At Bardfield there is a beer-house with the sign of the BOOT, so distinguished unquestionably because the landlord is also a boot and shoe maker, as a partly pictorial board over his door informs passers-by. His pictorial sign-board is here depicted (p. 170) within the old sign-iron of the BELL Inn at the same place. Immediately opposite to the BOOT is another beer-house known as the THREE HORSESHOES, because the landlord also carries on the trade of a farrier and blacksmith. This is not an uncommon way of naming beer-houses and small inns. The *EVENING GUN (which may be regarded as a military sign) appeared at Colchester sixty years ago. [Illustration: BOOT. (_At Great Bardfield._)] In an agricultural county like Essex it is in no way surprising that as many as eighteen inns should display the sign of the PLOUGH. At Great Chishall a model of a plough, about half the usual size, set up on the top of a pole, serves as a sign. The connection between the PLOUGH AND HARROW, which are combined to form a sign at Leyton, is at once apparent, but not so the connection between the PLOUGH AND SAIL, which is an incomprehensible combination, occurring four times in the county, and already treated of (p. 146). The sign of the HARROW occurs four times, namely, at North Benfleet, Bulphan, *Stratford, and Hornchurch. There is also a beer-house so called at Navestock. It may have had an agricultural origin, but is equally likely to represent, in a corrupted form, the portcullis, which was a favourite badge of Kings Henry VII. and VIII., as already pointed out (p. 24). Another obviously agricultural sign is that of the TWO HURDLES (beer-house) at Beauchamp Roothing. The DRILL HOUSE (beer-shop) at Stanford Rivers, too, is probably another agricultural sign. Doubtless there is, or used to be, near it a house or shed in which a drill was kept. The DRILL INN at Romford is, however, probably a military sign. At Boxted there is a beer-house with the very strange and probably unique sign of the WIG AND FIDGET. Inquiry has elicited the fact that the house was built about forty years ago by a man who was a _Whig_ in his political views. His neighbours regarded him also as a “fidgety man;” hence, when the house was opened the people of the parish, having regard to its owner’s peculiarities, named it the Whig and Fidget, otherwise the Fidgety Whig. In Stapleford Tawney is a beer-shop with the sign of the MOLE TRAP. It is probably unique. At Loughton is a beer-shop known as the BAG OF NAILS. According to Larwood and Hotten, a bag of nails, with the spikes of the nails sticking through it, was formerly a very common sign, and may be seen on old tokens. The sign seems, in some cases at least, to have been a corruption from the “Bacchanals.” [Illustration: THE PORTCULLIS. (_Badge of Henry VII._)]