The Blue Boar is, perhaps, the most interesting of all our Essex signs. At present it occurs five times in the county—namely, at *Prittlewell, *Maldon, *Colchester, *Stratford, and Abridge. The two first-named houses have been in existence at least a century, as they are mentioned in advertisements in the Chelmsford Chronicle in 1786 and 1788 respectively, while the last-named is marked on Greenwood’s Map of Essex, published in 1824. Forty years ago there was another example of the sign at Stanford Rivers, and Mr. H. W. King informs the author that the house at Hadleigh, now known as the Castle, displayed the sign of the Blue Boar until late in the last century. Taylor (see p. 28) mentions another Blue Boar at Ilford in 1636. In 1789, too, there was one at Fyfield. In the year 1750, a Blue Boar’s Head Inn existed opposite the Church at Waltham Abbey. Mr. Charles Golding, of Colchester, in writing to Notes and Queries[59] to inquire the latest date at which bull-baiting is known to have taken place in England, mentions that an entertainment of this kind was announced, in an old advertisement that he had seen, to take place at the above house on Whitsun Monday, 1750, and “any gentleman bringing a dog should be entertained at a dinner free.” The same house is referred to in an entry in the parish registers in 1647, when 12s. 6d. was “paid for a dinner at the Borsehed when the ould Churchwardens gave up their accounts.” The sign of the Boar’s Head occurs at East Horndon, *Braintree, and *Dunmow. The first of these houses appeared in the list forty years ago as the Old Boar’s Head. Our houses of this name have, perhaps, been named after the famous Boar’s Head tavern which used to exist in Eastcheap, or they may have had a separate origin. As to the derivation of the sign itself, Larwood and Hotten are inclined to believe that it represents the boar’s head as formerly often brought to table, rather than a charge taken from some one’s arms; but, in this, it is difficult altogether to agree with them. A boar’s head forms part of the arms of the Butchers’ Company (p. 34), and we have had in Essex several families bearing the same charge in their arms, such as the Borehams of Haverhill, the Welbores of Clavering, and the Tyrrells, Baronets, of Boreham House—the charge and the name of the place being very probably connected in some way in the latter case. Indeed, so far as the Boar’s Head at East Horndon is concerned, there can be no doubt whatever that it represents the crest of the family of Tyrrells, Baronets (connected with the Boreham Tyrrells), formerly of Heron Hall, in the same parish, which was demolished about the year 1789. Their crest, which was a boar’s head, couped and erect, argent, issuant out of the mouth a peacock’s tail proper, is now correctly represented on the sign-board, exactly as upon several of the family monuments in the church. Both the sign-board and the heraldic device it bears are new, having been recently set up under the supervision of the rector of the parish. The old board, which is altogether unheraldic, is displayed over the door, and exhibits the head of an extremely ferocious-looking boar emerging from a clump of rushes in a most threatening manner.
There can be very little doubt that in Essex the sign of the Blue Boar represents the boar azure, armed, unguled, and bristled or, which served as a crest, as one of the supporters, and also as one of the principal badges of the once powerful De Veres, Earls of Oxford, formerly of Hedingham Castle. This is shown to be the more probable by the fact that we have still no less than five examples of the sign in the county, while the adjacent counties of Kent, Middlesex, and Herts possess none. Elsewhere, too, the sign is very uncommon. Not a single example now appears in Surrey, Sussex, Durham, Devonshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, or Cheshire. Norfolk, Kent, and Cambridge have one each. Leicestershire and Suffolk (in which county the De Veres also had large estates) have, however, two each. In London, although there is both a Boar’s Head and a Blue Boar’s Head, there is not now a Blue Boar. However, a tradesman’s token issued “at the Bleu Boore without Bishopsgate” in the seventeenth century still exists. Much valuable information concerning the Blue Boar as used by the De Veres, is contained in a paper by the Rev. H. L. Elliot, of Gosfield, On Some Badges and Devices of the De Veres, on the Tower of Castle Hedingham Church.[60] Four of these—the Boar, the Mullet, the Whistle, and the Windlass—are here reproduced.
The motto of the family, Vero nihil verius and Verite vient formed a rebus on the name. The boar as a badge was evidently assumed for the same reason. The Latin name for the animal is verres, though the De Veres probably got it through the Dutch (veer or vere), as they were a branch of the House of Blois, and owned the Lordship of Vere in Zetland. The boar has been a favourite device of the De Veres from a very early period. The feet of the cross-legged and mail-clad figure of Robert, the fifth Earl, who died in 1296, still existing at Earls Colne Priory, are placed against a boar, and the same animal appears in different capacities on all, or nearly all, the other existing monuments of the family. Stowe speaks of John, the sixteenth Earl, “riding into the city, to his house by London Stone, with eighty gentlemen in a livery of Reading tawney, and chains of gold about their necks, before him, and one hundred tall yeomen in the like livery to follow him, without chains, but all having his cognizance of the Blew Boar embroydered on their left shoulder.” As a badge, the boar is carved, alternately with the mullet (another device of the De Veres[61]), over the clerestory windows of Castle Hedingham Church; on several parts of Lavenham Church, Suffolk; on the roof of the south aisle of Sible Hedingham Church; over the west door of Chelmsford Church, and elsewhere. In the Chelmsford Museum, moreover, is preserved a wooden boss, taken from the ceiling of a room of the old Black Boy Inn when it was pulled down. On this is carved a boar, within a circular ribbon charged with seven mullets. Some information as to how these devices came into these positions is given hereafter. For close upon five centuries this mighty family, whose riches were immense, and whose power was second only to that of the sovereign, ruled over a large portion of East Anglia in semi-regal fashion. For 567 years, too, was the same title retained in this one family. It is no wonder, therefore, that their armorial bearings should have been largely used as signs by those who were in various ways dependent upon them; but it is interesting to find at the present day such comparatively clear evidence of this fact. The principal Essex inn exhibiting the sign of the Blue Boar (and the one from which, in all probability, some, at least, of our others have taken the name) was the once famous Blue Boar at Castle Hedingham. This ancient house may be cited as a good example of an inn deriving its sign directly from the armorial bearings of a great historical family which formerly resided in the immediate vicinity, and, without doubt, owned the house. Its sign, of course, represented the badge of the mighty Earls of Oxford. The inn was a fine old house standing in St. James’s Street, where its ornamental chimneys once formed the most prominent feature. After being injured by fire it was pulled down in 1865. On this occasion various old coins and other relics were discovered, the most interesting being an inscription in Early English characters, written in chalk on a blackened beam behind the wainscot. It ran thus:—
“Hans pes withe yore nebor whilom ye maye,
For oftyn tymes favore do the passe withe ye daye.”
This may be translated as follows:—
“Be at peace with your neighbour while ye may,
For often times the favour will pass with the day.”
According to the authors of the History of Sign-boards (p. 116), this sign was originally a white boar, and represented the boar argent, which formed the favourite badge of Richard III., as well as one (or, more generally, both) of the supporters of his arms.