This month “Rayleigh Through the Looking Glass” has a special feature on Bull Lane, Rayleigh, here.
This month we thought we would show you some pictures of Bull Lane. Once the route of the bull?s one way journey from his field to the Bull Public House (Kingsleigh House) where bull baiting took place at the rear of the pub until it closed in 1791. Before Webster’s Way was built in the 1970?s Bull Lane went all the way to Holy Trinity Church and was a much narrower lane.
You can find out more about the Bull Inn at the Rochford District Community Archive:
Probably Rayleigh?s most infamous Inn was the Bull, which once stood on the east side of the High Street. Built during the middle years of Elizabeth I?s reign, c.1560, it was renowned for bull baiting, a cruel practice of tethering a bull to a stake to be taunted by dogs, often until mortally wounded. Local feeling turned against the Inn when in 1574 a group of 28 townsmen decided to take the law into their own hands. They succeeded in breaking into the Bull late one night, but were caught. Ringleaders William Hurall, a blacksmith, Henry Livinge, a brewer and John Harryson were charged with ?unlawful assembly and breaking into the Bull Inn of Thomas Locyn and assaulting those within in their beds and maltreating to the despair of their lives?. As punishment they were pressed into the service of their country ? both the Army and Navy of the time desperately needing new blood. Some 230 years after opening, The Bull ceased trading in 1791. The building remained, however, sold in 1828 for ?750 to a prosperous horse dealer, who subsequently dug up the bull baiting post and ring. A private dwelling was erected on the site, known today as Kingsleigh House.