The History of Signboards, from the Earliest times to the Present DayHotten, John Camden
History
The History of Signboards, from the Earliest times to the Present Day
Hotten, John Camden
Inn signs -- England -- History; Signs and signboards -- History
“A Protestant Picture of Jesus Christ, drawn in Scripture colours,
both for light to sinners and delight to saints. By Tho. Sympson,
M.A., Preacher of the Word at London. Sold by Edw. Thomas at the _Adam
and Eve_, in Little Britain. 1662.”
In Newgate Street there yet remains an old stone sign of the Adam and
Eve, with the date 1669. Eve is represented handing the apple to Adam,
the fatal tree is in the centre, round its stem the serpent winding. It
was the arms of the fruiterers’ company.
There is still an Adam and Eve public-house in the High Street,
Kensington, where Sheridan, on his way to and from Holland House, used
to refresh himself, and in this way managed to run up rather a long
bill, which Lord Holland had to pay for him. A still older place of
public entertainment was the Adam and Eve Tea-gardens, in Tottenham
Court Road, part of which was the last remaining vestige “of the once
respectable, if not magnificent, manor-house appertaining to the Lords
of Tottenhall.” Richardson, in 1819, said that the place had long been
celebrated as a tea-garden; there was an organ in the long room, and the
company was generally respectable, till the end of last century, when
highwaymen, footpads, pickpockets, and low women, beginning to take a
fancy to it, the magistrates interfered. The organ was banished, and the
gardens were dug up for the foundation of Eden Street. In these gardens
Lunardi came down after his unsuccessful balloon ascent from the
Artillery ground, May 16, 1783. Hogarth has represented the Adam and Eve
in the March of the Guards to Finchley. Upon the signboard of the house
is inscribed, “Tottenham Court Nursery,” in allusion to Broughton’s
Amphitheatre for Boxing, erected in this place. How amusing is this
advertisement of the great Professor’s “Nursery:”--
“From the _Gymnasium_ at _Tottenham Court_
on _Thursday next at Twelve o’clock will begin_:
A lecture on Manhood or Gymnastic Physiology, wherein the whole Theory
and Practice of the Art of Boxing will be fully explained by various
Operators on the animal Œconomy and the Principles of Championism,
illustrated by proper Experiments on the Solids and Fluids of the Body;
together with the True Method of investigating the Nature of all Blows,
Stops, Cross Buttocks, etc., incident to Combatants. The whole leading
to the most successful Method of beating a Man deaf, dumb, lame, and
blind.
by THOMAS SMALLWOOD, A.M.,
_Gymnasiast of St. Giles_,
and
THOMAS DIMMOCK, A.M.,
_Athleta of Southwark_,
(Both fellows of the _Athletic Society_.)
⁂ The Syllabus or Compendium for the use of students in Athleticks,
referring to Matters explained in this Lecture, may be had of Mr
Professor Broughton at the CROWN in Market Lane, where proper
instructions in the Art and Practice of Boxing are delivered without
Loss of Eye or Limb to the student.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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