Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the manor, for which the token rent of a red Lancastrian rose is still paid to any monarch
passing through the town. At Hocktide, the second Tuesday after Easter, a replica of the horn
is blown to call 99 commoners to the Hocktide Court where two Tuttimen are elected. They
carry Tutti poles decorated with flowers and ribbons and accompany the Orange Scrambler
as he collects a penny a head from each commoner's house. He may kiss every woman in
the town and they are each given an orange in return. Each new commoner is shod by having
a nail driven into the shoe and everyone ends up in the Three Swans Hotel at lunchtime to
drink Hocktide Punch to the memory of John of Gaunt.
Elizabeth I stayed in the Bear, on the A4. Charles I stopped there during the Civil War.
William of Orange was staying there in 1688 when he received messengers from James II, re-
jected their proposals and continued his march on London. Old Mother Red Cap was a nurse
said to have lived on the premises to the age of 120. Georgian coaching inns and 18-19th
century houses are features of this normally quiet market town.
Decorative ironwork enhances a house by the A338 bridge. An open grassed area leads to
a former granary and Hungerford Lock. Above this is a Gothic church of 1816 that replaces
one that collapsed under the weight of a snowfall. Water meadows lead to Hungerford Marsh,
an 11ha nature reserve that has recorded 120 species of bird.
Brick, flint and wrought-iron work at Hungerford
.
