please empty your brain below
Made to last, these road signs. Probably just as well as they would, no doubt, take second place to the pot holes for which there is no money to fix! Cynical......moi?

100andthirty | 22.02.17 - 7:35 a.m. | #

Weren't some of the early ones painted on glass?, then they moved onto casting before pressing from a single sheet - so you still had the raised letters, now its the modern flat version printed on 'tin foil'.

There still a few painted direct onto the side of buildings.

Still anon | 22.02.17 - 8:17 a.m. | #

If you'd looked down, manhole covers might have added to your haul.

David | 22.02.17 - 8:58 a.m. | #

Not quite so illogical as you think. All these boroughs have a border with the City.

Richard | Homepage | 22.02.17 - 9:31 a.m. | #

"Still Anon" is correct when saying early street signs were painted on glass although these are very very rare due to many getting smashed over the years, also correct when stating these were followed by casting and then pressing, many modern street signs are just adhesive stickers which can be peeled of and altered very easily, quite a lot of street signs get stolen and taken as souvenirs whilst working as a highways inspector in Tower Hamlets I had to replace the signs in Bancroft Road at least four times because the students used to steal them to remind themselves of where they lived and went to college.

Fishislandskin | 22.02.17 - 9:40 a.m. | #

Fascinating post. It's something I shall look out for, from now on!

Thanks also for the map in your first image - will come in very handy for referencing locations during my excursions into genealogy!

Cornish Cockney | 22.02.17 - 9:42 a.m. | #

Still musing on the wonderful juxtapositioning of the exotic and the everyday in Honduras Street. Great post, thank you.

Waterhouse | 22.02.17 - 9:42 a.m. | #

Love the raised bar on H olburn! Never noticed that before.

RogerB | 22.02.17 - 9:45 a.m. | #

P.S. David, Sadly there isn't a strong tradition of drainage authorities having their names on manhole covers in the UK, it's usually the iron founder's name, though these can be interesting. (My favourite covers are the bronze ones in Budapest)

RogerB | 22.02.17 - 9:50 a.m. | #

For some reason this post makes me feel really happy! Good stuff DG :)

Geo_rich | 22.02.17 - 9:52 a.m. | #

Pedant alert: Not London Borough of Shoreditch but Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch. The term "London Borough" came in with the Act of Parliament that followed the Herbert Commission.

dg writes: Fixed, thanks.

Alan Burkitt-Gray | 22.02.17 - 9:59 a.m. | #

The Fitzrovia district is great for spotting directly painted street name signs. And over-painted ones where the newer one doesn't line up with the first version.

Rathbone Place has one looking freshly applied in its black and white, even though a soul-less modern metal sign is very close to it.

All the opaline glass and oak framed signs bearing "Borough of Marylebone" seem to be in the same style as City of Westminster. Perhaps efficiencies of scale were already being practised before the merger.

Within the City of Westminster, visit Newburgh Street and surrounding areas to see the finest glass and oak framed signs -- the handsomest examples of street furniture that London has to offer.

Pimlico Pete | 22.02.17 - 10:11 a.m. | #

Just a minor observation that the name of Emerald Street will be familiar to at least a million young (well 20-50ish) urban women up and down the country as it's the name of a daily email bulletin - the digital counterpart to a certain free women's magazine handed out weekly in London, whose headquarters can be found at this address.

E1W-er | 22.02.17 - 10:30 a.m. | #

What a fantastic post.
It makes an everyday object interesting.

Michael | 22.02.17 - 10:47 a.m. | #

I used to work in Red Lion Square and walk there from Farringdon station, and it struck me that there is an unusually high concentration of pre-1965 street signs in that area. It could be that they are easier to notice becuase they bear the name of a borough that has not lived on in the modern division (as opposed to, say, Westminster).

Office worker | 22.02.17 - 10:56 a.m. | #

Street name signs are an insight into an area's character and soul, a visual equivalent of Radio 4. Mess with them at your peril !

Even though the street names are still in traditional style, there's something quite depressing about the newer Camden signs. Somehow the intrusion of the modern logo and the lower case font really jars, triggering associations with trendy 'mission statements' and suchlike.

Still, at least they're not as bad as Hackney's ghastly ones with weirdly coloured backgrounds or Lambeth's signs with 'nuclear free' political statements...

Gerry | 22.02.17 - 1:02 p.m. | #

Aside to this, here in Hackney Wick (I was here before it went trendy, and based on eye-watering property prices, will be long after it isn't), we still have a rare few, until they're nicked 'NE' postal district signs. Real heritage!

Joel | 22.02.17 - 4:18 p.m. | #

A few in Newham too: West Ham Lane on side of town hall, High St (Plaistow) on old Coach and Horses and Prince Regent Lane spelt Prince Regents in some places) all in the County Borough of West Ham. Spotted some visiting the Maps exhibition today around St Pancras stn (WC and NW)

scrumpy | 22.02.17 - 4:41 p.m. | #

My guess is that they would have called it Finsbury, not only because that was in the middle, but because the name has a long history of being used for larger and smaller areas to the north of the City. It seems to have originally referred to an area governed in some respects by the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's, centred on the actual manor of Finsbury (on the site of what's now Finsbury Square).

Andrew M | 22.02.17 - 6:32 p.m. | #

A lot of these signs use the MOT standard typeface designed by Hubert Llewellyn-Smith that was in use from 1933 to 1964 (although many councils continued to use it for street names into the 70s and 80s). It's clearly influenced by the Underground's iconic Johnston face, in particular the bottom-heavy S and the wide J. The third group of Holborn signs have the borough name in Gill Sans – another descendent of Johnston.

I'm interested by the ones for Harpur Street and New North Street, these are in the modern Transport typeface, which only started to be used in 1964, not long before the boroughs ceased to exist. I'm tempted to suggest these are actually like-for-like replicas made later.

gabriel | 22.02.17 - 7:34 p.m. | #

Hackney also includes many old signs with the old postcode (post district?) prefix e.g. On a house on the corner of Roding Road and Colne Road E5 there's a Roading Road NE sign.

| 22.02.17 - 7:45 p.m. | #

It seems to be a south-of-the-river - possibly Southwark and Lambeth - peculiarity to include the road number on the street sign.

[a photo I found on the web]

[an enormous web address which destroys column width if cut and pasted in full]

timbo | 22.02.17 - 8:39 p.m. | #

Yeah, my road has an old sign at the end of the road which I think is partly wooden, but contains nothing but the road name - I assume this comes from when the road was originally built. Opposite it on a pole is a new, modern Ealing Council sign which is distinctive enough I guess, but rather bland all the same. And probably made of plastic knowing Ealing.

Kirk | 22.02.17 - 9:13 p.m. | #

Plastic (which is actually a range of materials) has rather a bad name. I've no idea whether there exists a suitable plastic material for road signs, but if there is one, it is not necessarily any cheaper (or nastier) than alternatives.

Malcolm | 22.02.17 - 9:58 p.m. | #

would there have had long discussions if digits needed to be followed by a '.' ?
And when did 'W.C.' lose the '.' ?

Kate | 23.02.17 - 2:32 a.m. | #

The dots were officially lost when the districts were incorporated into the new postcode system, which was rolled out between 1967 and 1972.

gabriel | 23.02.17 - 3:36 a.m. | #

I have a great photo somewhere of two street name signs, one above the other on the same house side wall - one reads "Harringay Passage", the other reads "Haringey Passage".

There is (or was?) an unusual but effective use of a street name plate on (I think) Wheelwright Street, Islington (just off Caledonian Road near Pentonville Prison) where Islington Council have attached some names of local WW1 soldiers. I haven't been able to find more as to whether this is a borough-wide project or just a one-off.

Stephen | 23.02.17 - 6:17 a.m. | #

Stephen..

Haringey Passage was the original title of the passage.. and was named
after Haringey/Haringhay/Harringay House and grounds that were previously located there.

In recent years, in order to accentuate Harringay as a district within Haringey Borough, the Council unilaterally renamed the passage as Harringay Passage. I'm not sure if it was legally renamed.

Until 1965, Harringay was a district within Tottenham Urban District. These days, and with increased gentrification, the residents residents groups see themselves more aligned with Hornsey than Tottenham :-(.

IsarSteve | 23.02.17 - 12:06 p.m. | #

Yes Malcolm - and plastic is quite suitable - Ealing just print out things on retroreflective adhesive sheets whatever material it ends up stuck to.

And it's done to stop people stealing them, which is also fair enough.

But sometimes it makes you feel rather sad all the same.

Kirk | 23.02.17 - 12:38 p.m. | #

Coincidentally a @Travelling_Wolf (not me!) on Instagram posted a picture today of a painted Borough of Holborn Leigh Place E.C.1. sign on a wall. It looks like it's under a railway bridge. Assuming its original, no idea how it's survived not being repainted.

I looked on Streetview, it's an arch under a building leading into an alleyway.

NotWolf | 23.02.17 - 9:37 p.m. | #

A map from citymetric (link - http://www.citymetric.com/sites/default/files/article_body_2016/05/london_52_named_3.png) shows the names of the boroughs proposed by the Herbert Commission, this borough would have been called Clerkenwell

| 23.02.17 - 9:56 p.m. | #

The page from which that map comes makes it clear that the names are guesses. We are free to make alternative guesses.

| 24.02.17 - 11:02 p.m. | #

Very interesting Indeed DG - thanks for sharing, something else for me to muse over as I walk amid the capital.

| 01.03.17 - 12:46 p.m. | #

I get the 243 everyday and love seeing these

Jim | 01.03.17 - 2:16 p.m. | #











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