“The first mention I find of the existing inn is an admission dated 1765, and referring to a certain tenement adjoining eastward to the lane leading to the Crooked Billet. This previous house of the same name is a small plaster cottage. It must have been a very mean little public-house. At some period its sign was transferred to the present house in the main street, which was formerly a gentleman’s residence, and on the same property as the cottage.”
Mr. King adds:
“I incline to think that the Crooked Billet was originally a fess dancetté or a chevron—more probably the former—and that it is, therefore, an heraldic sign. The sign in this town was originally a pictorial one, and certainly it rudely represented the former. Now that it is written a different origin is assigned to it here; but there are so many others that I rather incline to the heraldic origin. They said here formerly that faggots were shipped from the wharf opposite the present house. But so they were from other wharves.”
The sign of the Cross might, with equal probability, be ascribed either to an ecclesiastical or an heraldic origin: in the one it is the symbol of Christianity, and in the other it is a very common ordinary. It came to be used very commonly as an heraldic charge at the time of the Crusades. The house with this name at Mistley was, however, probably so called on account of its being situated at a “four-want-way,” where two roads cross. There is another example of the sign at Boxted, and in 1823 there was a Red Cross at *Colchester. On the map of the road between London and Harwich, given in Ogilby’s Itinerarium Angliæ, published in 1675, a house—presumably an inn of importance—known as the Cross and Hand, is shown at Marks Tey, and just forty-five miles from London. Salmon (History of Essex, p. 69) quotes an ancient document, describing the ceremonies connected with the annual making and presenting of the Wardstaff in Ongar Hundred, in which another house—probably an inn—with the sign of “the Cross with a Hand at the three wants in Fiffield” [Fyfield] is mentioned. In Essex, three or four roads meeting are spoken of respectively as the three or four “wants.” “The Cross [says Jewitt] whether golden, red, blue, or otherwise, was formerly a much more common sign than now.” Several other Essex signs are more or less ecclesiastical. For instance, the *Mitre at Colchester is at least sixty years old. Very probably it was first so called after one or other of the several well-known taverns of the same name which formerly existed in London. Though it may have been derived from the fact that the Abbot of St. John’s Abbey, at Colchester, was one of the twenty-eight mitred abbots, and sat in the Upper House of Parliament. The Cardinal’s Hat, formerly a not uncommon sign, was displayed by a house in Bocking forty years since, but has now disappeared. At Coggeshall, one of the chief inns has long been known as the *Chapel Inn. Mr. G. F. Beaumont has kindly supplied the following information concerning it:
“In the will of Thomas Halle of Coksale, dated Jan. 15th, 1499, and proved Feb. 5th following, is this Bequest:—’I bequeath towarde the edifyng and making of a Chapell within the said towne of Coksale XX^s, to be paid when the said Chapell is in werkyng.’ In the Certificate of Chantry Lands (1549) is the following under Coggeshall:—’Item, one olde Chaple in the Street there, with a little Garden, which is worth by the year 4s.’ ”
Mr. Beaumont adds: “By deed, dated Oct. 7th, 1588, a messuage called the old Chapel was conveyed to the fullers and weavers of Coggeshall. The site of this building, which was pulled down in 1795, is now open ground, on the west side of which is the Chapel Inn.” The sign is probably unique. The Cross Keys, which represent the arms of the Papal See, appear five times on Essex sign-boards, namely, at Saffron Walden, *Colchester, White Notley, Dagenham, and Chadwell St. Mary, while there is a beer-house so distinguished at North Weald. The Cross Keys have survived the Reformation on account of their appearing also in the coats of arms of several English sees, namely, York, Cashel, Exeter, Gloucester, and Peterborough. Three pairs of keys crossed also form a prominent charge in the arms of the Fishmongers’ Company (see p. 103). Sometimes the Cross Keys was used as a locksmith’s sign, as may be learned from the trade-tokens of the seventeenth century. Thus Three Keys are represented on the farthing of “Thomas Haven, Locksmith, in Chelmsford, 1669,” and the Crossed Keys on that of “Edward Keatchener of Dunmow, Locksmith.” The sign of the Crown is very common in Essex, occurring twenty-eight times altogether. Judging from Mr. Creed’s list (p. 7) it was equally common in Essex a century ago. There is also an Old Crown at Sandon. As an emblem of Royalty, the badge of several of our Kings and Queens, and as a very frequent heraldic bearing, the Crown is in every way likely to be common. Larwood and Hotten (p. 101) say that it “seems to be one of the oldest of English signs. We read of it as early as 1467, when a certain Walter Walters, who kept the Crown in Cheapside, made an innocent Cockney pun, saying he would make his son heir to the Crown, which so displeased his gracious Majesty, King Edward IV., that he ordered the man to be put to death for high treason.” The Crown at Romford, a once-famous hostelry, built about three centuries ago, was demolished in the spring of 1881, when fine specimens of Tudor work, and some massive beams beautifully carved, were brought to light. It was once of large size, with frontages both to High Street and what is now known as South Street. At the beginning of this century, however, having declined before younger rivals, it was divided into shops. Later a considerable portion was pulled down to make room for a new bank. This demolition, and that of 1881, left nothing standing of the old house except a portion which still remains between the Bank and the White Hart Hotel. Mr. King learns from old deeds and from other sources that an inn with the sign of the Crown existed at Leigh in the time of Queen Elizabeth, when it was known as the “Crown Brewery” or “Crown House,” but it does not seem to have retained its existence later than the end of last century or thereabouts. Mr. King believes that this was the inn referred to by “Taylor the Water Poet,” in his Catalogue of Tavernes, as being kept by a certain James Hare in 1636. No doubt it was an inn also, for, as Mr. King remarks, “all, or nearly all, inns formerly brewed their own beer.” He can trace it actually from 1619 and practically from 1570. After it ceased to be an inn it was converted into a private house and bought by a certain Francis Marriage, who after several law-suits resold it. A Crown also appears on the token, dated 1667, of “Abra. Langley, iunior, of Colchester, Baymakr.” The Crown at *Billericay (a house not now existing) is referred to in the Chelmsford Chronicle for February 17, 1786, and the Crown at Chesterford is referred to in the same newspaper on the 2nd of March, 1787. Daniel Defoe, in his Tour through Great Britain, published in 1724, also mentions the Crown at Chesterford. Probably this is the house at Little Chesterford still known as the Crown. The Crown Inn at Brentwood, which was mentioned by Taylor in 1636, was closed many years ago. In 1740, Salmon, who seldom noticed the inns, wrote of it as follows in his History and Antiquities of Essex (p. 262):—
“The Crown Inn here is very ancient, as appears from the buildings of the back part of it. Mr. Symonds in his collection saith he was informed from the Master (who had writings in custody to show it) that it had been an Inn 300 years with this sign; that a family named Salmon held it two hundred years; and that there had been eighty-nine owners, amongst which [were] an Earl of Oxford and an Earl of Sussex.”
The Crown at Ilford finds mention in the Barking parish register as early as 1595.[96] Fox, in his Book of Martyrs, says that George Eagles, who was martyred in 1557, “was carried to the new inn, called by the sign of the Crown, at Chelmsford” (see p. 136). The sign does not now appear there.
The Builder of July 8, 1848, contains an illustration of a fine, old, timber-roofed hall at Saffron Walden. Its interior, we are told, was “so completely hidden by the subdivision of walls and ceilings within it, to adapt it to the necessities of a dwelling-house, that until the demolition of the buildings in the spring of the present year all that could be seen were the carved heads of the ends of the hammer-beams. These heads were beautifully and spiritedly carved, and, indeed, the ornamentation of the entire hall was well and boldly cut. It was of small dimensions.... The buildings with which it was connected were old, but no record of the history or occupation of the place is known, except that about two centuries ago it was an inn, the sign being the Iron Crown. The Hall appears to be of the time of Henry VII., judging from its detail. It may have been the hall of some wealthy tradesman, for Walden had many rich traders in the olden time.... The ancient hall, and the buildings with which it was connected, have been pulled down in order to construct a new market-place. The carved heads from the hammer-beams (six in all) have been preserved by the Hon. R. C. Neville (afterwards Lord Braybrooke) in his museum at Audley End.” The origin of this sign is very doubtful. Larwood and Hotten do not notice it. Goldsmith, in The Traveller, speaks of “Luke’s Iron Crown.” George and Luke Doza were two brothers who led a revolt against the Hungarian nobles at the beginning of the sixteenth century. They were defeated, captured, and cruelly tortured. George, not Luke (Goldsmith’s memory must have been at fault), had, among other things, a red-hot iron crown placed on his head. John of Leyden, an Anabaptist leader, was also tortured to death in the same way in 1536, but it is difficult to imagine any connection between these incidents and the inn at Saffron Walden. What was known as the “Iron Crown of Lombardy,” was not a crown of torture, but one of the nails used in the Crucifixion, beaten out into a thin rim of iron, magnificently set in gold and adorned with jewels. Charlemagne and Napoleon I. were both crowned with it, but it is hard to see what this had to do with the inn at Saffron Walden. The sign of the Three Crowns occurs at Rainham, Rowhedge, North Woolwich, and *Halstead. The sign at the latter place was in existence forty years ago, at which time another was also in existence. In 1668, Anne Ellis kept the Three Crowns (not necessarily an inn) at Southminster, as shown by tokens of hers, still extant. An Old Three Crowns also existed in the county in 1786 according to an advertisement in the Chelmsford Chronicle for the 5th of May in that year. There are several sources from which the sign of the Three Crowns may have been derived. They might be taken from the arms of the Essex family of Wiseman (sable; a chevron between three crowns argent), or from the arms of Chich Priory (or; three ducal coronets, gules, two and one), or from the arms of the Drapers’ or the Skinners’ Companies, which have already been given. The signs of the Crown and Thistle, the Crown and Crooked Billet, and the Crown and Anchor have all been previously noticed. The Crown and Sceptre, which existed at Chelmsford in 1764, as we learn from an advertisement in the Chelmsford Chronicle for that year, was a sign which was doubly emblematic of Royalty. It was, doubtless, merely an impalement. Sixty years ago there was a *Crown and Punch Bowl at Colchester. Doubtless, it too was merely an impaled sign.
