' secrets in Wareham market place. Fearful of capture by the ever-present Excise Men, the smugglers silenced her by cutting out her tongue, thus creating that unique phenomenon "The Silent Woman".

In the early days the pub was called The Angel but, due to it being named The Quiet Lady in Thomas Hardy's rather risque novel, The Return of the Native, changed it's name to The Silent Woman in the late 1920s or early 1930s.