Anyone travelling through England will be quite likely to encounter a Red Lion, a Unicorn, a White Hart, a Green Dragon, or an Angel. They have not strayed into the realms of a high fantasy novel. These, and many similar strange beings, are to be found on inn signs. But what do they mean? It is a subject that has fascinated me ever since I collected the names as a teenager. Their imagery has, in fact, never been properly explored.
The standard origins given for some of them do not bear much scrutiny, and there is often a richer history and tradition in play. I have explored the origins of The Saracen’s Head sign (in Sphinxes and Obelisks, 2021) and The Red Lion (Echtrai, Vol 1, 2022), in the latter speculating on the possibility of an ‘English Monsterie’, a pattern book of strange beasts.
I have also explored the theme in fiction, in ‘Red Lion Rising’ (The Fig Garden, 2022) and in a fictive talk, ‘The Understanding of the Signs’, given to the Newcastle Literary & Philosophical Society.
For here is a remarkable form of popular heraldry. As the poet Edward Thomas put it, when he was describing a walk through the outskirts of nocturnal London, ‘the names of the inns were as rich as the titles of books in an old library’ (The Heart of England, 1906).
It is, however, a tradition that is rapidly being diminished. Pubs are closing in their hundreds every year and even some of those that survive change their names to suit the corporate identity of chain ownership or other commercial demands.
The Closed Pubs website records a doleful toll in every county. Some will be remembered fondly, but it can be surprising how soon the memory of pubs, their signs and their history, can vanish. They have nothing like the same attention given to redundant churches, for example, though the church and the inn were once dual stalwarts, and sometimes rivals, of any village or town quarter.
In tribute to the English inn sign tradition, and as a playful experiment, I made a list of the lost pubs of the smallest county, Rutland, then jumbled them up and devised some newly formed names that sound traditional but are not, or certainly not commonly.
This produced some quite plausible and picturesque names that sound as if they might exist, somewhere. The resultant piece, ‘Old Otherworld Inns’, has just been published at The Tuesday Poem edited by Rob Mclennan.
(Mark Valentine)
Sebastian Faulks nominated pub signs as an 'icon of England' for a book edited by Bill Bryson, IIRC: "People who think of England as a practical country with little flair for the visual would never have imagined that its lanes and roads would be regularly punctuated by what look like cards from a wooden tarot pack."
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tom, "a wooden tarot pack" is a wonderful way to describe inn signs, so apt.
DeleteThere's a pub named The Raven in Stamford Brook, its sign being said corvid reading a rather Poe-esque looking book.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sandy. "Free beer, landlord?" "Nevermore!"
DeleteIntriguing piece and wonderful poem Mark. I’ve often wondered whether the names of pubs might have guild or Masonic origins, and so share some associations with hermeticism. Anyway, I’ll see you down the Odd Bell for a pint. Stephen C
ReplyDeleteThank you, Stephen. Yes, I certainly think there's something in the guild idea, especially linked to the crafts involved in medieval church-building.
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