Place Name
Takes its name from a coaching inn that stood on the crossroads from around 1760. The combination of an elephant and a castle is an old heraldic symbol. Before the inn it is said to have been a site occupied by a member of the Worshipful Company of Cutlers, a livery company which made swords and other weaponry as well as knives, it has been suggested the inn opened on the site of a former smithy. The elephant in their coat of arms, which was incorporated in 1642, was to symbolise the ivory the cutlers used for the handles of high-end knives. As for the castle, Caroline Taggart in The Book of London Place Names explains: “The suggestions is that it was to indicate to the medieval public just how large this ivory-bearing beast was.” The Elephants in medieval heraldry were often shown with castles on their back, it appeared in the arms of the Royal Africa Company in 1588. David Mills in A Dictionary of London Place Names writes: “Its use as an inn name is paralleled by a lost tavern called The Elephant and Castle in Lincoln recorded from 1733.” For a while it was claimed that the name was a corruption of Infanta of Castile after a Spanish princess who was once engaged to Charles I but this is merry an urban myth.
