Editing ALVATIA: Ingsby - Inn (section)

== The Two Beasts Inn ==

A yard about 100 feet across contains two small sheds or huts, a few pens for small animals, a coop, and the [[ALVATIA:_Ingsby_-_Inn|Inn]]. The [[ALVATIA:_Ingsby_-_Inn|Inn]] is 60 feet long and 14 feet deep, with the ridge of its thatch roof rising to about 14 feet at the peak. The cruck framing divides the building into five sections; from right to left when facing the building, these are the byre, the hall (two sections), the kitchen, and the pantry/buttery. The painted sign over the front door remains unclear as to its meaning, even upon close inspection. A small 'cat door' with a swinging flap penetrates the front wall near the main door; another wider but cruder door at one end of the inn gives access to the byre, which also serves as a stable of sorts.

The front door opens directly into the hall; an irregular stone doorstep keeps the entrance from being scuffed into a rut. Perhaps a score of people could be seated here; the room is 14 feet deep and 30 feet long. Several trestle tables and rickety stools crowd the hard, uneven dirt floor of this room; a broad hearth and chimney dominates the room. Every few days, a new layer of reeds is spread over the floor, and the old layer is burned in the hearth. An iron arm and kettle testify to the use of the hearth for at least some of the cooking duties here; two niches in the stone chimney front above the hearth can hold small items for warming. Rough timbers cross the room just above head height; a few planks have been placed upon them to support a collection of cheeses, blankets, old buckets, and other items. Above the timbers, the dark and shaggy underside of the thatch sags between the roof beams; a shadowy fuzz of cobwebs obscures the underside of the roof ridge. The outer walls, roughly textured and unpainted, have seen rough use; bits of wattle and straw protrude here and there. The interior walls at each end of this room are of undaubed wattle. An open doorway in one interior wall leads further into the building; a small back door opens into a squalid pasture, where the inn’s patrons relieve themselves; the small brewshed sits in this pasture. The hall smells of stale ale, sweat, smoke, thatch, mold, bedding, the byre, and the kitchen. Two shuttered but unglazed windows, one in front and one in back, let some light into the hall by day; at night, the fireplace or perhaps a single oil lamp provide the only light. Another “cat door,” this one without a flap, opens into the byre.

The interior door from the hall leads to the kitchen, which smells more strongly of cooking odors. A simple floor hearth without a chimney is centered on the dirt floor, straddled by an iron tripod which supports another kettle. The thatch, ceiling timbers, and roof beams in this room are heavily darkened by smoke from the hearth; a few cobwebs billow in the upper angles of the roof. Two trestle tables are in this room, used as work surfaces by the innkeeper. At night, these tables are taken apart, and the innkeeper’s family sleeps here; two stained and battered chests contain the bedding and finer possessions of the family. Pegs or shelves on the sturdier parts of the wall support the simple implements of the innkeeper – wooden spoons, pottery bowls, a goat's udder colander, and a large collection of shapeless leather 'jacks' for serving ale. A ceramic firestopper leans against the wall when it is not in use. The end (interior) walls of the kitchen are undaubed wattle, each with an open doorway; a rickety ladder leads up to a loft over the last section of the building. A shuttered window is let into each of the outside walls of this room. Past the kitchen, the last section of the inn is divided by a wattle wall into two sections: a pantry and a buttery. The pantry is used to store bread, eggs, salt fish or meat, etc.; the buttery stores ale, milk, and other beverages. Both are a clutter of shelves, baskets, jars, barrels, tubs, and other containers. The loft above this section holds hay, grain, dried fruit in baskets, piles and sacks of vegetables, and other supplies. There are no windows in this section of the inn. Plenty of rat dropping indicate the interest of rodents in the contents of this bay.

Several cords of firewood are piled under the back eaves of the inn.

In the pasture behind the inn, about 80 feet from the back door, is the brewshed: a small thatched hut, with one door, no windows, and a smokehole in the middle of its tiny roof. Within, a hearth and large cauldron are used to brew ale; flagstones cover most of the floor. A shelf holds a couple of new jacks, a small bucket, a stirring paddle, a huck-muck (willow ale-strainer) and a ladle.