The Bull and Mouth was at its zenith as a coaching inn during the early part of this century, just before the development of railroads. Mr. Edward Sherman was then landlord, having succeeded Mr. Willans in the year 1823; he also had the Oxford Arms, Warwick Lane. It was he who rebuilt the old house, and made stabling underground for a large number of horses. When the business of coaching came to an end, the gateway from St. Martin’s-le-Grand was partially blocked up and became the main entrance to the hotel, which, under a new name, flourished till its final closing in the autumn of 1886. On September 28 of that year, the stock of wine, amounting to 750 dozen, was sold; during the winter the house was used as an adjunct of the General Post-Office. In July, 1887, the Jubilee fittings of Westminster Abbey were sold by auction in the large coffee-room. They consisted of Brussels carpets, hangings, cushions, etc., and produced upwards of £2,000. In the space cleared shortly afterwards for the new post-office, a large piece of the City wall has been discovered. The old Bull and Mouth Inn, destroyed in 1830, with its three tiers of galleries, was very picturesque: many illustrations of it exist. A seventeenth century trade-token was issued from a Bull and Mouth in Bloomsbury, still represented by a modern public-house at No. 31, Hart Street. A wooden carving of a Civet Cat was some years since the appropriate sign of an old-fashioned perfumer’s shop in Cockspur Street. An illustration of it appears in the _Illustrated London News_ for December 13, 1856. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. ANIMALS REAL AND IMAGINARY--(_Continued_). ‘Figures strange--and sweet, All made out of the carver’s brain.’ COLERIDGE: _Christabel_, pt. I. THE sign of the Dog and Duck is to be found imbedded in the garden wall of Bethlehem Hospital, in the district formerly called St. George’s Fields. Size, 4 feet by 2 feet 6 inches. [Illustration] It is in two divisions, and is dated 1716; the part to the right represents a spaniel sitting on its haunches with a duck in its mouth, and appears to me a capital specimen of grotesque art. This was the sign of the Dog and Duck public-house.