Elephant and Castle

A public-house sign at Newington, said to derive its name from the skeleton of an elephant dug up near Battle Bridge in 1714. A flint-headed spear lay by the remains, whence it is conjectured that the creature was killed by the British in a fight with the Romans. (The Times.)

There is another public-house with the same sign in St. Pancras, probably intended to represent an elephant with a howdah.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.