The BARLEY MOW, meaning a barley stack, is an ancient sign which still occurs at Stanstead and at *Colchester. Doubtless it was first put up as a sign in honour of John Barleycorn, just as the VINE, which occurs at Great Bardfield and Black Notley (beer-house), and the GRAPES, which occurs at Colchester (the latter being still the recognized sign of a vintner), both undoubtedly found a place on the sign-board because they helped to supply the wherewithal for the worship of Bacchus. Forty years since there was another VINE Inn at Thaxted. The HOP-POLE, which is a sign occurring at Good Easter, and the HOP-POLES, which is another occurring at Great Hallingbury, both obviously found their place on the sign-board for the same reason. There are also beer-houses with the sign of the HOP-POLES at Little Hallingbury and Roydon, although the cultivation of hops has now ceased at those places. Hop-growing once flourished extensively in Essex, and these two signs are relics of the now almost relinquished industry. At the beginning of this century they were grown at the Hedinghams, the Maplesteads, the Colnes, Halstead, Wethersfield, Finchingfield, Great Bardfield, and Shalford, as well as at Moulsham, Good Easter, Roxwell, Chignal St. James, and other places round Chelmsford. Fifty years earlier the cultivation of hops in the county was spread over a wider area, though the number of acres grown was about the same. At the present time the cultivation is all but discontinued. Until the year 1883 there was a hop-ground adjoining Skreen’s Park, Roxwell, but it is now devoted to other purposes. Round the Hedinghams, however, hops are still grown, their cultivation having been introduced by a former Mr. Majendie in 1792. Daniel Defoe says, in his _Tour through Great Britain_, that in 1724, hops were brought direct from Chelmsford for sale at the great Stourbridge Hop Fair. The description of the MAYPOLE at Chigwell, given by Dickens in _Barnaby Rudge_, will occur to every one. It runs as follows:-- “In the year 1775, there stood upon the Borders of Epping Forest, at a distance of about twelve miles from London--measuring from the standard in Cornhill, or rather from the spot on or near to which the standard used to be in days of yore--a house of public entertainment called the Maypole; which fact was demonstrated to all such travellers as could neither read nor write (and sixty-six years ago a vast number, both of travellers and stay-at-homes, were in this condition) by the emblem reared on the roadside over against the house, which, if not of those goodly proportions that maypoles were wont to present in olden times, was a fair young ash, thirty feet in height, and as straight as any arrow that ever English yeoman drew.