The Chequers, High Halden.
© P.E. Blanche 1999

On the present day pub sign there are two gentlemen in Elizabethan costume concentrating extremely hard over a board game on a table in front of them. The older Whitbread sign obviously makes a play on the old game of Chinese Chequers (or checkers).

There has been an Inn on this site since 1442 and originally the building was thatched. Many of the upstairs rooms have oak floors and beams that are said to have come from old galleons. At one time there was no resident doctor in this area and messages were left at the Inn and carried by a boy to fetch the nearest doctor in an emergency.