I regret that it has been necessary to make use of some old heraldic terms which the general reader will probably not at first understand. This, however, was quite unavoidable. The meaning of these terms will be at once made clear on reference to the Glossary given at the end of the work, as an Appendix.
According to the list given in the last edition of the Essex Post Office Directory there are now existing in the county no less than one thousand, three hundred and fifty-five inns and public-houses. The signs of all these have been classified, arranged under various headings, and treated of in turn, together with a very large number of others which have existed in the county during the last two centuries and a half, but have now disappeared. Information as to these has been collected by means of a careful examination of the trade-tokens of the seventeenth century, old Essex Directories, early books and pamphlets relating to the county, old deeds and records, the early issues of the Chelmsford Chronicle (now the Essex County Chronicle), and other newspapers, &c., &c. Altogether it will be found I have been able to enumerate no less than 693 distinct signs as now or formerly occurring in Essex.
I am indebted to a large number of gentlemen who have most kindly assisted me by supplying me with information, suggestions, &c., during the eight years I have been gathering material for the present book. First and foremost among these I must mention Mr. H. W. King of Leigh, Hon. Secretary to the Essex Archæological Society, who, as he says, “knows the descent of nearly every house and plot of ground in the parish for two or three generations, and the name of every owner.” Among other gentlemen to whom I am indebted in varying degrees, I may mention Mr. G. F. Beaumont, Mr. Fred. Chancellor, that veteran Essex archæologist Mr. Joseph Clarke, F.S.A., Mr. Wm. Cole, F.E.S., Hon. Secretary of the Essex Field Club, Mr. Thos. B. Daniell, the Rev. H. L. Elliot, Mr. C. K. Probert, Mr. G. N. Maynard, Mr. H. Ecroyd Smith, and others, I have also to express my thanks to the following gentlemen, magistrates’ clerks to the various Petty Sessional Divisions of Essex, who have most kindly supplied me with lists of such beer-houses as have signs in their respective divisions:—Messrs. A. J. Arthy (Rochford), Jos. Beaumont (Dengie), W. Bindon Blood (Witham), J. and J. T. Collin (Saffron Walden), G. Creed (Epping and Harlow), Augustus Cunnington (Freshwell and South Hinckford), W. W. Duffield (Chelmsford), H. S. Haynes (Havering), A. H. Hunt (Orsett), and Chas. Smith (Ongar). I have also to thank the Essex Archæological Society for the use of the four blocks of the De Vere badges appearing on p. 70; the Essex Field Club for that of the Rose Inn, Peldon, on p. 118; Messrs. Chambers & Sons of 22, Wilson Street, Finsbury, for that of the Brewers’ Arms on p. 32; Messrs. Couchman & Co. of 14, Throgmorton Street, E.C., for that of the Drapers’ Arms on p. 40; and the Brewers’, Drapers’ and Butchers’ Companies for kindly allowing me to insert cuts of their arms. To my cousin, Miss S. Christy, I am indebted for kindly drawing the illustrations appearing on pp. 87 and 140.
Portions of the Introduction and other parts of the book have already appeared in an altered form in Chambers’s Journal (Jan., 1887, p. 785), and I am indebted to the editor for permission to reprint.
Finally, I have to thank the Subscribers, who, by kindly ordering copies, have diminished the loss which almost invariably attends the publication of works of this nature. As the book has already extended to considerably more space than was originally intended, I trust the Subscribers will excuse the omission of the customary list.
Chelmsford,
February 1, 1887.
