The _Builder_ of July 8, 1848, contains an illustration of a fine, old, timber-roofed hall at Saffron Walden. Its interior, we are told, was “so completely hidden by the subdivision of walls and ceilings within it, to adapt it to the necessities of a dwelling-house, that until the demolition of the buildings in the spring of the present year all that could be seen were the carved heads of the ends of the hammer-beams. These heads were beautifully and spiritedly carved, and, indeed, the ornamentation of the entire hall was well and boldly cut. It was of small dimensions.... The buildings with which it was connected were old, but no record of the history or occupation of the place is known, except that about two centuries ago it was an inn, the sign being the IRON CROWN. The Hall appears to be of the time of Henry VII., judging from its detail. It may have been the hall of some wealthy tradesman, for Walden had many rich traders in the olden time.... The ancient hall, and the buildings with which it was connected, have been pulled down in order to construct a new market-place. The carved heads from the hammer-beams (six in all) have been preserved by the Hon. R. C. Neville (afterwards Lord Braybrooke) in his museum at Audley End.” The origin of this sign is very doubtful. Larwood and Hotten do not notice it. Goldsmith, in _The Traveller_, speaks of “Luke’s Iron Crown.” George and Luke Doza were two brothers who led a revolt against the Hungarian nobles at the beginning of the sixteenth century. They were defeated, captured, and cruelly tortured. George, _not_ Luke (Goldsmith’s memory must have been at fault), had, among other things, a red-hot iron crown placed on his head. John of Leyden, an Anabaptist leader, was also tortured to death in the same way in 1536, but it is difficult to imagine any connection between these incidents and the inn at Saffron Walden. What was known as the “Iron Crown of Lombardy,” was not a crown of torture, but one of the nails used in the Crucifixion, beaten out into a thin rim of iron, magnificently set in gold and adorned with jewels. Charlemagne and Napoleon I. were both crowned with it, but it is hard to see what this had to do with the inn at Saffron Walden. The sign of the THREE CROWNS occurs at Rainham, Rowhedge, North Woolwich, and *Halstead. The sign at the latter place was in existence forty years ago, at which time another was also in existence. In 1668, Anne Ellis kept the THREE CROWNS (not necessarily an inn) at Southminster, as shown by tokens of hers, still extant. An OLD THREE CROWNS also existed in the county in 1786 according to an advertisement in the _Chelmsford Chronicle_ for the 5th of May in that year. There are several sources from which the sign of the THREE CROWNS may have been derived. They might be taken from the arms of the Essex family of Wiseman (_sable; a chevron between three crowns argent_), or from the arms of Chich Priory