Charles Dickens immortalised the Hop Pole at Tewkesbury in Chapter 50 of The Pickwick Papers — "upon which occasion there was more bottled ale with some more Madeira and some Port besides" — and this charming pen-and-ink illustrated card leans fully into that literary legacy, printing the famous passage in full alongside a crisp architectural drawing of the hotel facade, with a period motor car parked outside to fix the scene firmly in the 1930s. The Royal Hop Pole, a genuine medieval coaching inn on Church Street in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, was still trading under its own name when this promotional postcard was produced; the reverse identifies the publisher as the hotel itself ("Royal Hop Pole Hotel Ltd., Phone 36, Grams: Tophole, Tewkesbury, Glos."), making it a classic example of the inter-war hotel advertising card — part guest souvenir, part marketing piece. The telegram address "Tophole" — period slang for "excellent" — is a delightful period detail. Initialled "R.S." by the illustrator in the lower right corner. Unused, clean reverse.