Saturday 5 May 2012

England Part IV - Pack O' Cards, Combe Martin

In 1690, George Ley, teacher and "overseer to the poor" in Combe Martin, had gambling success at the card table, and decided to commemorate his good luck by building a house representing a pack of cards. It must have been a big win to be able to build this place.
Want to join me for a pint at the Pack?
It was built on a plot of land measuring 52ft x 52ft (52 cards in a pack), has 4 floors (4 suits in a pack), 13 doors on every floor and 13 fireplaces (13 cards in a suit), and prior to window tax the panes of glass in all the windows added up to the total of the numbered cards in a pack.

It's now listed as a Grade II Ancient Monument.

For more about my trip to England, scroll down to the previous posts.

8 comments:

  1. Me thinks I recognise this here hostelry! :)

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  2. What an amazing thing to do! I LOVE when people get these huge ideas that are seemingly impossible to pull off--and then They DO pull them off!!!! And this was obviously really thought out carefully, in every respect...!

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  3. Stayed there for a night once.

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  4. :) At first - thank you for those colours of your site`s background, it has been raining cats and dogs the whole night and still do. I am of course happy it`s raining not snowing though :)
    I looked at your earlier Scotland posts and felt like being there again, thank you for memories.
    I believe you have to get eyes also on your back with twins soon and it will last next 10 years :)

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  5. Strange looking building but I love the history.

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  6. Now that's fascinating.
    I guess he had a lot of time on his hands to figure all of that out.

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  7. Is Combe Martin in England Shammickite? A very interesting building - Dave

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  8. Now that is downriight fun, Sham. Such cleverness...is fit for a museum!

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