Within the walls of this historic building, Mol's Coffee House , in Exeter , Devon, gathered great nautical heroes such as explorer and buccaneer Sir Francis Drake and Queen Elizabeth's favourite, Sir Walter Raleigh. The photograph is from one of the albums of Marjorie Congreve , described as Australia's most bombed out nurse during WWll in England .
In pencil, now faint, she wrote on the back that Drake is reputed to have been at the House "when the Armada came." Mol's Coffee House was opened in l596 by Italian Thomas Mol and was so popular in those early days of caffeine addiction in England that many prominent people arrived on foot and by horse for a hit .
Apart from beating the Spaniards, Drake was the first English seadog to circumnavigate the world between 1577 to 1580 .
Nurse Congreve wrote that the Ship Inn , which Drake had also frequented( and probably did not serve coffee ) , was nearby. Next to Mol's was a ruined church . She had taken tea at the Clarence Hotel , close by .
