1 Annotation

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

Leg Tavern, King Street, Westminster. The leg was a not infrequent sign for hosiers and bootmakers, and as they would take care that their boots and stockings were represented as fitting close and smooth, the aptness of Falstaff’s simile is clear when he says that one of the reasons which made Prince Henry love Poins was that he wore "his boot very smooth, like unto the sign of the Leg." For inns the sign was very unusual.

December 18, 1656.—We dined with the Clothworkers at the Leg [they had a cause before the House]. After dinner I was awhile at the Leg with Major-General Howard, Mr. Briscoe, etc. etc.—Burton's Diary, vol. i. p. 174.

June 25, 1660.—With my Lord at White Hall all the morning. . . . Dined with young Mr. Powell, lately come from the Sound, being amused at our great charges here, and Mr. Southerne, now clerk to Mr. Coventry, at the Leg in King Street.— Pepys.

Pepys went again, May 27, 1661, to "Clerke's at the Legg, and there dined very merry." It was evidently a house in good favour.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

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References

Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.

1661

1662

1664

1665

1668

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