THE BELL-SAVAGE INN
On Ludgate-hill, has, for more than a century, since its name was mentioned by Addison in the Spectator, occasioned a great variety of conjectures. These conjectures, however, all appear to have been erroneous, as the inn took the addition to its name from its having belonged to, or been kept by, a person of the name of Savage. The sign originally appears to have been a bell hung within a hoop, a common mode of representation in former times. This origin has been proved by a grant in the reign of Henry VI. in which John French, gentleman of London, gives to Joan French, widow, his mother, "all that tenement or inn called Savage's Inn, otherwise called the Bell on the Hoop." In the original "vocat" Savagesynne, alias vocat "Le Belle on the Hope." Perhaps the phrase "Cock-a-Hoop," may be derived from the sign of that bird standing on a hoop, thus most conspicuously displaying himself, as we find that sign or rather design existed in the reign above mentioned.