On Ludgate-hill, has, for more than a century, since its name was
mentioned by Addison in the _Spectator_, occasioned a great variety of
conjectures. These conjectures, however, all appear to have been erroneous,
as the inn took the addition to its name from its having belonged to, or
been kept by, a person of the name of _Savage_. The sign originally
appears to have been a bell hung within a hoop, a common mode of
representation in former times. This origin has been proved by a grant in
the reign of Henry VI. in which John French, gentleman of London, gives to
Joan French, widow, his mother, "all that tenement or inn called Savage's
Inn, otherwise called the Bell on the Hoop." In the original "vocat"
Savagesynne, alias vocat "Le Belle on the Hope." Perhaps the phrase
"Cock-a-Hoop," may be derived from the sign of that bird standing on a
hoop, thus most conspicuously displaying himself, as we find that sign or
rather design existed in the reign above mentioned.
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