Green Man

Most pub names have been understood in much the same way in most places and over many years. Not so The Green Man, which has changed greatly, as can be seen on signboards, past and present.

In Tudor and Stuart times, a ‘green man’ was thought of as a giant dressed in leaves or moss and armed with a club. They were popular features in pageants; for example, in Chester on St George’s Day in 1610 the parade was led by two ‘green men’ with ivy garlands on their ‘huge black shaggy hair’ and ivy leaves stitched to their clothes, carrying massive clubs. These giants were also shown in heraldry; the Distillers’ Company had a pair on their coat of arms, which is why they became a symbol for inns – presumably originally those licensed to sell spirits as well as beer – with the name ‘Green Man and Still’.

By the nineteenth century the leafy giant had become obsolete, and most Green Man pubs replaced him with Robin Hood (dressed, naturally, in a green jerkin), or with some person who wore green because of his work – a forester, a gamekeeper, an axe-wielding woodman, a wildfowler. In the early twentieth, when interest in traditional folk customs was increasing, some of them chose signs alluding to May Day festivities by including a maypole or a Jack-in-the-Green.

The latest and most striking innovation is to represent a Green Man simply as a face with leaves sprouting from its mouth and eyes, or peering through leaves – a powerful and pleasing design, based upon a type of ornamental carving very common in medieval churches, the ‘foliate head’. From the 1960s onwards such carvings have been widely called ‘green men’; several books claim that they carry a secret pagan message, celebrating the renewal of nature’s fertility in spring.

A tour of Green Man pubs, with careful attention to their signs, will prove pleasant and instructive.

See a list of Green Man pubs

Jacqueline is the author of Green Men and White Swans, an enchanting guide to the stories and legends behind Britain's traditional pub names.