The Leather Bottle

Thursday night orienteering always ends up in the pub. The Leather Bottle Inn was built in 1629, during the reign of Charles I once a forum for royalist views and a gathering place for anti-Cromwellian forces during the English civil war. The inn acquired the name "The Leather Bottle" when, about 1720, a leather-bound bottle containing gold sovereigns was found on the premises.   Charles Dickens  (see extra) often stayed in Rooms 2 & 6, and featured it in The Pickwick Papers, for it was here that the lovelorn Mr Tracy Tupman fled after being jilted by his sweetheart Rachel Wardle, where he drowned his sorrows in Mr Pickwick's company.