This page attempts to explain the significance and meaning behind the Vine Inn Sign. Research is augmented with photographs of pub signs.

Inn Signs

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The Vine remains one of the most popular inn signs in Great Britain. And generations ago it was perhaps one of the most widespread of inn signs.

The sign is sometimes a heraldic reference to the Worshipful Company of Distillers [1638]. This body is ranked 69th among the many Livery Companies of the City of London. Their coat-of-arms includes a vine branch bearing grapes.

However, the sign of The Vine predates this Worshipful Company and was in widespread use by the fourteenth century.

One of the most common reasons for the sign is that many pubs trained a vine to grow up and across the frontage of their buildings to make it easily identifiable to passers-by that it was an inn - similar in many ways to two of the oldest English signs, The Bush and The Hop Pole. This sign can be found in the Staffordshire village of Wombourne.
© Copyright. Images supplied by Digital Photographic Images.

Click here for a list of inn signs featured on the website, along with an overview of British pub signs.