their horses; taverns sold wine, along with
beer and ale, and likewise usually attracted
a better class of client; alehouses, though,
varied vastly in quality and the nature of
their clientele.
Alehouses (which, despite their name,
increasingly sold hopped beer rather than
traditional ale) were a cause of growing
concern to both local authorities and
moralists, who saw them as nests of
disorder and sinfulness, and nurseries of
idleness. They were certainly numerous.
A government survey of 1577, probably
drawn up with taxation in mind, showed
that in 30 counties and six boroughs of
England there were 15,095 alehouses,
along with 2,161 inns and 339 taverns,suggesting that there was an alehouse for
every 55 inhabitants in Cheshire, and one
for every 60 in Essex.
Controlling the alehouse became
a priority for local authorities, and
their records provide a large volume
of material indicating how
Elizabethans spent their leisure time.
The unusually well-documented county
of Essex provides ample evidence in this
regard, with numerous references to
people playing at cards, ‘tables’ –
the contemporary term for
backgammon – or dicing, these
activities usually being accom-
panied by gambling. Another
commonly mentioned game wasBRIDGEMANElizabethan lives / Entertainment and pastimes
THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT
A 16th-century football match; a detail
of Visscher’s early-17th-century London
panorama depicts inns by London Bridge –
drinking in inns and alehouses was increas-
ingly popular in Elizabeth’s day; a 16th-cen-
tury illustration of Turks wrestling – a sport
that was also common in Tudor England