We should be trying the reader's patience were we to enter into a discussion as to the origin of the sign of the Belle Sauvage, the inn which once stood at the bottom of Ludgate, and whose site is now occupied by the establishment of Messrs. Cassell and Company. The name was derived either from one William Savage, who in 1380 was a citizen living in that locality, or, more probably, from one Arabella Savage, whose property the inn once was. The sign originally was a bell hung within a hoop. As already mentioned, inn-yards were anciently used as theatres. The Belle Sauvage was a favourite place for dramatic performances, its inner yard being spacious, and having handsomely carved galleries to the first and second floors at the back of the main building. An original drawing of it is in the Crace collection. In this yard Banks, the showman, so often mentioned in Elizabethan pamphlets, exhibited his trained horse Morocco, the animal which once ascended the tower of St. Paul's, and which on another occasion delighted the mob by selecting Tarleton, the low comedian, as the greatest fool present. Banks eventually took his horse to Rome, and the priests, frightened at the circus tricks, burnt both Morocco and his master as sorcerers. Close by the inn lived Grinling Gibbons, and an old house, bearing the crest of the Cutlers' Company, remains.
The old Black Bull (now No. 122), Gray's Inn Lane, was, in its original state, as shown by a woodcut in Walford's 'Old and New London,' a specimen, though of the meaner sort, of the old-fashioned galleried yard.
The Black Lion, on the west side of Whitefriars Street, was a quaint and picturesque edifice, and its courtyard showed a gallery to the first-floor of the building, rather wider than usual, and with massive banisters, pillars supporting the roof. The old house was pulled down in 1877, and a large tavern of the ordinary uninteresting type now occupies its site.
One of the once famous Southwark inns was the Boar's Head, which formed a part of Sir John Fastolf's benefactions to Magdalen College, Oxford. This Sir John was one of the bravest Generals in the French wars under Henry IV. and his successors. The premises comprised a narrow court of ten or twelve houses, and two separate houses at the east end, the one of them having a gallery to the first-floor. The property was for many years leased to the father of Mr. John Timbs, which latter, in his 'Curiosities of London,' gives a lengthy account of the premises. They were taken down in 1830 to widen the approach to London Bridge. The court above mentioned was known as Boar's Head Court, and under it and some adjoining houses, on their demolition, was discovered a finely-vaulted cellar, doubtless the wine-cellar of the Boar's Head.
Most noted among theatrical inns was the Bull, in Bishopsgate Street, so much so that the mother of Anthony Bacon (the brother of the great Francis), when he went to live in the neighbourhood of the inn, was terribly frightened lest he and his servants should be led astray by the actors performing at the inn. Tarleton, the comedian, often acted there. It was while giving representations at the Bull that Burbage, Shakespeare's friend, and his fellows obtained a patent from Queen Elizabeth for erecting a permanent building for theatrical performances, though the Bull afforded them every convenience, its yard and galleries being on a large scale and in good style. It was at the Bull that the Cambridge carrier Hobson, of 'Hobson's choice,' used to put up.[#] A portrait and a parchment certificate of Mr. Van Harn, a customer of the house, were long preserved at the Bull inn; this worthy is said to have drunk 35,680 bottles of wine in this hostelry.
[#] Though I find it stated in other authorities that he put up at the Four Swans; possibly he resorted to both.
The Bull and Gate, in Holborn, probably took its name from Boulogne Gate, as the Bull and Mouth in Aldersgate Street was a corruption of Boulogne Mouth, and both were, no doubt, intended as compliments to Henry VIII., who took that town in 1544. Tom Jones alighted at the Bull and Gate when he first came to London.
Holborn at one time abounded in inns. Says Stow: 'On the high street of Oldbourne have ye many fair houses builded, and lodgings for gentlemen, inns for travellers and such like up almost (for it lacketh but little) to St. Giles' in the Fields.' We shall have to mention one or two more as we go on.
The Bull and Mouth inn alluded to above in the olden time was a great coaching-place. It had a large yard and galleries, with elegantly designed galleries to the first, second, and third floors. There is a view of it in the Crace collection. Its site was afterwards occupied by the Queen's Hotel, which was pulled down in 1887 to make room for the post-office extension.
The Catherine Wheel was a sign frequently adopted by inn-keepers in former days. Mr. Larwood, in his 'History of Signboards,' assumes that it was intended to indicate that as the knights of St. Catherine of Mount Sinai protected the pilgrims from robbery, he, the innkeeper, would protect the traveller from being fleeced at his inn. But this surmise seems too learned to be true. What did the bonifaces of those days know of the knights of St. Catherine? But in Roman Catholic countries saints were, and are still, seen on numerous signboards, and so the one in question may have descended in English inns from ante-Reformation times, or it may have been the fancy of one particular man, who may have read the story of St. Catherine, and been moved by it to adopt the wheel. St. Catherine was beheaded, after having been placed between wheels with spikes, from which she was saved by an angel. But to come to facts.