Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
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Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
This is a sign for the exit from Nuneaton Court car park, now the Post Office. It leads onto a one way street, and I've never seen a sign for a right turn like this before.
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Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
First post, be gentle.
Can anyone tell me when the RAC started and stopped erecting road signs? I recall a little potted history online once but cant find it anymore.
I have moved to the Scottish borders recently, and the amount of roadside street furniture relics on quieter roads is reassuringly abundant. However this one RAC sign captured my attention, and made me ponder it's age and wonder if it needs preserving somehow. Far from being on some quiet back road its actually on a relatively busy NSL section of A road, at risk of vehicle strike from the sweeping bends, at risk of an impatient grasscutter pilot, and probably bathed in salty road-spray for 3 months of each year. The post looks to have been replaced "sometime" but the plate is looking perilous and a trip past last night indicated no reflective qualities whatosever (even if they ever had any?)
https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6767733 ... ?entry=ttu
Having worked for local authorities before I know how utterly uninterested the average council nerk is regarding such things as old street furniture, collecting the "scrap" some years back was just the slush fund at the depot for the Christmas bottles. What could be the future for it? I fully expect to go past one day to fin it flattened between tyre tracks, or simply gone.
Can anyone tell me when the RAC started and stopped erecting road signs? I recall a little potted history online once but cant find it anymore.
I have moved to the Scottish borders recently, and the amount of roadside street furniture relics on quieter roads is reassuringly abundant. However this one RAC sign captured my attention, and made me ponder it's age and wonder if it needs preserving somehow. Far from being on some quiet back road its actually on a relatively busy NSL section of A road, at risk of vehicle strike from the sweeping bends, at risk of an impatient grasscutter pilot, and probably bathed in salty road-spray for 3 months of each year. The post looks to have been replaced "sometime" but the plate is looking perilous and a trip past last night indicated no reflective qualities whatosever (even if they ever had any?)
https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6767733 ... ?entry=ttu
Having worked for local authorities before I know how utterly uninterested the average council nerk is regarding such things as old street furniture, collecting the "scrap" some years back was just the slush fund at the depot for the Christmas bottles. What could be the future for it? I fully expect to go past one day to fin it flattened between tyre tracks, or simply gone.
Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
Welcome to SABRE!Loose Cannon wrote: ↑Tue Feb 13, 2024 17:20 First post, be gentle.
Can anyone tell me when the RAC started and stopped erecting road signs? I recall a little potted history online once but cant find it anymore.
I have moved to the Scottish borders recently, and the amount of roadside street furniture relics on quieter roads is reassuringly abundant. However this one RAC sign captured my attention, and made me ponder it's age and wonder if it needs preserving somehow. Far from being on some quiet back road its actually on a relatively busy NSL section of A road, at risk of vehicle strike from the sweeping bends, at risk of an impatient grasscutter pilot, and probably bathed in salty road-spray for 3 months of each year. The post looks to have been replaced "sometime" but the plate is looking perilous and a trip past last night indicated no reflective qualities whatosever (even if they ever had any?)
https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6767733 ... ?entry=ttu
Having worked for local authorities before I know how utterly uninterested the average council nerk is regarding such things as old street furniture, collecting the "scrap" some years back was just the slush fund at the depot for the Christmas bottles. What could be the future for it? I fully expect to go past one day to fin it flattened between tyre tracks, or simply gone.
Simple answer is the RAC lost the authority to install permanent direction signs in 1965. They, like the AA, now only can do event and roadworks signs.
The best thing to do is get that sign to a museum collection before someone wipes it out, as you say, it'll end up in the scrap fund if left to an uninterested DLO.
Bryn
Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already.
She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.
Blog - https://showmeasign.online/
X - https://twitter.com/ShowMeASignBryn
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Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already.
She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.
Blog - https://showmeasign.online/
X - https://twitter.com/ShowMeASignBryn
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@BrynBuck
Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
Spotted this signpost at Stockton Crossroads, south of Telford. Pity the northbound sign has broken off. I wonder which old town in the modern Telford it pointed to?
https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/ind ... b_2024.jpg
https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/ind ... b_2024.jpg
Ian
Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
A lovely survivor in Caister on Sea. Another new arrow version, and the back was metallic slime green paint which is unusual for the era as it was usually matt black or a dark colour.
Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
I just found this absolute classic in Clapham, unfortunately instead of painting it they replaced it about 2013.
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4701657 ... ?entry=ttu
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4701657 ... ?entry=ttu
Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
"caution proceed slowly"
Maybe it's the camera effect, but that just looks like a nope situation.
Maybe it's the camera effect, but that just looks like a nope situation.
Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
I only remember a few of these from the old days and they usually said no through road to, but I think if the design fits then no access must have been used then as well. Hartwell, Northants.
no access by David Howard, on Flickr
no access by David Howard, on Flickr
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Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
Saw this one today on the B4194 at Button Bridge near Bewdley:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4099807 ... ?entry=ttu
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4099807 ... ?entry=ttu
Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
The amount of times I've driven along there and never even noticed it.Worcestershire Wolf wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 20:45 Saw this one today on the B4194 at Button Bridge near Bewdley:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4099807 ... ?entry=ttu
How would you like your grade separations, Sir?
Big and complex.
Big and complex.
Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
I came across this strange looking signpost recently : https://www.google.com/maps/@55.1894582 ... &entry=ttu
I assume it's pre-Worboys but I'm slightly suspicious it's some kind of latter day reproduction.
I assume it's pre-Worboys but I'm slightly suspicious it's some kind of latter day reproduction.
Owen
Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
No, that's a fingerpost, and judging by the condition a modern reproduction. Most hand symbols stopped around the 1930s and weren't used for any national direction signs.
Pressed metal, Marlborough, Wiltshire.
Pressed metal, Marlborough, Wiltshire.
Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
The only correct font Keep Clear I know if isn't P-W as has GLC on it despite otherwise looking genuine, and I'm still not sure where in Southwark it is. This was long gone before I found its existence this weekend, it's very out of focus and suspect the sharp corners and lack of a border suggests it was made by the residents who got fed up with people parking in the way.
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.3695043 ... ?entry=ttu
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.3695043 ... ?entry=ttu
Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
This seems to be reused on what could have been a speed limit, but painted on which is not normal, and the little remaining paint is not like anything I recognise. But clearly pretty old even if hand made with the letters crooked. Having turned it upside down I think it's the trace of a 30. Castle Hedingham, Essex.
sign by David Howard, on Flickr
sign by David Howard, on Flickr
Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
I noticed the absence of this old layby sign on the A819 last time I drove it. Unfortunately it has been removed by the council, but then so has the layby and the verge where the sign was located as they have widened this section of the road which, on balance, is a good thing.
Rob.
My mission is to travel every road and visit every town, village and hamlet in the British Isles.
I don't like thinking about how badly I am doing.
My mission is to travel every road and visit every town, village and hamlet in the British Isles.
I don't like thinking about how badly I am doing.
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Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
Spotted this one on Boar Lane, Newark-on-Trent.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/HXh8UjiUE3AhULP96
https://maps.app.goo.gl/HXh8UjiUE3AhULP96
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Re: Pre-Worboys preservation campaign
After a frenzy of old-sign spotting in my new home of the Northumberland/Scottish borders, I've found one in my back garden.
Carving my hedgetrimmer through a foot-deep thatch of ivy in the last undicovered corner of the garden , lo and behold a coal bunker appeared (I felt like Indiana Jones at his point).
Standing in for a grate on the hole where you shovel coal out of (surely there is a technical term for that) was an unfamiliar cast vertical sign which said SCHOOL and a torch logo on top. I now understand that this is a "Torch of Learning" sign to warn approaching traffic. Thankyou interweb.
There was once a very small school opposite our house (all long gone, along with all other vestiges of civilisation that modern society considers too costly like a Post Office and shop). So its conceivable it hasn't moved very far at all.
It hasn't a scrap of paint left on it but at least I know now what colour to paint it!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/63942060@N04/6352264508
Carving my hedgetrimmer through a foot-deep thatch of ivy in the last undicovered corner of the garden , lo and behold a coal bunker appeared (I felt like Indiana Jones at his point).
Standing in for a grate on the hole where you shovel coal out of (surely there is a technical term for that) was an unfamiliar cast vertical sign which said SCHOOL and a torch logo on top. I now understand that this is a "Torch of Learning" sign to warn approaching traffic. Thankyou interweb.
There was once a very small school opposite our house (all long gone, along with all other vestiges of civilisation that modern society considers too costly like a Post Office and shop). So its conceivable it hasn't moved very far at all.
It hasn't a scrap of paint left on it but at least I know now what colour to paint it!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/63942060@N04/6352264508