the same description used formerly to exist on Canvey Island, but it appears to have been lost in some storm during the last forty years; while another at Mersey, which is mentioned in the Rev. Baring-Gould’s _Mehalah_, has also disappeared, unless it be identical with the ANCHOR still existing at that place. The ANCHOR at Canewdon seems to have existed there since at least 1787, as it is mentioned in an advertisement in the _Chelmsford Chronicle_ for the 5th of January in that year. At Grays there is an ANCHOR AND HOPE. The CROWN AND ANCHOR, the emblem of the Royal Navy, occurs at Aveley and Braintree; and the SUN AND ANCHOR, which is probably nothing but an impaled sign, occurs at Steeple. A token is extant bearing an ANCHOR, the initials “R. ^{S.} I.,” and the inscription, “At the Anker, in Lee [Leigh], 1664.” Mr. H. W. King writes:[91] “This is undoubtedly the token of Robert Sayer and Joan his wife, shopkeepers, at this precise date. The ANCHOR was their shop sign. There was no inn of that name. Joan Sayer survived her husband and died in 1689.” Most of our ANCHORS are situated upon the sea coast, but there are not a few inland--at Ingatestone, Chelmsford, Abbots Roothing, &c. In 1789 there was one at Chipping Ongar. [Illustration] CHAPTER IX. _ASTRONOMICAL SIGNS._ Astronomical signs fall naturally into another small class, which will be treated of next. In Essex we have six examples of the sign of the HALF MOON, which may represent either crescents taken from some one’s arms or else the emblem of temporal power. The HALF MOON at *Chelmsford, a small, though ancient, house, possesses a quaint and truly pictorial sign-board. At 94, Great Suffolk Street, London, S.E., there has been for three-quarters of a century, at least, a house with the most extraordinary sign of the MOONRAKERS. It is all but impossible to conceive any origin for so strange a device. It is just possible, however, that the sign may have some connection with a tale told of the inhabitants of the town of Coggeshall, about whom so many similar stories are told. One fine night, so says the tale, certain of the natives of that celebrated town observed what they took to be a fine round cheese floating on the surface of a pond. Thereupon, it is further stated, they procured rakes and endeavoured to draw the supposed cheese to land. Nor did they discover, until they had been some time so engaged, that their cheese was merely the reflection of the moon in the water! The SUN is met with twelve times and the RISING SUN nine times. The use of the sun as a sign is very ancient, both in England and on the Continent. A rising sun formed one of the badges of Edward III., and shining suns were used as badges by several other English sovereigns. A sun also [Illustration: SUN IN SPLENDOUR. (_Badge of Richard II._)]