On first noticing this relationship when commencing the study of Heraldry, somewhere about the year 1879, it occurred to me that the subject was well worth following up. It seemed to me that much interesting information would probably be brought to light by a careful examination of the numerous signs of my native county of Essex. Still more desirable did this appear when, after careful inquiry, I found that (so far as I was able to discover) no more than three systematic treatises upon the subject had ever been published. First and foremost among these stands Messrs. Larwood and Hotten’s _History of Sign-boards_,[1] a standard work which is evidently the result of a very large amount of labour and research. I do not wish to conceal the extent to which I am indebted to it. It is, however, to be regretted that the authors should have paid so much attention to London signs, to the partial neglect of those in other parts of the country, and that they should not have provided a more complete index; but it is significant of the completeness of their work that the other two writers upon the subject have been able to add very little that is new, beside mere local details. A second dissertation upon the origin and use of trade-signs is to be found in a most interesting series of articles upon the signs of the Town of Derby, contributed to the _Reliquary_[2] in 1867 by the late Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt, F.S.A., the editor of that magazine; while the third and last source of information is to be found in a lengthy pamphlet by Mr. Wm. Pengelly, F.R.S., treating in detail of the Devonshire signs.[3] On the Continent the literature of signs is much more voluminous. Among the chief works may be mentioned Mons. J. D. Blavignac’s _Histoire des Enseignes d’Hôtelleries, d’Auberges, et de Cabarets_;[4] Mons. Edouard Fournier’s _Histoire des Enseignes de Paris_;[5] and Mons. Eustache de La Quérière’s _Recherches Historiques sur les Enseignes des Maisons Particulières_.[6] It should be pointed out here that, although in what follows a good deal has been said as to the age and past history of many of the best-known Essex inns, this is, strictly speaking, a treatise on Signs and Sign-boards only. The two subjects are, however, so closely connected that I have found it best to treat them as one.