Photo above: Taken from a John Flower sketch, circa1830.
The Green Dragon is most possibly 15th century.
ES research records the Inn as dating from 1485, the same year as King Richard III’s demise at Bosworth Field and subsequent burial in Leicester.
The most celebrated case involving the Green Dragon was in 1778.
Various thieves, prostitutes, pickpockets, fraudsters and ne’er- do-wells could be found around Leicester Market, together with malnourished children, the poor and dispossessed congregating around the stalls hoping for a trader to be distracted whilst a rabbit or veg could be spirited away – often to be sold in the Green Dragon. Even if the sentencing was hash for the smallest misdemeanour, it didn’t seem to deter, but then hunger and destitution knows no rules. One women – Ann Hargreaves aged 26, stood no more than 3ft high – was sentenced to transportation for picking the pocket of a gentleman in the Market Place.
At the rear of Green Dragon, it was claimed (by John Flower), that there was stabling for 100 horses. It certainly had ostlers, as an ad in 1825 stated ‘Ostler wanted, good character, one from the country preferred.’
The Council embarked upon a scheme to improve the Market Place circa 1845. Property behind the old Exchange (Gainsborough) was to be purchased, including the Green Dragon up as far as the Bulls Head. Mrs Glover, the owner of the inn and adjoining property, proved to be a stubborn negotiator, asking for what the Council deemed as excessive money.
It was noted in the Council minutes of October 1848 that ‘the Green Dragon is now exposed to most unpleasant view by the recent improvements. Mrs Glover has asked for an exorbitant price and we should therefore refer it to a jury which should bring her to her senses’. It seems Mrs Glover struck a hard bargain and partly got her way as in July 1849 agreement was reached, which some on the committee still thought excessive. By October that year the Green Dragon was no more.
Interestingly, on pulling down of the inn three coins from the reign of William III were found dating from 1698, also a token dated 1666.
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