Of the Elephant and Castle, a very old device, we have two instances in Essex, one at Harwich, and the other at Colchester. Neither seems to have been in existence twenty years ago. Most probably they are named after the famous old coaching inn at Newington Butts; but they may have originally been cutlers’ signs. The elephant with a castle on his back (as he was generally represented in the Middle Ages) formed the crest of the Cutlers’ Company.[67] At Great Baddow, Rayleigh, and elsewhere the device serves as a beer-house sign.
The Goat and Boots on *East Hill, Colchester, though over forty years old, is a sign which is not noticed in the History of Sign-boards. It is, doubtless, a corruption of the not-uncommon sign of the Goat in Boots, which appears to be a caricature of Welshmen, and not a corruption of the Dutch description of Mercury, der goden boode (the gods’ messenger), as is often stated. We have in Essex no example of the not-uncommon sign of the Goat and Compasses, which is usually supposed to be a corruption of the Puritan motto, “God encompasses us.” This explanation, however, is not sound. The motto could never have been represented pictorially upon the sign-board, and we know that pictorial representation was the sole aim and object of the sign in olden times. Probably the sign is merely a compound one; or it may represent the arms of the Cordwainers’ Company[68] in a corrupted form. To this origin may be certainly traced the sign of the Three Goats’ Heads, which, however, does not occur in Essex.
The Squirrel’s Head at Squirrel’s Heath, Romford, has no doubt some connection with the locality. It was not in existence forty years ago. The sign of the Three Squirrels, which is not found in Essex, has been in use for over two centuries.
The sign of the Sea Horse, which has existed at *Colchester for at least sixty years past, is not noticed by Larwood and Hotten. Very likely it commemorates the capture in the Colne, and subsequent exhibition in the town, of some such strange creature as a seal or porpoise, which vulgar belief set down as a “sea horse.”
The sign of the Dolphin occurs four times in the county, namely, at *Colchester, *Chelmsford, Maldon, and *Romford. The animal also figures as a beer-house sign at Stisted, Goldhanger, &c. The houses bearing it may have taken their sign from the many representations of the dolphin in private coats of arms; but, most likely, they have simply been called after the famous Dolphin Inn which existed in London for several centuries, and is said to have been occupied by Louis, the Dauphin of France, who, in 1216, came over to contest the English crown with King John. It was once adorned with fleurs-de-lys, dolphins, and other French cognizances. The dolphin formed the badge of the Dauphins of France, just as the three ostrich feathers form the badge of our own Princes of Wales. Larwood and Hotten do not notice the sign of the Whalebone of which Essex possesses four examples, namely, at Woodham Ferrers, *Colchester, Fingringhoe, and White Roothing. That at the latter place has apparently been in existence for at least a century, as it is mentioned more than once in the Chelmsford Chronicle in the year 1786, while the one at Colchester figured in the list as the Old Whalebone forty years ago. The Fishbone, however, spoken of by Larwood and Hotten as being “rarely met with as a public-house sign,” though frequently used by dealers in rags and bones, is probably the same sign under a different name. In the museum at Saffron Walden there has been, for nearly fifty years past, a large whale’s scapula, which is said formerly to have hung as a sign in one of the streets of that town. Mr. Joseph Clarke believes it was displayed at the King’s Head, and it has on it an almost illegible letter R, probably part of the monogram G. R.; but more likely it formed the sign of the Whalebone at some house not now in existence, or not under that name. Of the Sun and Whalebone which has existed at Latton since 1789 at least, the authors so frequently quoted say that “it may have originated from a whalebone hanging outside the house or [it may indicate] that the landlord had laid the foundation of his fortune as a rag merchant.” More probably, however, its origin was the impalement of two distinct signs. The sign-board is not pictorial. This sign was very fully discussed in Notes and Queries in 1862 (3rd series, vol. i. pp. 250, 335, 359, 397, 419, and 473). Several most profound speculations were advanced to account for it, but they were all more or less far fetched. The Whalebone at Chadwell Heath has now disappeared, though a beer-shop so named existed there until about the year 1870. From it, in all probability, our four existing houses of this name, as well as the Sun and Whalebone at Latton, have taken their designation; for the sign is a very uncommon one in the adjoining counties, and does not appear at all in London. The house in question originally took its name from two whale’s jaw-bones (not rib-bones, as is commonly supposed) set up in the form of an archway over the road close at hand. Local tradition says that the bones were those of a whale that was stranded in the Thames near Dagenham during the great storm that prevailed on the night preceding September 3, 1658, when Oliver Cromwell died.
This was, perhaps, the case, as “Ye Whalebone” is marked against the tenth milestone from London on the map of the high-road from London to Harwich, given in Ogilby’s Itinerarium Angliæ, published in 1675, only seventeen years after the whale is said to have been stranded. Also in Dr. Howell’s Ancient and Present State of England, first published in 1678, it is stated (6th Ed. p. 263) that, “near about this time [1658], there came up the Thames as far as Greenwich a whale of very great length and bigness.” Daniel Defoe, too, in his Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, first published in 1724, says (vol. i. p. 3) the Whalebone was “so called because the rib-bone of a large Whale, taken in the River of Thames, was fixed there in 1658, the year Oliver Cromwell died, for a monument of that monstrous creature, it being at first about Eight and Twenty Foot long.” The Whale’s Bone is also marked on Andrew and Drury’s Map of Essex, published in 1777. That a storm of most unusual magnitude did rage on the night in question, is certain. Prideaux, in his Introduction to History (1682), speaks of “that most horrid tempestuous night which ushered in this day [on which Cromwell died].” Pepys also mentions the storm. Nor is it anything new for whales and similar animals to appear in the Thames. In Sir Richard Baker’s Chronicles of the Kings of England (p. 425), published in 1684, it is recorded that on the 19th of January, 1606, “a great Porpus was taken at West Ham, in a small creek a mile and a half within the land; and within a few days after a Whale came up within eight miles of London, whose body was seen divers times above the water, and was judged to exceed the length of the largest ship in the River: but when she tasted the fresh water and scented the land, she returned again into the sea.” On the morning of April 31, 1879, too, a whale alarmed some fishermen by his spouting near Hole Haven. Many other records might be cited. It is, however, a curious circumstance that in M. J. Farmer’s History of Waltham Abbey, published in 1735, there is given as an appendix “The Inquisition taken the 17th of King Charles I. [1642] of a Perambulation of Waltham Forest in the County of Essex,” in which occurs the following passage:—[The Forest boundary runs] “from Great Ilford directly by the same King’s High Way leading towards Rumford, to a certain Quadrivium (or way leading four ways), called the Four Wants, where late was placed and yet is a certain side of a whale, called the Whale bone.” From this it would appear that the spot was known as the Whalebone long before Cromwell’s death. Possibly, however, there is an error in the above date, Charles I. being inserted instead of Charles II.
A good deal of discussion upon the subject took place several years ago in the pages of Notes and Queries. In 1871 (p. 4), “G. S.” wrote that he had often seen whales’ bones set upright in Holland for cattle to rub against, and that he “was once struck with the same in a large park between Ingatestone and Chelmsford. The owner was a Dutch gentleman, who had introduced this sensible idea into England.” Other correspondents wrote that they knew of whales’ bones having been set up in various parts of England. Later on (p. 195), Mr. J. Perry, of Waltham Abbey, wrote that—
“There is (or was lately) a pair of whale’s ribs placed over the old toll-gate at Chadwell Heath, near Romford, Essex, which form a kind of Gothic arch across the roadway. They must have been there for a considerable period, as it is beyond the memory of any of the good old country-folks living in the locality to tell when first erected. At a little distance from the toll-house occurs a similar pair, set up over the carriage entrance to a residence.”
Afterwards (1878, p. 397) “S. P.” wrote as follows:—
“When I was a boy, there stood by the roadside, about two miles west of Romford, at the east end of the long straggling village of Chadwell Heath, and on the left hand going from London, a tremendous pair of bones, forming an arch. The bases were deeply rooted in the earth, but even then the space spanned was considerable. Near by was a toll-house, with its bar, known from the adjacent relic as ‘Whalebone Gate.’ I think, too, if I remember rightly, there stood near the spot a road-side inn called by the sign of ‘the Whalebone.’ My father, an Essex man, long since dead, used to tell me that he had it from his grandfather, that the bone was the upper [should be lower] jaw of an immense whale, which had been cast ashore about three miles to the south of the spot, on the north bank of the Thames, at Dagenham, while the Great Storm was raging on the night that Oliver Cromwell died. In course of time, toll on suburban roads was abolished; the toll-house and gate were cleared away; and the jaw was appropriated to serve as an entrance arch to the front garden of a neighbouring suburban villa—the rural residence, I believe, of a Whitechapel pork-butcher—an edifice known, and still indicated on suburban maps of a tolerably modern date, as ‘Whalebone House.’ ... What became of the worthy tradesman I have above alluded to, I do not know. Probably his house is still standing, but I am unable to identify it now by its former title or peculiar gate. I am under the impression that what remains of the relic has been transferred to its original site; for I was past the spot where, so far as my memory serves me, it formerly stood, on July 25th in this year. Half the arch (i.e., one bone) stood upright, still deeply rooted in the earth, but alone, forgotten and deserted, by the side of the high road in a fallow field. No one in the neighbourhood seemed to know anything about it or its history.”