Bainbridge

Far out in the unfashionable backwaters of Great Britain, right in the middle of the wastelands of the Pennines, about half way between the town of Lancaster on the West coast and the town of Middlesborough on the East coast, lies a tiny and utterly insignificant little village of Bainbridge. Therein, just by the road that winding between hills joins the two aforementioned towns, stands an old and not very frequented inn named Rose and Crown. Well, really it is a perfectly ordinary English pub, its only extraordinary feature consists of two pieces of calligraphy hanging on its walls. To be more precise, they hang on the walls of a corridor leading to the "gents" and "ladies"; I suppose the owner considers them to be utterly insignificant pieces of decoration. For a calligraphy enthusiast, however, they are not insignificant at all. They are two documents of legal nature written in 1840, as the first line clearly states. It must have been unfashionable backwaters even then, the style of writing makes an impression of being much older than mid nineteenth century.

The documents are huge pieces of paper covered in tiny writing. Here I reproduce a few close ups to appreciate the lettering.