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

Inn Signs

© Copyright. Images supplied by Digital Photographic Images

The two inn signs are from the same pub in Worcester. Seventeen years separate the two sign boards; the second is a computer-generated sticker whilst the former was a in-house painted signboard from the Marston's brewery at Shobnall.

It is thought that the original building on this site occupied part of the Roman Catholic presbytery and, accordingly, when it opened as a public house, was named the Virgin Mary Tavern. The Roman Catholics were outraged by this and, in a bid to appease the church, the name was changed by dropping the name of Mary. I haven't checked out this story for myself but it's a great tale if true.

It is perhaps appropriate that in these signboards, Queen Elizabeth has succeeded Queen Mary, just as she did in 1558. Elizabeth was also known as the Virgin Queen so her image on this signboard was, perhaps, almost inevitable.

Queen Mary was born in 1516 at the Palace of Placentia at Greenwich. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. She was crowned Queen of England and Ireland after she raised a small army to depose Lady Jane Grey. She ultimately beheaded her rival to the throne. She was quite adept at ordering the occasional execution and, during a five-year period known as the Marian Persecutions, she had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake. This was to gain her the title of Bloody Mary.

The daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was born in 1533. Succeeding the Catholic Bloody Mary, she was the fifth and final monarch of the Tudor dynasty. Despite courtships with several foreign suitors, she never married and she became famous for her supposed virginity, thus developing a cult status that is celebrated in contemporary paintings and portraits.
© Copyright. Posted on 28th January 2012
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.