rickwood

Updated: July 20, 2025

Rickwood gives some interesting particulars concerning its history, from which we gather that originally the "Black Boy" was the town house of the de Veres, the famous Earls of Oxford, whose principal seat, Hedingham Castle, was within a short distance of Chelmsford. It was converted into a hostelry in the middle of the seventeenth century, and was first known as the Crown or New Inn.

Bertram Waldrom Matz - The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick"; with Some Observations on Their Other Associations,