Signboard and Bush.

In process of time it became usual for the pub­li­can to af­fix some fur­ther dis­tinc­tive mark to his ale-stake. At first a mere bush or bunch of ivy seems to have been used, and in Scot­land a wisp of straw long served the same pur­pose. In Chaucer’s time the bush had de­ve­loped into an ale-gar­land of con­si­der­able size, as we are in­formed by the lines:—

A garlond hadde he sette uhede As grete as it wer for an ale-stake.

The signboard and bush shown above are taken from a print of Cheapside in 1638. {217}

Porter’s Angry Woman shows that a mere bush was still frequently used at that period (1599) by the passage: “I might have had a pumpe set up with as good Marche beere as this was and nere set up an ale-bush for the matter,” and the Country Carbonadoed (1632) shows that the bush had not yet become specialised to the use of the wine-seller. Referring to alehouses, it is stated that “if these houses have a boxe-bush, or an old post, it is enough to show their profession, but if they be graced with a signe compleat, it is a signe of good custome.” Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the ivy-bush, the sacred emblem of Bacchus, came to denote that wine as well as ale was sold within. In Poor Robin’s Perambulation from Saffron Walden to London (1678) the author mentions that—

Some ale-houses upon the road I saw, And some with bushes, showing they wine did draw.

Ancient Alehouse.

The following illustrations represent an ancient road-side alehouse and a hostel by night. The former is taken from a manuscript of the early part of the fifteenth century. The latter is from an illumination in the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles in the Hunterian Library at Glasgow, and is of about the same date. In one a conventional bush appears above the door; while in the other there is both bush and sign. The absence of any night attire other than night-caps—the usual custom of the period—and the number of persons sleeping in one room, are noticeable. Night-caps were no doubt very necessary in an age when glass windows were little used.

The next step in the his­tor­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of the sign­board was the ad­di­tion of a carved and painted ef­fi­gy of a Swan, a Cock, a Hen, or some other bird or beast. The ef­fi­gy was fixed in a hoop and hung from the end of the ale-pole, and it is sug­gest­ed that the term “cock-a-hoop,” sig­ni­fy­ing a rather of­fen­sive­ly jub­i­lant de­mea­nour, may be traced to the at­ti­tude of Chant­i­cleer upon the ale-house hoop. Haz­litt gives a dif­fer­ent ori­gin to the phrase. Quo­ting from Blount’s Dic­tionary (1681), he says: “The Cock was the tap and being taken out {218} and laid