The sign of the CROSS might, with equal probability, be ascribed either to an ecclesiastical or an heraldic origin: in the one it is the symbol of Christianity, and in the other it is a very common ordinary. It came to be used very commonly as an heraldic charge at the time of the Crusades. The house with this name at Mistley was, however, probably so called on account of its being situated at a “four-want-way,” where two roads cross. There is another example of the sign at Boxted, and in 1823 there was a RED CROSS at *Colchester. On the map of the road between London and Harwich, given in Ogilby’s _Itinerarium Angliæ_, published in 1675, a house--presumably an inn of importance--known as the CROSS AND HAND, is shown at Marks Tey, and just forty-five miles from London. Salmon (_History of Essex_, p. 69) quotes an ancient document, describing the ceremonies connected with the annual making and presenting of the Wardstaff in Ongar Hundred, in which another house--probably an inn--with the sign of “the CROSS WITH A HAND at the three wants in Fiffield” [Fyfield] is mentioned. In Essex, three or four roads meeting are spoken of respectively as the three or four “wants.” “The Cross [says Jewitt] whether golden, red, blue, or otherwise, was formerly a much more common sign than now.” Several other Essex signs are more or less ecclesiastical. For instance, the *MITRE at Colchester is at least sixty years old. Very probably it was first so called after one or other of the several well-known taverns of the same name which formerly existed in London. Though it may have been derived from the fact that the Abbot of St. John’s Abbey, at Colchester, was one of the twenty-eight mitred abbots, and sat in the Upper House of Parliament. The CARDINAL’S HAT, formerly a not uncommon sign, was displayed by a house in Bocking forty years since, but has now disappeared. At Coggeshall, one of the chief inns has long been known as the *CHAPEL INN. Mr. G. F. Beaumont has kindly supplied the following information concerning it: “In the will of Thomas Halle of Coksale, dated Jan. 15th, 1499, and proved Feb. 5th following, is this Bequest:--’I bequeath towarde the edifyng and making of a Chapell within the said towne of Coksale XX^s, to be paid when the said Chapell is in werkyng.’ In the _Certificate of Chantry Lands_ (1549) is the following under Coggeshall:--’Item, one olde Chaple in the Street there, with a little Garden, which is worth by the year 4s.’”