Nearly as ancient a building was the old Queen’s Head, Lower Street, Islington, at the corner of Queen’s Head Lane, one of the most perfect specimens of ancient domestic architecture in the vicinity of London. It is said that it was built by Sir Walter Raleigh, after he had obtained “lycense for keeping of taverns and retayling of wynes throughout Englande,” and that it was called by him the Queen’s Head in compliment to his royal mistress. Essex is also said to have resided there, and to have been visited by the queen. The same tradition is current about the Lord Treasurer Burleigh. In the reign of George II. it was used as a playhouse, and bills are still extant of plays acted there at that period.
It was a strong wood and plaster building, three lofty stories high, projecting over each other, and forming bay windows supported by brackets and caryatides. Inside it was panelled with wainscot, and had stuccoed ceilings, adorned with dolphins, cherubims, and acorns, bordered by a wreath of flowers. The porch was supported by caryatides of oak, crowned with scroll-capitals.[451] This time-honoured structure was pulled down in October 1829, and nothing of it remains in the new building erected on its site but the name, the carved oak panels of the parlour, and a bust of Queen Elizabeth at the top front. A carved mantelpiece, (formerly in the parlour of the old house,) with the history of Dian and Actæon on it, (a favourite subject with the virgin queen,) was sold for more than £60 at the sale of the building materials, most of which were bought by antiquaries.
There used to be a large pewter tankard in this house, with an inscription engraved on it, which is much too highly spiced to be given here. It was signed John Cranch, and bore date 1796.
At the Queen’s Head, Duke Court, Bow Street, the English language was enriched with two new terms, though one of them seems to have been still-born. This tavern was once kept by a facetious individual of the name of Jupp. Two celebrated characters, Annesley Shay and Bob Todrington—the latter a sporting man—meeting late in the day at the above place, went to the bar and asked for half a quartern each, with a little cold water. In the course of the evening they drank twenty-four, when Shay said to the other, “Now we’ll go.” “Oh no,” replied his companion, “we’ll have another, and then go.” This did not satisfy the Hibernian, and they continued drinking on till three in the morning, when they both agreed to go; so that under the idea of going they made a long stay, and this was the origin of drinking goes; but another preferring to eke out the measure his own way, used to call for a quartern at a time, and these in the exercise of his humour he called stays.[452]
In the beginning of this century, when Marylebone consisted of “green fields, babbling brooks,” and pleasant suburban retreats, there was a small but picturesque house of public entertainment, yclept the Queen’s Head and Artichoke, situated “in a lane nearly opposite Portland Road, and about 500 yards from the road that leads from Paddington to Finsbury”—now Albany Street. Its attractions chiefly consisted in a long skittle and “bumble puppy” ground, shadowy bowers, and abundance of cream, tea, cakes, and other creature comforts. The only memorial now remaining of the original house is an engraving in the Gentleman’s Magazine, November 1819. The queen was Queen Elizabeth, and the house was reported to have been built by one of her gardeners, whence the strange combination on the sign.
Besides Crowns (see [p. 101]) other royal paraphernalia are occasionally used as signboard decorations. The Sceptre is not uncommon; the Sceptre and Heart was the sign of Samuel Grover, chirurgical instrument maker, on London Bridge, in the latter end of the seventeenth century. It is engraved on his shop-bill, and represents a circle surrounded by fruit and foliage, having two Cupids standing at the upper corner, and containing in the centre two palm branches enclosing a sceptre surmounted by a heart. Round the whole are suspended lancets, trepans, saws, &c. In all probability it is simply a quartering of two signs.
The Royal Hand and Globe was the loyal sign of a stationer at the corner of St Martin’s Lane, in 1682.[453] It doubtless refers to the royal hand holding the golden orb, surmounted by a cross. It is still the sign of an ale-house near the Soho Theatre. The same orb or globe seems to be alluded to in the sign of the Sword and Ball, on Holborn Bridge, in the seventeenth century. What stands in the way of this explanation, however, is that on the token of this house the sword is represented piercing the ball; but this may merely have been a fancy of the sign-painter, who did not understand its meaning. As for the Sword and Mace, the meaning is perfectly clear; it is the sign of a public-house in Coventry.
The Church is almost as abundantly represented as royalty. Even long after the Reformation the Pope’s Head was still very common. Nash’s “Anatomie of Absurdities” was printed by T. Charlwood for Thomas Hacket, and was “to be sold at his shop in Lumbard Street, vnder the signe of the Popes Heade, 1590.” Taylor, the Water poet, in his “Travels through London,” 1636, mentions four Pope’s Head taverns; but the most famous of all was the Pope’s Head tavern in Cornhill.
“I have read[454] of a countryman that, having lost his hood in Westminster Hall, found the same in Cornhill hanged out to be sold, which he challenged, but was forced to buy, or go without it, for their stall they said was their market. At that time also the wine drawers at the Pope’s Head tavern (standing without the door in the High Street,)[455] took the same man by the sleeve, and said, ’Sir, will you drink a pint of wine?’ Whereunto he answered, ‘A penny spend I may,’ and so drank his pint, for bread nothing did he pay, for that was allowed free.[456] This Pope’s Head tavern, with other houses adjoining, strongly built of stone, hath of old time been all in one, pertaining to some great estate, or rather to the king, as may be supposed both by the largeness thereof, and by the arms, to wit, three leopards passant gardant, which were the whole arms of England before the reign of Edward III., that quartered them with the arms of France three flower de lys. Some say this was King John’s house, which might be, for I find in a written copy of ‘Matthew Paris’s History’ that in the year 1232, Henry III. sent Hubert de Burgh, earl of Kent, to Cornehill in[314] London, there to answer all matters objected against him: when he wisely acquitted himself. The Pope’s Head tavern hath a footway through from Cornhill into Lumbard Street.”—Stow’s Survey, p. 75.
In this tavern, in the fourth of Edward IV. (1464,) a trial of skill was held between Oliver Davy, goldsmith of London, and White Johnson, “Alicante Strangeour,” also of London,—the London goldsmiths being divided into native and “foren” workmen. These last, though they might be Englishmen, were so named merely as a distinction with respect to the work they produced, which consisted frequently in counterfeit articles and bad gold. The trial consisted in making, in four pieces of steel the size of a penny, a cat’s face in relief, and another cat’s face engraved, a naked man in relief, and another engraved, which work was to be performed in five weeks. Oliver Davy, the native goldsmith, won the wager, as White Johnson, the foreign workman, after six weeks could only produce the two “inward engraved” objects. The forfeit was a crown, and a dinner to the wardens, the umpires, and all those concerned in the wager. The works were kept in Goldsmith’s Hall, “to yat intent that they be redy iff any suche controursy herafter falls, to be shewede that suche traverse hathe be determyn’d aforetymes.”[457] In Pepys’s time this tavern, like many others of that period and later, had a painted room. “18 January 1668.—To the Pope’s Head, there to see the fine-painted room which Rogerson told me of, of his doing, but I do not like it at all, though it be good for such a publick room.” Here in 1718 Quin killed his brother actor Bowen. “On Thursday s’ennight at night, Mr Bowen and Mr Quin, two comedians, drinking at the Pope’s Head tavern in Cornhill, quarrelled, drew their swords, and fought, and the former was run into the guts; he languished till Sunday last, and then died. Bowen, before he expired, desired that Mr Quin might not be prosecuted, because what had happened to him was his own seeking.”[458] The jury brought in a verdict of manslaughter, and Quin for the offence was burned in the hand.[459] The quarrel was rather a foolish one, arising out of a wager which of the two was the honester man, which had been decided in favour of Quin; inde iræ. This tavern seems to have continued in existence till the latter part of the last century.