Locals say the watch post the inn was built upon once kept an eighth-century beacon that guided border riders. Superstitious elders claim that when the hearth fire sputters in a particular way and the seventh spoon is left unpolished on the rack, an old ward is renewed. The region around the inn, often called the Greenford Road, has always been a crossroads for merchants from the northern fens and southern hillfolk. In older tales the road was favored by a smuggler band known as the Cold Sails, who used back doors and hidden cellars to move goods. Some say the Brindle family negotiated a truce and a share in exchange for safe lodging, a pact whose details are no longer written down.