Sculptured signs are often heraldic, and from them the transition is natural to still existing crests and coats of arms carved on buildings in various parts of the town. A cognate subject is that of old dates and inscriptions, suggestive as they are of the former ownership of property, of changes in the names of streets, sometimes even giving us glimpses of family history; as in the inscription to Denzil Lord Holles. My researches naturally led me into the Guildhall Museum, where the need of a suitable catalogue (soon, I hear, to be supplied), induced me to put together a few suggestive notes on the curiosities relating to London which there find a home. I have added a short account of some half dozen of the painted signs still existing in the Metropolis which seemed to have more than common interest. I have already referred to the extraordinary decrease of City inhabitants. On the other hand, in outlying districts the converse process has taken place. The little towns and villages of three hundred years ago, then some distance from London, and numbering among their inhabitants people of high birth unconnected with trade, became by degrees half rural suburbs, where well-to-do citizens sought amusement and repose. Folks of this class have now gone further afield, and for many years the speculative builder has been at work, providing for a humbler and far more numerous population. The space is covered with miles upon miles of dull monotonous streets; pleasant gardens have disappeared, hills are levelled, valleys filled up, wells choked, the clear streams turned into sewers, nothing remaining to remind us of what has gone before except the names, and here and there an old house, a carving or inscription. The existence of a few of these mementoes has attracted me to Islington and Clerkenwell, and must be my excuse for describing in detail several of the spas and places of entertainment with which in the eighteenth century this region abounded. Thence I make my way back to the City, and while exploring the picturesque districts of Great St. Helen’s and Austin Friars, I give an account of two remarkable old City mansions lately destroyed, which may fairly claim a place; for one was distinguished by an elaborate coat of arms, and the other by an interesting date and initials. This latter was of no small architectural merit, while both were the homes of eminent citizens. Perhaps I should add that the subject of sculptured signs has been briefly treated by me in the pages of the _Antiquary_, and that for the _English Illustrated Magazine_, of Christmas, 1891, I wrote and illustrated an article on old City mansions, including those which are here more completely described.