Cranes they all set out for the metropolis. In a day or two the London Evening Post cleared up all the mystery by making the following announcement: "Yesterday Lord Townshend was married to Miss Mountgomery. She is said to be about 17, and his lordship about 50 years of age."
The landlord of the Three Cranes, about this time, who was named Oliver, was Mayor of Leicester in the year 1762, and is remembered as the builder of the first house in Stoneygate and of the mansion on the hill at Birstall to which he retired.
Facing the Three Cranes on the other side of Horsefair Street stood the Lion and Lamb, whose biblical sign, alluding to the lion of the millennium, suggests a Puritanical origin. This inn became, at any rate in the latter years of the i8th century, a strong nucleus of dissent. There the Revolution Club held their fortnightly meetings, and there ministers met in 1789 and in the following year, to endeavour to obtain the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, and to secure religious freedom. When the Revolution Club celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the landing of William of Orange, there were as many as 672 diners at the Lion and Lamb and two other inns.
The Manchester and London coaches, which commenced running in 1777, used to stop for the night at Leicester, at the Inn known as the Swan with Two Necks. This thirsty bird makes a fine Pantagruelian sign, and it is quite a mistake to suppose, as some do, that its name is derived from the two nicks, or notches, cut in the swan's bill to distinguish its ownership. This popular derivation is negatived by the consideration that these nicks were so small that they would not be perceptible on a signboard. The Nag's Head was not demolished until 1876. It stood at the junction of the old High Street with Town Hall Lane. An illustration of this picturesque old building is given in Mrs. Fielding Johnson's "Glimpses of Ancient Leicester." The date 1663 was over its porch. The Golden Lion stood at the corner of the old High Street and Thornton Lane. The Queen's Head, which displayed its sign in Town Hall Lane, at the east end of St. Martin's Church, was, in all probability, the house from the gateway of which the first stage
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