Pub names

The sign of the Saracen's Head in Broad Street, Bath, England

Pub names are used to identify and differentiate each pub. Many pubs are centuries old, and many of their early customers were unable to read, but could recognise pictorial signs.[1]

Some modern pub names are intended as a marketing ploy or an attempt to create "brand awareness", frequently using a comic theme thought to be memorable: Slug and Lettuce for a pub chain is an example. Interesting origins are not confined to old or traditional names, however. Names and their origins can be broken up into a number of categories:

Methodology

Although the word The appears on much pub signage, it is not considered to be an important part of the name, and is therefore ignored in the following examples.

Likewise, the word Ye should also be ignored as it is only an archaic spelling of The. The Y represents a now obsolete symbol (the Thorn, still used in Icelandic) which represented the th sound and looked rather like a blackletter y. Historically the article was never pronounced with a y sound, even when so written.

Similarly, other archaic spellings such as "olde worlde" are not distinguished below.

Alcohol related

Animals

Names like Fox and Hounds, Dog and Duck, Dog and Gun, etc., refer to hunting (see below). Animal names coupled with colours, such as White Hart and Red Lion, or of foreign or rare animals, are often heraldic (see below).

Individual animals once famous in a particular locality sometimes give their names to pubs:

Pubs may also be named after racehorses, although the connection may not be readily apparent, and the horse no longer famous. These include: Dr Syntax (Stocksfield), Alice Hawthorn (Nun Monkton), Golden Miller (Longstowe), Slow and Easy (Lostock Gralam), Windmill (Tabley), Happy Man (Manchester), and Spinner and Bergamot[3] (Northwich, Cheshire).

Colour

Colour appears in a number of pub names, sometimes associated with an object which may have been used to identify the pub, such as Blue Post or Blue Door, or as a symbol, such as blue for hope, which could be combined with another symbol, such as an anchor, to create the popular Blue Anchor name.[4] Blue has been used as a symbol of political affiliation as with the Manners family who bought a number of inns in Grantham, all of which they renamed to include the word blue to show their allegiance to the Whig Party,[4] or may have arisen incidentally, as with the Blue Pig in Telford, which acquired the name due to the local workers producing blue pig iron.[5][6]

Other popular colours are red, as in Red Bull and Red Lion (one of the most popular pub names, with over 600 examples[7]); black, as in Black Horse, Black Bear, and Black Cap; and green, as in Green Man.[4]

Pub names as a brand

Some pub chains in the UK adopt the same or similar names for many pubs as a means of brand expression. The principal examples of this are The Moon Under Water, commonly used by the JD Wetherspoon chain, and inspired by George Orwell's 1946 essay in the Evening Standard, "The Moon Under Water".[8]) and the Tap and Spile brand name used by the now defunct Century Inns chain. The Slug and Lettuce is another example of a chain of food-based pubs with a prominent brand - founder Hugh Corbett had owned a small number of pubs, which he rechristened with humorous or nonsensical names, with the effect of differentiating them from competitors.

Food

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, in Fleet Street, London.

Foreign language

Found objects

Before painted inn signs became commonplace publicans would identify their establishment by hanging or standing a distinctive object outside the pub.

Heraldry

The ubiquity of the naming element arms shows how important heraldry has been in the naming of pubs. The simpler symbols of the heraldic badges of royalty or local nobility give rise to many of the most common pub names.

Items appearing in coats of arms

The White Hart signboard

Names starting with the word "Three" are often based on the arms of a London Livery company or trade guild :

Landowners

Many coats of arms appear as pub signs, usually honouring a local landowner.

Location

An "arms" name can just derive from where the pub actually is.

Occupations

See also Trades, tools and products below

Some "arms" signs refer to working occupations. These may show people undertaking such work or the arms of the appropriate London livery company. This class of name may be only just a name but there are stories behind some of them.

Historic events

A 'Royal Oak' in Fishguard, Wales
Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem

Literature

Many pubs are named after William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.

Myths and legends

Images from myths and legends are evocative and memorable.

Paired names

Very frequently found today, and often giving rise to complex explanations (see Puns, Jokes and Corruptions below), the pairing of words in the name of an inn or tavern was rare before the mid-17th century, but by 1708 had become frequent enough for a pamphlet to complain of 'the variety and contradictory language of the signs', citing absurdities such as 'Bull and Mouth', 'Whale and Cow', and 'Shovel and Boot'. Two years later an essay in the Spectator echoed this complaint, deriding among others such contemporary paired names as 'Bell and Neat's Tongue', though accepting 'Cat and Fiddle'.

A possible explanation for doubling of names is the combining of businesses, for example when a landlord of one pub moved to another premises. Fashion, as in the rise of intentionally amusing paired names like 'Slug and Lettuce' and 'Frog and Firkin' in the late 20th century, may also be responsible.[18]

Personal names or titles

The Marquis of Granby, after whom a number of pubs are named.

A number of pubs are known by the names of former landlords and landladies, for instance Nellie's (originally the White Horse) in Beverley, and Ma Pardoe's (officially the Olde Swan) in Netherton, West Midlands. The Baron of Beef (now simply The Baron), Welwyn, Hertfordshire is named after a nineteenth-century landlord, George Baron, listed in Kelly's Directory for 1890 as "Butcher and Beer Retailer".

Places

Plants and horticulture

The Hoop and Grapes, Aldgate High Street, London

The most common tree-based pub name is the Royal Oak, which refers to a Historical event. Horticultural names such as Gardener's Arms are not uncommon: see "Trades, tools and products".

Politically incorrect

The pub itself (including nicknames)

'The Crooked House', Himley, is known for its extreme lean, caused by mining subsidence

Puns, jokes and corruptions

Pub heritage: Nowhere Inn Particular, now closed

Although puns became increasingly popular through the twentieth century, they should be considered with care. Supposed corruptions of foreign phrases usually have much simpler explanations. Many old names for pubs that appear nonsensical are often alleged to have come from corruptions of slogans or phrases, such as "The Bag o'Nails" (Bacchanals), "The Cat and the Fiddle" (Caton Fidele) and "The Bull and Bush", which purportedly celebrates the victory of Henry VIII at "Boulogne Bouche" or Boulogne-sur-Mer Harbour.[29][30] Often, these corruptions evoke a visual image which comes to signify the pub; these images had particular importance for identifying a pub on signs and other media before literacy became widespread. Sometimes the basis of a nickname is not the name, but its pictorial representation on the sign that becomes corrupt, through weathering, or unskillful paintwork by an amateur artist. Apparently, many pubs called the Cat or Cat and Custard Pot were originally Tigers or Red Lions with signs that "looked more like a cat" in the opinion of locals.

Religious

The amount of religious symbolism in pub names decreased after Henry VIII's break from the church of Rome. For instance, many pubs now called the King's Head were originally called the Pope's Head.

Royalty

Royal names have always been popular (except under the Commonwealth). It demonstrated the landlord's loyalty to authority (whether he was loyal or not), especially after the restoration of the monarchy. "Royal George" is the name of a ship.

See also Heraldry above.

Ships

The Llandoger Trow in Bristol in the early 1930s, before part was bombed in World War II

Sports

Games

Football club nicknames can be used for pub names:

Hunting and blood sports

Topography

Trades, tools and products

Transport

Air

Hatfield, The Comet; the carving of the pillar is by Eric Kennington

Rail

A large number of pubs called the Railway, the Station, the Railway Hotel, etc. are situated near current or defunct rail stations. Five stations on the London Underground system are named after pubs: Royal Oak, Elephant & Castle, Angel, Manor House, Swiss Cottage. The area of Maida Vale, which has a Bakerloo line station, is named after a pub called the "Heroes of Maida" after the Battle of Maida in 1806.

Mainline stations named after pubs include Bat & Ball in Sevenoaks.

Road

Water

Other

Most common

One of the Swans, this one in Stroud, Gloucestershire

An authoritative list of the most common pub names in Great Britain is hard to establish, owing to ambiguity in what classifies as a pub as opposed to a licensed restaurant or nightclub, and so lists of this form tend to vary hugely. The two surveys most often cited, both taken in 2007, are by the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) and CAMRA.

According to BBPA, the most common names are:[7]

  1. Red Lion (759)
  2. Royal Oak (626)
  3. White Hart (427)
  4. Rose and Crown (326)
  5. King's Head (310)
  6. King's Arms (284)
  7. Queen's Head (278)
  8. The Crown (261)

and according to CAMRA they are:[44]

  1. Crown (704)
  2. Red Lion (668)
  3. Royal Oak (541)
  4. Swan (451)
  5. White Hart (431)
  6. Railway (420)
  7. Plough (413)
  8. White Horse (379)
  9. Bell (378)[45][46]
  10. New Inn (372)

A more current listing can be found on the Pubs Galore site, updated daily as pubs open/close and change names.[47] As of August 1, 2014, the top 10 were:

  1. Red Lion (617)
  2. Crown (583)
  3. Royal Oak (512)
  4. White Hart (368)
  5. Swan (345)
  6. Plough (339)
  7. White Horse (332)
  8. New (290)
  9. Kings Arms (271)
  10. Ship (263)

The number of each is given in brackets.

Unusual names

The pubs with the shortest and longest names in Britain are both in Stalybridge: Q and The Old Thirteenth Cheshire Astley Volunteer Rifleman Corps Inn. The longest name of a London pub, I am the Only Running Footman, was used as the title of a mystery novel by Martha Grimes.

There is a "pub with no name" in Southover Street, Brighton.[48]

The Case Is Altered, an early comedy by Ben Jonson, gives its name to several pubs.

Two famous fictitious names are "The Frog and Nightgown" and "The Ghost and Gumboil", often referred to in Ted Ray's popular radio comedies.

The Salley Pussey's Inn at Royal Wootton Bassett is said to have been named after Sarah Purse, whose family owned The Wheatsheaf pub in the 19th century. In the 1960s the name was changed to The Salley Pussey's.

See also

References

  1. Culture UK – Pub and Inn Signs
  2. Elaine Sauders. "British Pub Signs - a short history". britainexpresds.com. Retrieved 8 June 2013.
  3. Website history page http://www.spinnerandbergamot.com/about_us.php
  4. 1 2 3 Dictionary of Pub Names – Google Books. books.google.co.uk. Retrieved 26 July 2009.
  5. A Guide to Shropshire – Google Books. books.google.co.uk. Retrieved 28 July 2009.
  6. "The Old Canals of Telford – Bits, Speculations and References". www.telford.org.uk. Retrieved 28 July 2009.
  7. 1 2 "British Beer and Pub Association Fact Sheet, 2007". BBPA.
  8. Waterhouse, Keith "The Moon Under Water goes under" Daily Mail
  9. 1 2 The Wordsworth Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Wordsworth Editions. 2001. p. 883.
  10. Dunkling L, Wright G (1994) [1987]. The Wordsworth Dictionary of Pub Names. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Reference. ISBN 1-85326-334-6.
  11. see pub website, history page
  12. "The Dolphin - Wellington, Somerset - Home". thedolphinwellington.co.uk.
  13. 1 2 Rennison, Nick (2006). The Book of Lists, London. Canongate. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-84195-934-4.
  14. "Hobbit pub in Southampton threatened with legal action". BBC News. 13 March 2012.
  15. Lass o'Gowrie
  16. "The Silent Woman Inn - Welcome to The Silent Woman". www.thesilentwoman.co.uk. Retrieved 15 October 2010.
  17. 1 2 Dictionary of Pub Names. Wordsworth Editions. 2006. p. 354. ISBN 1-84022-266-2. Retrieved 15 October 2010.
  18. Jacqueline Simpson (2010). Green Men and White Swans. Random House Books. ISBN 978-1-84794-515-0.
  19. Dictionary of Pub Names – Google Books. books.google.co.uk. Retrieved 26 July 2009.
  20. "Guy Earl Of Warwick". Pubs Galore.
  21. "London (South) 1896 Suburban Publicans directory listing - G". londonpublichouse.com.
  22. "Great Expectations". shu.ac.uk.
  23. "Real ale pubs and Inn's serving the finest pub food in Dartmoor, Devon". exclusivelydartmoor.co.uk.
  24. History of the Twelve Pins (brief). Retrieved on 2009-04-05.
  25. "The present sign is the innocuous replacement for one that became the centre of a storm a dozen or so years ago. As readers may remember, the original illustration was of a white couple trying to scrub the blackness off a black child in a tub. It was deemed by many to be in poor taste and potentially offensive, but there was an outcry when it was removed following a protest by two schoolgirls."
  26. Is Historic Black Boy Inn Racist?
  27. Was Scotty a Black Bitch?
  28. 'A place of this kind used as a cellar or storeroom for provisions or liquors.' Oxford English Dictionary, Second edition, 1989; online version June 2011. <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/221743>; accessed 1 September 2011.
  29. Brewer, E. Cobham (1898). "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable". Retrieved 17 October 2008.
  30. Dictionary of Pub Names – Google Books. books.google.co.uk. 10 September 2006. ISBN 978-1-84022-266-1. Retrieved 31 August 2009.
  31. Congleton history website
  32. "The Steveston - Buck & Ear - Hotel - Liquor Store - Cafe". stevestonhotel.ca.
  33. "Case is Altered". beerintheevening.com.
  34. "E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898". Retrieved 17 October 2008.
  35. Lloyd, John (1972) The Township of Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Manchester: E. J. Morten; pp. 104–06
  36. Bruderer, Adam. "The not Oxford Road pub survey, October 2008" (PDF). Retrieved 13 July 2010.
  37. 1716, Dog and Duck sign from tavern on land belonging to the Bridge House Estates at St George's Fields: Image <http://hdl.handle.net/10427/15446> from the Bolles Collection (MS004) at the Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University.
  38. "節税ノウハウ~交際費などわかりやすい". thejollynailor.com.
  39. http://www.theshipstyal.co.uk/about/
  40. Bill Bryson, Mother Tongue, Penguin Books p169
  41. The Shroppie Fly website
  42. "Pubs in Birdlip - The Air Balloon - Old English Inns". airballoon-pub-gloucestershire.co.uk.
  43. "The Rusty Bicycle, Oxford - Cowley pub/food/functions - Arkell's Brewery Swindon". arkells.com.
  44. "Article at Solihull CAMRA site, 2007". CAMRA.
  45. In 2008 it was claimed that the total number of names incorporating the word 'Bell' totalled 412.
  46. "Horfield Ringers - Bell Anthology". horfieldringers.org.
  47. Most common names of open pubs listed on Pubs Galore
  48. "The Southover". tripadvisor.com.au.
Sources

Further reading

External links

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