The History of Signboards, from the Earliest times to the Present Day

In Short

This volume presents a historical taxidermy of street life, cataloging thousands of signboards that once hung outside English and European taverns, shops, and places of entertainment. Jacob Larwood and John Camden Hotten systematically categorize these visual emblems—from heraldic beasts and pious saints to satirical parodies and historic monarchs—to uncover the social, political, and cultural habits of past generations. The narrative charts how these signs evolved from simple functional markers into extravagant street hazards, prompting statutory bans and urban reforms. As a social history, it captures the everyday humor, trade practices, literature, and eccentricities of ordinary people from antiquity through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By preserving the stories, rhymes, local legends, and tragicomic anecdotes attached to these painted boards, the book rescues a vibrant, ephemeral folk art from total erasure. It has endured because it functions as an extraordinarily dense archive of daily life, recording how common folk drank, worked, quarreled, worshipped, and commemorated the news of their day.

The Story

The work opens with an exploration of the ancient roots of signboards, tracing their lineage back to the painted signs and stone carvings found in Roman ruins like Pompeii. In early, largely illiterate societies, visual symbols were a necessity for trade and navigation. Early shopkeepers hung out real objects or basic symbols—such as a bush for a tavern, a boot for a cobbler, or a mortar and pestle for an apothecary—to indicate their wares to passing customers. As towns grew and competition intensified, these primitive emblems evolved into complex, hand-painted signboards featuring elaborate heraldic coats of arms, religious icons, and humorous puns.

As the narrative moves into the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, the authors detail how the London cityscape became choked by the sheer scale of these hanging boards. Shopkeepers, driven by a desire to outdo their rivals, projected massive wooden and iron signs far out over the narrow, muddy streets. On stormy, dark days, these enormous structures creaked ominously on rusty hinges, blocking out light and air while dripping rainwater and snow onto the gallants and laborers walking below. High winds frequently tore heavy signs from their iron brackets or blew flowerpots off penthouses, creating dangerous hazards for pedestrians. The chaos reached such a breaking point that royal intervention became necessary. Following the Great Fire of 1666, and through later parliamentary acts under Charles II and George III, the English government banned hanging, swinging signboards across roadways, ordering them to be fixed flat against building walls or carved into the masonry beneath first-floor windows. A similar municipal crackdown unfolded in Paris, where signs had grown to absurd, gigantic proportions.

Despite these legal restrictions, the culture of signboards continued to thrive, shifting its focus from physical size to artistic, political, and humorous creativity. The authors map out this proliferation by grouping signs into thematic categories. Historical and monarchical signs commemorated royal visits, political alliances, and victorious military battles. Royal personages like the King of Denmark, Czar Peter the Great, and Prince Eugene were immortalized outside public houses where they had caroused or where the public wished to celebrate them. Heraldic heraldry supplied another massive category: the coats of arms, crests, and badges of feudal lords, Tudors, and Stuarts—such as the White Hart, the Falcon and Fetterlock, and the Red Dragon—were simplified by innkeepers into recognizable popular emblems.

The narrative then navigates through the realm of animals, birds, and natural objects. Real and mythical beasts—from the Black Bull and White Lion to the Pegasus, Antelope, and Phoenix—were emblazoned on wood and stone, often carrying deep heraldry or fable-based origins. Birds were equally popular: the Raven served as a dark, ancient Scottish symbol or a bookseller's badge; the Peacock typified the Resurrection or solemn ancient oaths; and the Ostrich was rendered with a horseshoe in its beak to symbolize its iron digestion. Plants, trees, and Biblical stories added another layer of depth. Signs featuring the Cherry-Tree, Walnut-Tree, and Mulberry-Tree commemorated famous pleasure gardens or local orchards, while scriptural scenes like Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, and Samson defeating the lion appealed to religious traditions and popular mystery plays.

Saints and church dignitaries also peopled the signboards, though their meanings frequently underwent humorous degradation over time. St. Lawrence, depicted amid a border of blossoms, degenerated in popular speech into "Bosom's Inn." Popes, Cardinals, and Mitres hung alongside trade symbols, tools, and household items like the Looking Glass, the Water Tankard, and the Golden Fleece.

As urban life grew more sophisticated, the public house became the ultimate stage for social life, literature, and eccentricity. The authors describe how famous taverns—such as Pontack’s Head, the Fleece, Caveac’s, and the Grecian Coffee-House—became centers for dining, political debate, musical concerts, literary clubs, and occasionally violent duels. The signboards themselves reflected this vibrant street culture through humorous, punning, and satirical designs. Rhyming inscriptions, proverbs, and absurd pairings like "The Cow and Hare" or "Who'd Ha' Thought It?" poked fun at human nature, while "The Good Woman"—depicted without a head—served as a cynical comic staple regarding female loquacity.

The chronicle concludes by examining the eventual decline and transformation of signboards in the modern era. The advent of stagecoaches had initially sparked a new wave of signs named after famous coaches like the Tally-Ho and the Express, but the rapid expansion of the steam railroad swept both the coaches and their namesake signs away. Furthermore, the rise of widespread literacy, standardized street numbering, and mass production gradually rendered the old hand-painted, symbolic signboard obsolete. The book ends with an account of the famous Sign-Painters' Exhibition of 1762—a mock-art exhibition organized by London wits that showcased parody signboards satirizing contemporary politics, society, and grand art—serving as a grand finale to a rich era of street art.

How It Unfolds

The primitive street In the earliest times, shopkeepers and tavern owners rely on raw, visual symbols to indicate their trades to an illiterate public. Roman ruins reveal basic carvings like chequers, vines, and bread loaves, establishing a practice that spreads across medieval Europe as trade expands.

The hazard overhead By the seventeenth century, competitive London shopkeepers construct gigantic wooden signs projecting deep into narrow streets, blocking natural light and threatening passersby. A dangerous combination of storm winds, creaking hinges, dripping water, and falling signboards forces Charles II and later authorities to pass laws requiring signs to be flatly affixed to walls or carved into brickwork.

Royal visits and national memory Inns and public houses adopt the portraits of visiting monarchs, foreign allies, and military heroes to cash in on popular sentiment and historical events. The King of Denmark, Czar Peter the Great, and Prince Eugene become prominent tavern figures, marking moments of royal carousal or national celebration.

Heraldry made popular Feudal badges, royal heraldry, and noble armorial bearings are adapted by common tavern keepers into simplified visual icons. Symbols such as the Red Dragon, the White Hart, the Portcullis, and the Falcon and Fetterlock transition from noble castle gates to street-corner signboards.

Fables and beasts on display Real and legendary animals populate the town, mixing natural history with popular mythology and trade emblems. The Ostrich appears swallowing a horseshoe to display its legendary digestion, while the Pegasus, Black Raven, and Peacock carry poetic, political, or religious meanings to the crowd below.

Gardens, arbors, and scripture Trees, fruits, and biblical tales provide a rich visual tapestry rooted in local ecology and popular drama. Publicans plant signboards bearing the Cherry-Tree or Mulberry-Tree to signal pleasure gardens, while Noah’s Ark and Adam and Eve leverage familiar mystery plays and trade allegories.

Saints and corruptions Catholic saints, bishops, and religious relics decorate old hostelleries, but centuries of popular usage distort their names and meanings. St. Lawrence surrounded by a border of flowers becomes corrupted into "Bosom's Inn," while the Cardinal's Hat and Pope's Head remain as lingering relics of pre-Reformation London.

Tavern life and social culture The narrative moves indoors to show how taverns like Pontack's Head, the Fleece, and the Grecian Coffee-House serve as the epicenter of dining, news, literature, and crime. High-end ordinaries serve exotic delicacies like bird's nest soup to fashionable crowds, while darker taverns become hotspots for gambling, brawls, and fatal duels.

Humor, puns, and proverbs In response to tighter street laws and changing tastes, signboards lean heavily into satire, wordplay, and cynical street humor. Inscriptions warning against offering credit, absurd proverbs like the "Cow and Hare," and misogynistic caricatures like the headless "Good Woman" reflect the cynical wit of urban shopkeepers.

The mock exhibition and decline The era of traditional signboards reaches a satirical climax with Bonnell Thornton's Sign-Painters' Exhibition of 1762, which parodies grand academic art using vulgar street signs. Soon after, the rise of street numbering, public literacy, and steam rail transport brings an end to the golden age of the swinging signboard.

The People

John Camden Hotten and Jacob Larwood The authors act as antiquarian guides navigating the neglected visual history of English popular culture. They seek to classify thousands of chaotic, entangled signboards into a meaningful narrative of everyday life. Their primary aim is to save a vanishing form of public art from total historical neglect, approaching their subject with scholarly curiosity and a dry, humorous appreciation for popular wit.

The London wayfarers and gallants The everyday pedestrians who navigate the dark, ill-paved, and dirty streets of seventeenth-century London facing constant hazards from above. Clad in silk stockings and low shoes without umbrellas, these walkers endure cold fogs, rain spouts, falling flowerpots, and massive swinging wooden signboards that block light and threaten bodily harm.

Tavern keepers and publicans The ambitious business owners who drive the creation, expansion, and humor of street signs. Driven by intense commercial competition, they push their signs as far into the street as possible to outshine rivals, name their houses after famous royal guests like Peter the Great to attract customers, and write witty, cynical rhyming verses on their doors to force patrons to pay cash.

Peter the Great The Russian Czar who, during his visit to London, establishes a habit of working hard by day and resorting to a modest public house in Great Tower Street by night. He drinks beer and brandy and smokes pipes with his companions, inspiring the tavern landlord to paint the Czar's head on the signboard, creating a famous local landmark that survives for generations.

The sign-painters and street illustrators The anonymous or rustic artists who paint the thousands of wooden boards hanging across English and French cities. Ranging from crude house-painters to skilled artists capable of bold bravura brushwork, they turn the streets into a open-air art gallery, capturing everything from theatrical scenes and political lotteries to military battles and absurd animals playing musical organs.

In Its Own Voice

When stormy weather struck seventeenth-century London, the heavy wooden signs hanging across the narrow streets transformed the city's thoroughfares into a noisy, treacherous gauntlet for every pedestrian walking below:

We can picture to ourselves the unfortunate plumed, feathered, silken gallant of the period walking, in his low shoes and silk stockings, through the ill-paved dirty streets, on a stormy November day, when the honours were equally divided between fog, sleet, snow, and rain, (and no umbrellas, be it remembered,) with flower-pots blown from the penthouses, spouts sending down shower-baths from almost every house, and the streaming signs swinging overhead on rusty, creaking hinges.

In contrast to the grim London weather, fashion-conscious diners at high-end eating houses like Pontack’s were treated to extravagant, unusual menus that catered to the luxurious tastes of eighteenth-century epicures:

The waiter, however, gives the menu, which contains--Bird’s nest soup from China; a ragout of fatted snails; bantam pig, but one day old, stuffed with hard row and ambergris; French peas stewed in gravy, with cheese and garlick; an incomparable tart of frogs and forced meat; chickens en surprise, (they had not been two hours from the shell,) and similar dainties.

Outside the public house, shopkeepers used their signboards to explicitly communicate their strict financial terms to thirsty patrons, drawing on long-standing proverbs:

“Within this hive we’re all alive With whisky sweet as honey; If you are dry, step in and try, But don’t forget the money.”

What It's Really About

At its core, the book is an examination of how a society expresses its collective memory, values, humor, and anxieties through visual symbols. It argues that signboards are not merely commercial advertisements, but a living, uncurated archive of popular history. Before widespread literacy, standardized street addresses, and mass media, the signboard served as the primary interface between the individual and the public sphere. By reading these hanging symbols, one can reconstruct the worldview of ordinary citizens—their political loyalties, religious superstitions, literary references, and social prejudices.

The book also addresses the continuous struggle between individual commercial ambition and civic regulation. The story of London's overhanging signboards illustrates how private enterprise, when unchecked, can physically choke public spaces, prompting the state to intervene and enforce urban order. Furthermore, the text demonstrates the inevitable decay and transformation of cultural symbols. Sacred religious icons like St. Lawrence or the Cardinal's Hat lose their theological meaning over time, morphing into corrupted colloquialisms, commercial brand names, or comedic parodies. Ultimately, the work asks how a culture preserves its fragile, everyday social history when the physical artifacts of that history—painted wood, carved stone, and painted metal—are constantly threatened by urban development, changing fashions, and the passage of time.

Why Read It Today

This book will delight history enthusiasts, antiquarians, literary scholars, and anyone who loves uncovering the hidden stories embedded in everyday urban landscapes. Reading it feels like taking a extended, meandering walking tour through historical London and Europe alongside an immensely knowledgeable, dryly witty companion. The narrative brings the sights, sounds, smells, and absurdities of bygone centuries to life, transforming mundane street corners into layered historical monuments. It offers a rare, bottom-up perspective on history, focusing on the taverns, shops, humor, and habits of ordinary people rather than just the grand narratives of battles and politics.

However, readers should be prepared for certain structural and stylistic difficulties. As an exhaustive antiquarian catalog, the text is exceptionally long, dense, and encyclopedic, often moving rapidly from one obscure tavern sign to another with overwhelming detail. The prose reflects nineteenth-century attitudes and period terminology that modern readers may find dated or offensive, particularly regarding women, foreign cultures, and lower-class social life. Additionally, the book assumes a comfortable familiarity with classical history, Latin, French, English heraldry, and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British literature, frequently quoting foreign phrases or historical anecdotes without extensive explanation.

Despite these hurdles, what stays with the reader is a newfound appreciation for the visual language of the past. The book reveals that the names and symbols still found on modern pub signs—from "The Rose and Crown" to "The Chequers"—are surviving fossil records of ancient trade, royal visits, long-forgotten jokes, and medieval heraldry. It teaches us to look up at the world with a sharper, more inquisitive eye, recognizing that the most ephemeral artifacts of daily life often hold the deepest truths about who we were.