Staircase in the King’s Arms. S. Read. 1868. Source: the 1868 Illustrated London News. Click on image to enlarge it
“The King's Arms Hotel, which Mr. Charles Dickens and Mr. Wilkie Collins have made famous by their holiday rambling tale of the “Two Idle Apprentices,” published in Household Words of October, 1857, should be visited, at least, by everybody coming to Lancaster whom good fortune does not lodgo in that comfortable hostelry. “This house," says Mr. Dickens, 44 was a genuino old houso of a Tory quaint description, teeming with old carvings, and boams, aud panels, and having an excellent old staircase, with a gallery or upper staircase, cut off from it by a curious fencework of old oak, or of the old Honduras mahogany wood. It was, and is, and will bo for many a long year to come, a remarkably picturesque hoVise." The Illustration we have engraved will show that Mr. Dickens is right. Here, too, the popular landlord, Mr. Joseph Sly, gives you bridecake every day after dinnor; while the dinner itself—that is, the ordinary—consists of a superb haunch of mutton, with other choice dishes, punctually at one o'clock. Mr. Wilkie Collins dreamt his thrilling story of “The Brido's Chamber” in this romantic old house.” — Illustrated London News
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Bibliography
"Leaves from a Sketchbook: Lancaster." Illustrated London News 53 (1868): 72-74. Hathi Trust online version of a copy in the Princeton University Library. Web. 25 May 2021.
Last modified 26 May 2021