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            [Illustration: CHELMSFORD HIGH STREET IN 1762.

  (_Reduced by Photography from the Larger Engraving by J. Ryland._)]




                                  THE

                         TRADE SIGNS OF ESSEX:

                           A Popular Account

                                  OF

                        THE ORIGIN AND MEANINGS

                                OF THE

                      Public House & Other Signs

                            NOW OR FORMERLY

                     Found in the County of Essex.

                                  BY
                            MILLER CHRISTY,

                   _Author of “Manitoba Described,”
           “The Genus Primula in Essex,” “Our Empire,” &c._

                          WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

                              Chelmsford:
         EDMUND DURRANT & CO., 90, HIGH STREET.

                                London:
          GRIFFITH, FARRAN, OKEDEN, AND WELSH,
                  WEST CORNER ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD.

                             MDCCCLXXXVII.

[Illustration]




PREFACE.

     “Prefaces to books [says a learned author] are like signs to
     public-houses. They are intended to give one an idea of the kind of
     entertainment to be found within.”


A student of the ancient and peculiarly interesting Art of Heraldry can
hardly fail, at an early period in his researches, to be struck with the
idea that some connection obviously exists between the various
“charges,” “crests,” “badges,” and “supporters” with which he is
familiar, and the curious designs now to be seen upon the sign-boards of
many of our roadside inns, and which were formerly displayed by most
other houses of business.

On first noticing this relationship when commencing the study of
Heraldry, somewhere about the year 1879, it occurred to me that the
subject was well worth following up. It seemed to me that much
interesting information would probably be brought to light by a careful
examination of the numerous signs of my native county of Essex. Still
more desirable did this appear when, after careful inquiry, I found that
(so far as I was able to discover) no more than three systematic
treatises upon the subject had ever been published. First and foremost
among these stands Messrs. Larwood and Hotten’s _History of
Sign-boards_,[1] a standard work which is evidently the result of a
very large amount of labour and research. I do not wish to conceal the
extent to which I am indebted to it. It is, however, to be regretted
that the authors should have paid so much attention to London signs, to
the partial neglect of those in other parts of the country, and that
they should not have provided a more complete index; but it is
significant of the completeness of their work that the other two writers
upon the subject have been able to add very little that is new, beside
mere local details. A second dissertation upon the origin and use of
trade-signs is to be found in a most interesting series of articles upon
the signs of the Town of Derby, contributed to the _Reliquary_[2] in
1867 by the late Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt, F.S.A., the editor of that
magazine; while the third and last source of information is to be found
