Mulberry Bush - High Street North, Dunstable Bedfordshire, UK.
Posted by: Groundspeak Regular Member HitchinLookers
N 51° 53.620 W 000° 31.905
30U E 669835 N 5752090
Trees are often used as pub names. There may be a number of reasons for this.
Waymark Code: WMBQ59
Location: Eastern England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 06/12/2011
Published By:Groundspeak Premium Member bill&ben
Views: 2

Where there is a pub naming a particular tree in it's name, it may be because there was a significant tree of that type locally that was used as a landmark, a boundary marker or perhaps as a place where a preacher might have regularly delivered a sermon from.

This is a modern pub. At this site, an 1880's map shows a pub called The Bird in Hand. This no longer survives.

If it were older it would be tempting to suggest that there was a link to the imprisonment of women. The children's nursery rhyme 'Here we go round the mulberry bush' appears in a number of versions around Europe, but here in the UK it is often ascribed to life in a woan's prison - in particular Norwich.

Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush.
Here we go round the mulberry bush
On a cold and frosty morning.

This verse describes life in the exercise yard in which the mulberry bush was said to have been planted. Subsequent verses record other elements of prison life. This is the way we wash our clothes', 'This is the way we dry our clothes', 'This is the way we mend our shoes' and finally some light entertainment, 'This is the way the gentlemen walk' and 'This is the way the ladies walk'.
Name of Artist: Not known.

Date of current sign: Not known.

Date of first pub on site: Not known.

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