At the beginning of this century there was a noted tavern in Bond Street, called THE Brawn’s Head, and the general opinion was, that at one time it had a brawn or boar’s head for its sign; this, however, was a mistake; the house was named after the head of a noted cook whose name was Theophilus Brawn, formerly landlord of Rummer Tavern in Great Queen Street, and the article (as the letters THE were usually supposed to be) was simply an abbreviation of the man’s magnificent Christian name.
All these gastronomic signs, doubtless, originated in the old custom of landlords selling eatables:—
“You brave-minded and most joviall Sardanapalitans,” saith Taylor the Water poet, addressing the country tavern-keepers, “have power and prerogative (cum privilegio) to receive, lodge, feast, and feed, both man and beast. You have the happinesse to Boyle, Roast, Broyle, and Bake, Fish, Flesh, and Foule, whilst we in London have scarce the command of a Gull, a widgeon, or a woodcock.”
In a little volume of 1685, entitled “The Praise of Yorkshire ale,” we are told that Bacchus held a parliament in the Sun, behind the Exchange in York, to consider the adulteration of wine, the various drinking vessels, and other matters sold in alehouses, as:—
“Papers of sugar, with such like knacks,
Biskets, Luke olives, Anchoves, Caveare,
Neats’ tongues, Westphalia Hambs, and
Such like cheat, Crabs, Lobsters, Collar Beef,
Cold puddings, oysters, and such like stuff.”
Hence, then, the once common sign of the [Three Neats’ Tongues], one of which still exists in Spitalfields; another one in the eighteenth century was very appropriately situated in Bull and Mouth Street.[555] The Ham is the usual porkman’s sign, though at Walmyth, in Yorkshire, there is a public-house sign of the Ham and Firkin. The Crab and Lobster Inn occurs at Ventnor; the Lobster is a sign on trades tokens of a shop in Bearbinder (now St Swithin’s) Lane, and also near the Maypole in the Strand; the Crawfish at Thursford Guist, in Norfolk, and the Butt and Oyster at Chelmondiston, Ipswich. Those eatables, all more or less salt, were sold as incitements to drink, and went by the cant term of shoeing horns, gloves, or pullers-on. They are often alluded to by ancient authors:—
“Then, sir, comes me up a service of shoeing-horns of all sorts, salt cakes, red herrings, anchoves, and gammon of bacon, and abundance of such pullers-on.”—Bishop Hall’s Mundus alter et idem.
The Pie was a sign in very early times, and gave its name to Pie Corner, “a place so called from such a sign, sometimes a fair inn for receipt of travellers.”—Stow, p. 139. One of the most famous inns with that sign was the Pie in Aldgate.