London Signs and Inscriptions

by Philip Norman

The Elephant and Castle is the crest of the Cutlers’ Company. A stone bas-relief representing it is to be seen on the east side of Bell Savage Yard, Ludgate Hill, having been placed there nearly thirty years ago, some time after the famous old inn was levelled with the ground. It formerly stood over the gateway below the sign of the Bell. In 1568 John Craythorne gave the reversion of this inn, and after his death the house called the Rose in Fleet Street, to the Cutlers’ Company for ever, on condition that two exhibitions to the Universities, and certain sums to poor prisoners, should be paid to them out of the estate. A portrait of Mrs. Craythorne hangs in Cutlers’ Hall. In mediæval times the elephant was commonly depicted with a castle on its back. It was then the heraldic emblem of Rome, and appears as such on the floor of the cathedral at Siena.

The Bell Savage Inn which came to be thus associated with the Elephant and Castle, was one of the oldest and most famous hostelries in London. As long ago as 31 Henry VI. it is described in a deed as Savage’s Inn, otherwise the Bell on the Hoop, thus proving the origin of the sign, which from the time of Stow to that of Addison had caused so many ingenious but faulty surmises. Here plays were performed, and Bankes showed his wonderful horse Marocco. Lambarde, in his ‘Perambulation of Kent,’[52] tells us that ‘none who go to Paris Garden, the Bel Savage, or Theatre, to behold bear-baiting, interludes, or fence-play, can account of any pleasant spectacle, unless they first pay one penny at the gate, another at the entry of the scaffold, and a third for a quiet standing.’ It was ‘upon a stall’ over against the Bell Savage gate that Sir Thomas Wyat ‘stayd and rested him awhile,’ when foiled in his ill-advised rebellion; as related by Howe, the continuator of Stow’s ‘Annals.’ And Grinling Gibbons once occupied a house in the yard, where, as Horace Walpole says, ‘he carved a pot of flowers which shook surprisingly with the motion of the coaches that passed by.’ I have a quaint little book in Hudibrastic rhyme, ‘The delights of the Bottle, or the Compleat Vintner,’ attributed to Ned Ward. The third edition is ‘printed for Sam. Briscoe at the Bell-Savage on Ludgate-Hill, 1721.’

The Cutlers’, though not one of the twelve great City Companies, is still of considerable importance, and as early as the 49th year of Edward III. is said to have elected two of the Common Council; its first charter dated from the time of Henry V. A good sculptured specimen of the arms is to be seen on the front of a house in Houndsditch, at the corner of Cutler Street. They were granted by Thomas Holme. Clarencieux in 1476, and have been blazoned thus: gules—three pair of swords, in saltier, argent, pommelled and hilted or, viz., two pair in chief and one in base. The crest should have by rights pennons displayed from the castle; it was granted by Robert Cook, Clarencieux. Supporters; two elephants or; motto: ‘Pour parvenir a bonne foy.’ The carving referred to above was put up in the year 1734 to mark property belonging to the Company, as may be gathered from the tablet on the west front of the same house, which is inscribed ‘cuttlers’ street, 1734.’ The hall of the Cutlers’ Company, rebuilt after the Great Fire in Cloak Lane, Cannon Street, was destroyed for the Inner Circle Railway. A new hall has lately been erected in Warwick Lane.

Another heraldic charge of a City Company is the Leopard, a carving of which was formerly let into the front of a house in Budge Row, No. 28. It was rebuilt about twelve years ago, when the sign was placed in the passage of the new structure. The owner has kindly allowed a sketch to be taken, which is here reproduced. I believe that the property at one time belonged to the Skinners’ Company, having been part of a bequest of John Draper, in 1496. The Leopard, though not supported by a wreath, therefore represents their crest. The word ‘budge,’ whence Budge Row takes its name, formerly signified the dressed skin or fur of lamb, and would seem to indicate that furriers carried on their business in this quarter, near to the Hall of the Skinners’ Company, which was devoted to the protection of their craft. In 1338, and again in 1358, the City authorities ordered that women of inferior rank should not be arrayed in budge or wool.

One of the commonest London sculptured signs is that of the Maiden’s Head, which indicates property belonging to the Mercers’ Company. I will mention one which is to be seen above the first-floor window of No. 6, Ironmonger Lane, with the date 1668, as it is the only specimen of any antiquity known to me which is dated, and being somewhat more florid in treatment than usual, it is characteristic of the time at which it was put up. The arms of the company, granted in 1568 and confirmed in 1634, are: gules, a demi-virgin, with her hair dishevelled, crowned, issuing out of and within an orle of clouds, all proper. One may presume from the date that they were chosen in honour of Queen Elizabeth. Strype says: ‘When any of this company is chosen mayor, or makes one of the triumph of the day, wherein he goes to Westminster to be sworn, a most beautiful virgin is carried through the streets in a chariot, with all the glory and majesty possible, with her hair all dishevelled about her shoulders, to represent the maidenhead which the company give for their arms, and this lady is plentifully gratified for her pains, besides the gift of all the rich attire she wears.’ The Maiden’s Head also appears on the arms of the Pinners’ Company, with the motto, ‘Virginitas et unitas nostra æternitas.’ It was assumed as a badge of the Parr family, previous to the marriage of Catherine Parr with Henry VIII. They derived it from the family of Ros of Kendal.

The Mercers’ Company is very ancient; it was incorporated in the year 1393 (17 Rich. II.);[53] but long before that the mercers had been associated voluntarily for purposes of mutual aid and comfort. They came to light first as a fraternity in the time of Henry II., for Gilbert à Becket, father of St. Thomas of Canterbury, is said to have been a mercer; and in 1192, Agnes de Helles, sister of St. Thomas, and her husband Thomas Fitz-Theobald de Helles, in founding the hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, which is distinctly stated to have been built on the spot where the future archbishop was born, constituted the fraternity of mercers patrons of the hospital. The present Mercers’ Hall, in Cheapside, is built on part of this site. It was only by degrees that the merchant adventurers became detached from the mercers. The last link between the two companies was severed as late as the year 1666, when the Great Fire destroyed the office held by the Merchant-Adventurers under Mercers’ Hall. The Haberdashers’ Company was a branch of the Mercers’, which broke off from them in the time of Henry VI. The word ‘mercer’ would seem to imply merchant only, being derived, through the French ‘mercier,’ from the Latin word ‘mercator.’ It is probable that those who were called mercers dealt at first in most commodities, except food and the precious metals. Herbert, however, considers that in ancient times ‘mercer’ was the name for a man who dealt in small wares; and that ‘merceries then comprehended all things sold retail by the little balance, in contradistinction to things sold by the beam, or in gross, and included not only toys, together with haberdashery and various other articles connected with dress, but also spices and drugs; in short, what at present constitutes the stock of a general country shopkeeper.’ He goes on to say that the silk trade, which in later ages formed the main feature of the mercers’ business, is stated in the Act of 33 Henry VI., c. 5, to have been carried on by ‘the silkwomen and throwsteres of London,’ who, in petitioning for that Act, pray that the Lombards and other strangers may be hindered from importing wrought silk into the realm, contrary to custom, and to the ruin of the mystery and occupation of silk-making and other virtuous female occupations.

The mercers were not the first incorporated company; in this the goldsmiths, skinners, and merchant tailors may claim precedence; they, however, have long ranked the first, as exemplified in the following stanzas from a song addressed to Sir John Peakes, mercer (who was elected Lord Mayor in 1686), after a dinner given in his honour:

‘Advance the Virgin, lead the van,

Of all that are in London free,