Painted signs then, suspended in the way we have just pointed out, were more common than those of any other kind; yet not a few shops simply suspended at their doors some prominent article in their trade, which custom has outlived the more elegant signboards, and may be daily witnessed in our streets, where the ironmonger’s frying-pan, or dust-pan, the hardware-dealer’s teapot, the grocer’s tea-canister, the shoemaker’s last or clog, with the Golden Boot, and many similar objects, bear witness to this old custom.
Lastly, there was in London another class of houses that had a peculiar way of placing their signs--viz., the Stews upon the Bankside, which were, by a proclamation of 37 Hen. VIII., “whited and painted with signs on the front, for a token of the said houses.” Stow enumerates some of these symbols, such as the Cross-Keys, the Gun, the Castle, the Crane, the Cardinal’s Hat, the Bell, the Swan, &c.
Still greater variety in the construction of the signs existed in France; for besides the painted signs in the iron frames, the shopkeepers in Paris, according to H. Sauval, (“Antiquités de la Ville de Paris,”) had anciently banners hanging above their doors, or from their windows, with the sign of the shop painted on them; whilst in the sixteenth century carved wooden signs were very common. These, however, were not suspended, but formed part of the wooden construction of the house; some of them were really _chefs-d’œuvres_, and as careful in design as a carved cathedral stall. Several of them are still remaining in Rouen and other old towns; many also have been removed and placed in various local museums of antiquities. The most general rule, however, on the Continent, as in England, was to have the painted signboard suspended across the streets.
An observer of James I.’s time has jotted down the names of all the inns, taverns, and side streets in the line of road between Charing Cross and the old Tower of London, which document lies now embalmed amongst the Harl. MS., 6850, fol. 31. In imagination we can walk with him through the metropolis:--
“On the way from Whitehall to Charing Cross we pass: the White Hart, the Red Lion, the Mairmade, iij. Tuns, Salutation, the Graihound, the Bell, the Golden Lyon. In sight of Charing Crosse: the Garter, the Crown, the Bear and Ragged Staffe, the Angel, the King Harry Head. Then from Charing Cross towards ye cittie: another White Hart, the Eagle and Child, the Helmet, the Swan, the Bell, King Harry Head, the Flower-de-luce, Angel, the Holy Lambe, the Bear and Harroe, the Plough, the Shippe, the Black Bell, another King Harry Head, the Bull Head, the Golden Bull, ‘a sixpenny ordinarye,’ another Flower-de-luce, the Red Lyon, the Horns, the White Hors, the Prince’s Arms, Bell Savadge’s In, the S. John the Baptist, the Talbot, the Shipp of War, the S. Dunstan, the Hercules or the Owld Man Tavern, the Mitar, another iij. Tunnes Inn, and a iij. Tunnes Tavern, and a Graihound, another Mitar, another King Harry Head, iij. Tunnes, and the iij. Cranes.”