No less than forty-two Essex inns display the sign of the BELL. Bells were set up as signs as early as the fourteenth century. The origin of their use in this way is probably due largely to our national fondness for bell-ringing, but partly also to the great veneration in which bells were held in superstitious times. Advertisements which appeared in the _Chelmsford Chronicle_ refer to the inns with the sign of the BELL at Castle Hedingham, Sible Hedingham, and Purleigh on January 6th, July 21, 1786, and March 2, 1787, respectively. These houses all exist at the present day. The BELL at *Saffron Walden, though it does not now exist, must formerly have been a house of some standing, for it is fairly often referred to in the records of the Corporation. It is mentioned, for instance, in 1642, in 1645, and in 1650. In 1664 3s. was “paid at the Bell when the Quakers were committed,” and in 1714 4s. 4d. was “spent at the Bell when Lord Suffolk took the oaths.” Tokens are extant, issued by “Will. Mason at the [BELL] in Thaxtead, 1662,” though the sign does not now exist there. The BELL at Castle Hedingham, still a first-class hostelry, was a house of considerable note in the old coaching days. It was a stopping-place for the “Old Bury Coach,” which passed through the town. The building is ancient and extensive, though now much cut up and divided. The spacious kitchen is roofed with massive timber, black with age. In the large room upstairs have been held for many years the annual meetings of the once-famous Hinckford Hundred Conservative Club. In times past these meetings regularly formed the subject of a leader in the _Times_, and addresses were delivered by Disraeli and other prominent Conservative statesmen, but the club has now lost its old importance. The ornamental sign-iron is represented elsewhere (p. 150). Of the BELL at Leigh, Mr. King writes that he has no particular account, but he believes “it has been an inn for probably a century, and that it was pulled down to make way for the railroad, but rebuilt on part of the same site.” The present rectory at West Tilbury was once an inn with the sign of the BELL. The house was built by a speculator about the year 1780, and opened as an hostelry for the accommodation of the gentry that always crowded to the Fort during war time. Six years later, however, it had to be closed, and about the beginning of this century it was purchased for the sum of £700 by the Rev. Sir Adam Gordon, Bart., who then held the living, and presented to the parish as a rectory. A certain number of Bells frequently appear on a sign-board. In such cases the peal of bells in an adjacent belfry is generally alluded to, as may be seen on reference to the Rev. H. A. Cockey’s _List of Essex Rings_. In 1662 there was a house with the sign of the ONE BELL at Romford. It is mentioned in the _Account of the Murder of Thomas Kidderminster_, already referred to (p. 56). Taylor also, in 1636,