Pub London's pubs had closed. The closures have been ascribed to factors such as changing tastes, rise in the cost of beer due to applied taxes and the increase in the Muslim population. Inns and taverns feature throughout English literature and poetry, from The Tabard Inn in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" onwards. The highwayman Dick Turpin used the Swan Inn at Woughton-on-the-Green in Buckinghamshire as his base. Jamaica Inn near Bolventor in Cornwall gave its name to a 1936 novel by Daphne du Maurier and a 1939 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In the 1920s John Fothergill (1876–1957) was the innkeeper of
The Scapegoat (1959 film) The Scapegoat (1959 film) The Scapegoat is a 1959 crime film based on the novel of the same name by Daphne du Maurier, and starring Alec Guinness, Nicole Maurey and Bette Davis. John Barratt (Alec Guinness), a lonely, discontented teacher of French at a British university, vacations in France. There, by chance, he meets his double, French nobleman Jacques De Gué (Guinness again). They become acquainted. Barratt becomes drunk and accepts De Gué's invitation to share his hotel room. When he wakes up the next morning, Barratt finds himself alone in the room, with his clothes and passport missing. De