The Trade Signs of Essex: A popular account of the origin and meanings of the public houses & other signs — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Trade Signs of Essex: A popular account of the origin and meanings of the public houses & other signs
John Stuart Mill · en
Although many of the signs belonging to this class are, undoubtedly,
nothing more than very modern vulgarisms, there can be no doubt whatever
that a great number have a truly heraldic origin, as will be seen from
what follows.
To commence the list, we find at Buckhurst Hill a BALD-FACED STAG, and
in the adjoining parish of Chigwell a BALD HIND. These two signs have,
doubtless, the same origin, but one which it is not now easy to
discover. In Essex a horse is always said to be “bald” when he has a
white face.
[Illustration: BALD-FACED STAG.
(_Buckhurst Hill._)]
Possibly the signs commemorate the killing of two deer with white faces
in the adjoining forest, which was the last locality in the east or
south-east of England in which the aboriginal wild red deer survived,
the last having been killed so lately as the year 1817 or thereabouts.
Both the BALD HIND and the BALD-FACED STAG are among the oldest of the
forest inns. The latter is, presumably, the same house marked as the
BALD STAG on Cary’s map, published in 1768. It has the same name in Mr.
Creed’s list (p. 7). The Rev. Wm. Cole tells us, in his voluminous MSS.,
that on the morning of October 27, 1774, he “started from the COCK at
Epping without eating, and breakfasted at an Inne, called the BALD-FACED
STAG.” The existing inn is a large square, white-washed building, with a
high-pitched roof. It contains a portrait of Queen Anne, and the
coffee-room is panelled. From it, according to the author of _Nooks and
Corners in Essex_ (p. 21), the famous “Epping Hunt,” so cleverly
satirized by Tom Hood, used to start every Easter Monday, when it was no
uncommon thing for five hundred mounts to ride off from the ridge on
which the house stands. The Easter Monday hunt is said to have
originated as far back as the year 1226, in the reign of Henry III. The
custom was kept up until so recent a date as 1853, after which it
gradually fell off, owing to the rough East End element which marked the
annual meeting, and made it little more than a public nuisance. The
stag--a tame one--was, on these occasions, taken round in turn to all
the neighbouring public-houses before being set at liberty, and the
amount of liquor consumed, and riot occasioned, was, in consequence,
considerable. Something approaching a celebration of the old custom has,
however, been attempted as lately as the last two or three years. There
was also a BALD-FACED STAG at Hatfield Broad Oak in 1789.
[Illustration: ROEBUCK.
(_Buckhurst Hill._)]