I had a quick brew at this Stuart period coffee House, on its opening day

the place was full of shifty looking characters

I didn't know this game, or several others being played

news was read from the London Gazette, and get rich schemes were being discussed

coffee was popular in Britain before tea, and tobacco would also have been smoked in pipes

known as penny universities, these third places for sober conversation may even predate Starbucks

they were quite egalitarian (if you could afford the penny entrance) for the time

Charles II tried to shut them down, worrying about sedition

he hid at this house from Cromwell's troops after defeat at Worcester in 1651

this was a curious puzzle - how to drink without spilling everywhere?

Moseley Old Hall is itself Elizabethan, and full of wonderful evocative details

 

 

it is an interesting period I know very little about

 

 

the house and gardens were beautiful - I will need to make a longer visit