who came from Lille, entered the Leicester Guild Merchant in 1345, and kept a tavern somewhere in the North quarter of the town. It may be noted that "Kepegest" occurs as a Leicester surname during the 12th and 13th centuries. The common name for a restaurateur was then keu, cocus, or cook.
During the first three centuries after the Conquest, most of the Leicester inns lay in or close to the old High Street, for at that time, and long afterwards, the life of the community gathered round the High Cross, but as trade increased in volume and importance, the Saturday Marketplace, on the South-East side of the town, became a more populous centre than the High Cross, and during the 15th and 16th centuries many hostelries grew up in that neighbourhood. They were almost, indeed, rendered necessary by the regulations of the Borough, which laid down in the year 1467 that "all men, women, and children that bring horses laden with corn or other victuals to the market shall lead them out of it, as soon as they are unladen, to the inns."
The earliest mention in the Borough Records of sign-bearing inns occurs in the year 1458, when the Chantry of Corpus Christi are said to have received a rent of ten shillings per annum from a certain "hospicium quod vocatur Bell," and also a rent of sixpence per annum "de hospicio quod vocatur Gorge." This ancient hostelry of the Bell was situated in the Swinesmarket, the present High Street, and not on the site of the later hotel of the same name. In October, 1587, as we learn from the Records of the Borough of Nottingham, Richard Wright, of Cambridge, stayed a night at this old inn, and rode off next morning on someone else's horse — unless, indeed, he was speaking the truth, when he told the Nottingham Justices that he had bought it from a man, who lived at Kirby Muxloe, for £3 cash and £1 16s. 4d., "to be paid on this side Easter next." The Bell in the Swinesmarket was still existing in 1605, when the Chamberlains received a rent of ten shillings per annum from Thomas Nurse, butcher, "out of a tenement in the Swinesmarket in his occupation, called the Bell." The George also lay in the Swinesmarket. It was still in the possession of the Corpus Christi Guild in 1519 and 1534. The George, or George and Dragon Inn, existing
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