Tabard Inn

The Tabard, an inn that stood on the east side of Borough High Street in Southwark, was established in 1307, when the abbot of Hyde purchased the land to construct a hostel for himself and his brethren, when business took them to London, as well as an inn to accommodate the numerous pilgrims headed on annual pilgrimage to the Shrine of Thomas Beckett in Canterbury Cathedral. The Tabard is famous as the place owned by Harry Bailey, the host in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and is described in the first few lines of Chaucer’s work as the location where the pilgrims first meet on their journey to Canterbury in the 1380s.

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