Chapter VI: Botanical Signs

The next great class of signs which will be noticed includes those which are derived from the Vegetable Kingdom. These may be called “Botanical Signs.” Though not so numerous as the Zoological Signs, they are, nevertheless, fairly common; but only a comparatively small number can be traced back to an heraldic origin.

Those signs will be noticed first which are obviously derived from some prominent tree or trees growing close to the houses called after them. These seem generally to be of very modern origin, as they figure but sparsely in the list printed forty years ago. Most of them, it will be noticed, are in the vicinity of London. There is a BAY TREE at Stratford, a CHESTNUT TREE at Walthamstow, an ELMS at Leytonstone, a FIR TREES at Wanstead, a FOUR ASHES at Takeley, a GROVE Tavern at Walthamstow, a HOLLY BUSH at Leyton, and another at Loughton, a HOLLY TREE at Forest Gate, and a MAY BUSH at Great Oakley. The sign of the WILLOWS appears at Willingale Doe. There is also on the list a THREE ASHES at Cressing, and another at Chelmsford, while forty years since there was another at Rochford, a YEW TREE at Great Horkesley, and another at Felstead (beer-house), a THREE ELMS at Chignal St. James (which has three elm trees in front of it), and no less than seven CHERRY TREES in different parts of the county, although forty years ago only four were in existence. The THORN INN at *Mistley seems to have been in existence since 1786 at least, as it is mentioned in an advertisement in the _Chelmsford Chronicle_ for February 24th in that year. Its sign is, obviously, connected with the old name of the place, which was Mistley Thorn. In the _Very Young Lady’s Tour from London to Aldborough and Back_ (1804, see p. 37) occurs the following:

“Our first stage is to Mistley; we stop at the Thorn,
And shall see the fine sights which that village adorn.”

There is a ROUND BUSH (beer-shop) at Purleigh. At Havering there is an ORANGE TREE, and in the *Cattle Market at Braintree there is another house with the same name. The latter has been in existence for at least forty years. At Chelmsford, too, near the New London Road, there is a beer-shop known as the ORANGE TREE. Inquiry has shown that the house was built some years ago by a woman who had saved sufficient money for the purpose out of dealing in oranges. She named her beer-shop the ORANGE TREE, a name which it has since retained, though it has long since passed out of her hands. There are WALNUT TREES at Little Horkesley and Great Waltham (beer-house). In 1662 there was another house of the same name at “Mile-end Green” (probably Mill Green, Writtle, or Mile End Green, Great Easton), as mentioned in the _Account of the Murder of Thomas Kidderminster_, already referred to (p. 56). There is some doubt as to whether or not the sign of the OAK, which occurs three times, namely, at Halstead, Messing, and Great Saling, and that of the OLD OAK, which occurs at Romford, ought to be included in this catalogue. These signs may be, and probably are, identical with that of the ROYAL OAK, which occurs eighteen times in different parts of the county, and of course commemorates the incident of King Charles II. hiding in an oak tree, though it is certainly strange that this comparatively trivial incident should have continued to be so long and so frequently commemorated. It is also a very common beer-house sign. The OAK, too, is put to the same use at Braintree. The following very unpoetical production, by H. Jopson, the landlord, is displayed in the tap-room of the ROYAL OAK at Saffron Walden:

“As customers come, and I do trust them,
I lose my money, likewise my custom;
Though chalk is cheap, say what you will,
Chalk won’t pay the brewer’s bill;
So I must try to keep a decent tap,
For ready-money and no strap.”

The THEYDON OAK at Theydon Garnon until last year bore upon one side of its sign-board a very good representation of the fine old oak from which it takes its name, and close to which it stands. The KING’S OAK at High Beech is a sign which is probably quite distinct from the ROYAL OAK. The author of _Nooks and Corners in Essex_ says that the house takes its name “from an old stump near thereto, formerly called Harold’s Oak.” This, however, is probably an error, as the large old oak which stands on the green before the house has long been known as the “King’s Oak.” Local tradition says that Henry VIII., while hunting in the forest on the day on which Ann Boleyn was beheaded, rested under this tree while waiting to hear the gun, fired from the Tower, which announced the death of the Queen. Other localities also claim the oak under which the king listened, but this is as likely as any other to be the right one. The KING’S OAK is marked on Cary’s _Map of Fifteen Miles round London_ (1786), and also on Andrew and Drury’s _Map of Essex_ (1777). There was formerly an OAKS in Stifford. It now serves as three cottages, standing opposite the school. At it, in the beginning of last century, the churchwardens treated themselves to costly dinners. In 1712, for instance, the records in the parish chest inform us that the “vestory stood adjourned” to the OAKS. A TREE occurs upon the farthing token of “W. Spiltimber of Hatfild Broad Oake,” doubtless in allusion both to the name of the issuer and to the old oak, commonly called the “Doodle Oak,” from which the village takes its name. At the same place a beer-house is still known as the DOODLE OAK.

A public-house on Shenfield Common has, for at least forty years, borne the sign of the ARTICHOKE. This is one of the very last productions of the vegetable kingdom which one would expect to find represented upon a sign-board; but Larwood and Hotten, who think it originally found a place there when first introduced, say that “it used to be a great favourite, and still gives name to some public-houses.” Another very extraordinary sign, unnoticed in the _History of Sign-boards_, is the CAULIFLOWER, which appears at Great Ilford. Unless due merely to a landlord’s caprice, it is difficult to suggest any possible origin for it. The present landlord, in whose family the house has been for 120 years, can give no information about the matter, further than that the existing house was built forty-eight years ago, the old inn having been pulled down to make room for the railway. There is also a beer-house so called at Rainham. Of the BUSH, which, according to Larwood and Hotten (p. 4), “must certainly be counted amongst the most ancient and popular of signs,” Essex does not appear to have a single example. The same authorities elsewhere (p. 233) declare it to be “the oldest sign borrowed from the vegetable kingdom,” and state that it came originally from the Romans, together with the common saying, “Good wine needs no bush.” As late as the reign of James I. many inns used it as their sign. At Bardfield, and probably other towns in the county, houses specially licensed for the sale of liquor at fair time still fasten branches of oak and other trees to their fronts as a sign, a custom which is not unknown in other parts of the country. It is without doubt a modern form of the ancient sign of the BUSH. It appears, too, in every way probable that the curious besom-like ornaments so often to be seen upon the ends of old sign-irons are also conventional representations of the same venerable device. Examples are to be seen in the drawings of the sign-irons of the SIX BELLS at Dunmow (p. 168), and the SUGAR LOAVES at Sible Hedingham (p. 39). At Theydon Garnon there is a beer-house called the GARNON BUSHES, so named doubtless after a part of Epping Forest, which goes by that name. At Hornchurch there is a beer-shop known as the FURZE, probable a unique sign. The TULIP at Springfield appears to be also unique. Possibly the landlord who adopted the sign was a cultivator of tulips.

The BARLEY MOW, meaning a barley stack, is an ancient sign which still occurs at Stanstead and at *Colchester. Doubtless it was first put up as a sign in honour of John Barleycorn, just as the VINE, which occurs at Great Bardfield and Black Notley (beer-house), and the GRAPES, which occurs at Colchester (the latter being still the recognized sign of a vintner), both undoubtedly found a place on the sign-board because they helped to supply the wherewithal for the worship of Bacchus. Forty years since there was another VINE Inn at Thaxted. The HOP-POLE, which is a sign occurring at Good Easter, and the HOP-POLES, which is another occurring at Great Hallingbury, both obviously found their place on the sign-board for the same reason. There are also beer-houses with the sign of the HOP-POLES at Little Hallingbury and Roydon, although the cultivation of hops has now ceased at those places. Hop-growing once flourished extensively in Essex, and these two signs are relics of the now almost relinquished industry. At the beginning of this century they were grown at the Hedinghams, the Maplesteads, the Colnes, Halstead, Wethersfield, Finchingfield, Great Bardfield, and Shalford, as well as at Moulsham, Good Easter, Roxwell, Chignal St. James, and other places round Chelmsford. Fifty years earlier the cultivation of hops in the county was spread over a wider area, though the number of acres grown was about the same. At the present time the cultivation is all but discontinued. Until the year 1883 there was a hop-ground adjoining Skreen’s Park, Roxwell, but it is now devoted to other purposes. Round the Hedinghams, however, hops are still grown, their cultivation having been introduced by a former Mr. Majendie in 1792. Daniel Defoe says, in his _Tour through Great Britain_, that in 1724, hops were brought direct from Chelmsford for sale at the great Stourbridge Hop Fair.

The description of the MAYPOLE at Chigwell, given by Dickens in _Barnaby Rudge_, will occur to every one. It runs as follows:--

“In the year 1775, there stood upon the Borders of Epping Forest,
at a distance of about twelve miles from London--measuring from the
standard in Cornhill, or rather from the spot on or near to which
the standard used to be in days of yore--a house of public
entertainment called the Maypole; which fact was demonstrated to
all such travellers as could neither read nor write (and sixty-six
years ago a vast number, both of travellers and stay-at-homes, were
in this condition) by the emblem reared on the roadside over
against the house, which, if not of those goodly proportions that
maypoles were wont to present in olden times, was a fair young ash,
thirty feet in height, and as straight as any arrow that ever
English yeoman drew.

“The Maypole--by which term henceforth is meant the house and not
its sign--the Maypole was an old building, with more gable ends
than a lazy man would care to count on a sunny day; huge zig-zag
chimneys, out of which it seemed as though even smoke could not
choose but come in more than naturally fantastic shapes, imparted
to it in its tortuous progress; and vast stables, gloomy, ruinous,
and empty. The place was said to have been built in the days of
King Henry the Eighth; and there was a legend not only that Queen
Elizabeth had slept there one night while upon a hunting excursion,
to wit in a certain oak panelled room with a deep bay-window, but
that next morning, while standing on a mounting-block before the
door with one foot in the stirrup, the virgin monarch had then and
there boxed and cuffed an unlucky page for some neglect of duty.
The matter-of-fact and doubtful folks, of whom there were a few
among the Maypole customers, as unluckily there always are in every
little community, were inclined to look upon this tradition as
rather apocryphal; but, whenever the landlord of that ancient
hostelry appealed to the mounting-block itself as evidence, and
triumphantly pointed out that there it stood in the same place to
that very day, the doubters never failed to be put down by a large
majority, and all true believers exulted, as in a victory.

“Whether these, and many other stories of the like nature, were
true or untrue, the Maypole was really an old house, a very old
house, perhaps as old as it claimed to be, and perhaps older, which
will sometimes happen with houses of an uncertain, as with ladies
of a certain, age. Its windows were all diamond-pane lattices, its
floors were sunken and uneven, its ceilings blackened by the hand
of time and heavy with massive beams. Over the doorway was an
ancient porch, quaintly and grotesquely carved; and here on summer
evenings the more favoured customers smoked and drank--ay, and sang
many a good song too, sometimes--reposing on two grim-looking
high-backed settles, which, like the twin dragons of some fairy
tale, guarded the entrance to the mansion.

“In the chimneys of the disused rooms, swallows had built their
nests for many a long year, and from earliest spring to latest
autumn whole colonies of sparrows chirped and twittered in the
eaves. There were more pigeons about the dreary stable-yard and
outbuildings than anybody but the landlord could reckon up. The
wheeling and circling flights of runts, fantails, tumblers, and
pouters, were perhaps not quite consistent with the grave and sober
character of the building, but the monotonous cooing, which never
ceased to be raised by some among them all day long, suited it
exactly, and seemed to lull it to rest. With its overhanging
storys, drowsy little panes of glass, and front bulging out and
projecting over the pathway, the old house looked as if it were
nodding in its sleep. Indeed it needed no very great stretch of
fancy to detect in it other resemblances to humanity. The bricks of
which it was built had originally been a deep dark red, but had
grown yellow and discoloured like an old man’s skin; the sturdy
timbers had decayed like teeth; and here and there the ivy, like a
warm garment to comfort it in its age, wrapped its green leaves
closely round the time-worn walls.

“It was a hale and hearty age, though, still; and in the summer or
autumn evenings, when the glow of the setting sun fell upon the oak
and chestnut trees of the adjacent forest, the old house, partaking
of its lustre, seemed their fit companion, and to have many good
years of life in him yet.”

The house indicated in the foregoing description still stands, much as it was in the days of which Dickens wrote. It is, however, _not_ the MAYPOLE at Chigwell. Dickens, to suit the purposes of his tale, made free use of that license usually allowed to poets and writers of fiction. His description, as above, gives a very fair idea of the fine old hostelry known as the KING’S HEAD, situate opposite the church in the village of Chigwell, where it has displayed the same sign since 1789 at least. It was in what has since been known as the “Chester Room” in this house, that a portion, at least, of _Barnaby Rudge_ was penned. On the sign-board swinging over the door, there is a large portrait of King Charles I., painted some years ago by Miss Herring. At Chigwell Row, about two miles distant, there _is_ a MAYPOLE INN, with a maypole still before the door, and on the site which Dickens indicates; but the foregoing description is (as has been said) that of the KING’S HEAD. The present MAYPOLE is an inn of no special pretensions, and is not the same house that displayed the sign at least as early as 1789. A writer in _Notes and Queries_,[84] says that the following was formerly to be seen on the sign:--

“My liquor’s good,
My measure’s just,
Excuse me, sirs,
I cannot trust.”

(_At Chigwell._)]

Over the fireplace was seen these lines:--

“All you who stand
Before the fire,
I pray sit down.
It’s my desire
That other folks
As well as you
May see the fire
And feel it too.”

An inscription upon the stable-door ran as follows:--

“Whoever smokes tobacco here,
Shall forfeit sixpense to spend in beer.
Your pipes lay by when you come here,
Or fire to me may prove severe.”

The only other sign of the kind now to be seen in Essex is the OLD MAYPOLE at Barkingside. Andrews and Drury’s _Map of Essex_, however, published in 1777, shows houses with this sign then existing at Chigwell, Barking, and Collier’s Row. A writer in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, speaking of Maypoles, says, “The last in London was taken down in 1717, and removed to Wanstead in Essex. It was more than 100 feet high, and stood on the east side of Somerset House.” The custom of celebrating Mayday has now almost died out in the county, except at Saffron Walden, where, every “Garland Day,” it is customary to see the High Street of the town crowded during the morning with children, each bearing a “garland” more or less tastefully arranged upon a hoop, or in some other way. They diligently visit all the houses asking for coppers, which are generally given with liberality. The WHEATSHEAF, as already stated (p. 33), appears as a sign no less than seven times in Essex. Wheatsheaves form charges on the arms of at least three of the great Trade Companies, namely, the Brewers’ (p. 32), the Bakers’ (p. 33), and the Inn-holders’.[85] Although the sign of the BAKERS’ ARMS now only occurs once in Essex, two tokens issued in Chelmsford, one issued in Braintree, and several issued in Colchester, bear the arms of the Bakers’ Company; and as there are now houses displaying the sign of the WHEATSHEAF in each of those places, and all of them have existed for at least forty years, it is quite possible that they are the same establishments kept, two centuries ago, by the issuers of the tokens. As a beer-house sign, too, the WHEATSHEAF is still common.

The CROWN AND THISTLE, which occurs at Great Chesterford, is a rather uncommon sign. It, of course, represents the royal badge of Scotland, _a thistle, imperially crowned_.

(_Badge of James I._)]

Few will be surprised to learn that the ROSE is very common as a sign. A rose imperially crowned is now the national badge of England; white and red roses formed the cognizances of the rival factions of York and Lancaster in the “Wars of the Roses;” the same flower, under different forms, served as the badge of nearly all the English sovereigns from Edward I. to Anne; and it is one of the very commonest “vegetable” charges known in Heraldry. The fact that, while the sign of a simple ROSE occurs only three times in Essex, namely, at Southchurch, Peldon, and West Mersea, the ROSE AND CROWN occurs as many as twenty-five times, clearly shows the heraldic origin of the sign, most of our kings and queens having worn the rose crowned. The Rose and the Thistle combined together in a very absurd heraldic style, and crowned, were used as a badge by James I. to typify the union of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland. On the beautiful chapel of Henry VII. at Cambridge the rose and crown are repeated innumerable times, together with the king’s other badges, a portcullis and a fleur-de-lys, both of them crowned. A rose crowned also appears on the token of “Iohn Freeherne iunior, in Witham, 1667.” The authors of the _History of Sign-boards_ say (p. 124): “Hutton, in his _Battle of Bosworth_, says that ‘upon the death of Richard III., and consequent overthrow of the York Faction, all the sign-boards with white roses were pulled down, and none are to be found at the present day.’ This last part of the statement, we believe, is true.” The rose in the sign of the ROSE AND CROWN at Thaxted is, nevertheless, painted white, though this is certainly unusual. On Cary’s and other old maps of Essex, published about a century ago, may be seen marked two houses, presumably inns, known as the WHITE ROSE and the RED ROSE, situated near one another on the edge of Epping Forest. Neither of these signs appear in Essex at the present day, nor do Larwood and Hotten mention them. There is also a WHITE ROSE in Castle Street, Leicester Square, London. The ROSE AND CROWN at Saffron Walden has long been the principal inn in the town. One of the earliest references to it in the Corporation records occurs in 1654, when 2s. were expended “For 1 Quart of canary at the Rose when Moulton and Douglas suffered.” In 1660, 2s. 4d. was “Spent at the Rose and Crown when Captain Turner sent about the town armes.” In the following year, and again in 1682, the name appears again; while in the years 1689, 1704, 1709, and 1819, the Corporation seems to have expended various sums at “the ROSE” (undoubtedly the same house) upon certain special occasions. It was from this house, too, that “Poor Robin” started on his _Perambulation from Saffron Walden to London_ in 1678 (see p. 66), as shown by the following extracts. He says:--

* * * * *

“Thus, having shown you _when_, in the next place
I’ll show you _whence_, my journey I did trace.

* * * * *

It was from the Rose and Crown, where Mr. Eve
Doth keep a house like to an Under Sheriff;
There is good Sack, good French wine and good Beer.

* * * * *

There, at my parting, some kind friends of mine,
Would needs bestow on me a quart of wine,
Where, with stout drinking, ere my parting hour,
That quart was made at least a three or four.
Yet would my jovial friends on me attend,
Part of my journey unto Audley End.”

The Mr. Eve mentioned herein is undoubtedly the same landlord mentioned in the Saffron Walden _Mayor’s Book_ in 1680, when the Corporation “Pd. Mr. Eves for wine at

the Dinner, &c., when the King came to Audley End, when we delivered the Address--£5 2s. 0d.” The ROSE at Peldon appears to be at least a century old, as it is mentioned in the _Chelmsford Chronicle_ on May 5, 1786. The inn plays a rather conspicuous part in the Rev. Baring-Gould’s _Mehalah_, wherein (ii. p. 58) it is described as “an old-fashioned house with a vine scrambling over the red tile roof, and an ancient standard sign on the green before the door, bearing a rose painted the size of a gigantic turnip.” Few houses suffered more severely from the earthquake of April 22, 1884, than this. An illustration of its appearance immediately after that event is here given.

Mr. King finds mention in ancient deeds of a ROSE AND CROWN--either inn, shop, or tenement--at Rochford in 1693. In the Stock parish registers it is recorded that on August 23, 1676, “Richard Barnes, a citizen of London, dwelling (as he sayd) in the Minories, taken sick in travell, dyed in y^{e} highway neare y^{e} house called y^{e} Rose, and was burried at y^{e} p’ishes charge.” Presumably this ROSE was not an inn. A ROSE appears on the token, dated 1670, of Thomas Guyon of Coggeshall, but no house with that sign now exists there. The ROSE AND CROWN at Rochford is referred to in the _Chelmsford Chronicle_ on April 14, 1786. The sign of the _Rose of Denmark_ occurs at Canning Town. Its origin is not obvious. Larwood and Hotten do not refer to the sign.