Sir George Buc, writing in 1615, tells us that ‘an anchor without a stocke,’ with a capital C couchant upon it, ‘was graven in stone, over the gate of St. Clement’s Inn.’ A good old-fashioned carving of an anchor was on the front of Clement’s Inn Hall, lately destroyed.
A common sign in the seventeenth century was the Bell; but long before this it had been immortalized. Chaucer, when he describes the gathering place of his pilgrims to Canterbury, tells us that it was ‘in Southwark, at this gentil hostelrie, that highte, the Tabard, faste by the Belle,’ the Bell being apparently at that time a better known inn. It was on the west side of the Borough High Street, and still existed when Rocque published his map in 1746. The site is now occupied by Maidstone Buildings. Another famous Bell Inn is recorded in the list of expenses of Sir John Howard: ‘Nov 15, 1466. Item my mastyr spent for his costes at the Belle at Westemenstre iijs. viijd.’ There are still two capital stone bas-reliefs of this sign. One I happened by chance to observe below a second-floor window, in a courtyard which once was attached to the Red Lion Inn, the house in front being numbered 251, High Holborn; it has on it the initials a t a and date 1668, and is evidently not in its original position; the date would lead one to suppose that it comes from a house in the City.
A sign of more interest, at least from its associations, has lately found a home in the Guildhall Museum. It is in high relief, and was formerly placed between the first and second floor windows of No. 67, Knightrider Street; on the keystones of the three first-floor windows were the initials m t a and the date 1668. The house was swept away three years ago; I know nothing about it, except that it was a fair specimen of the plain brick buildings commonly put up after the Great Fire. There was, however, a hostelry with the same sign hard by, which had a proud distinction.
‘THE BELL’ IN KNIGHTRIDER STREET.
From the Bell Inn, Carter Lane, Richard Quyney wrote in 1598 to his ‘loveing good ffrend and contreyman, Mr. Willm Shackespere,’ the only letter addressed to our greatest poet which is known to exist. It is now preserved at Stratford-on-Avon. The Bell is also mentioned in that quaint guide-book to taverns, the ‘Vade Mecum for Malt-worms,’ written, it is supposed, in 1715; and a seventeenth-century trade-token was issued from Bell Yard, not yet destroyed, a passage through which connects Knightrider Street with Carter Lane. Adjoining it, there is now a modern Bell tavern, where Dickens is said to have often rested when making notes for ‘David Copperfield.’
That the Bell should be a common sign is natural enough, from its connection with the worship of the Christian Church, and the popularity of bell-ringing in England. A gold or silver bell was often used as a prize at horse-races; hence the expression, to ‘bear away the bell.’ Fine specimens of these bells were to be seen in the Sports Exhibition, at the Grosvenor Gallery, a few years since. One from Carlisle had on it the date 1599, and the following distich:
‘The Sweftes horse the bel to tak
For mi Lade Daker sake.’