Shite Old Road Signs

[busmansholiday]

Having been over the border to West Yorkshire last week I spotted a couple of very old road signs still in use. As I couldn't find an appropriate thread, here they are. Please add others as you spot them, both for posterity and also so anybody who wants to photo their chod with a suitable age related back drop can do so.

This is in Netherton, on Blacker Lane.

Whilst this is just down the road in Horbury Bridge.

[Spurious]

Quite like the old Irish ones.  This one, whilst not my photo, is still there. Or it was still there a year ago when I was last home. 

There's a couple knocking about leading to having signs in both Kilometres and Miles on the one signpost. 

We also use Yield as opposed to Give Way signs. It used to piss off our driving instructors when I joined the ambulance service when I'd call them Yield signs. 

[riek]

there's a few of these a mile or two to the north of Bristol where signs for the old Aust ferry (which crossed the Bristol channel before Severn bridges were a thing, and is famous for Bob Dylan photos) have been expertly* modified because the ferry isn't there any more, and hasn't been since 1966....

 

[dozeydustman]

Being a soft southerner there are still plenty of fingerpost style roadsigns lurking around here in Sussex, but also in Kent. One of my favourites is this one.

 

These went through a phase of being stolen on a regular basis, so some now read Sandwich Ham

[eifion]

While it's nice to see really old roadsigns still pointing to places I do have a bit of a thing for the early Worboys thick blue bordered local direction signs. They're all pre-1975, apparently, and getting harder to find. It'll be a sad day when I drive to Betws-y-Coed and find that this one's been replaced.

[Asimo]

My first wife went to the tiny primary school this sign warns of.  The school closed in 1970 and was immediately converted to a home.

These cast aluminium signs were everywhere 50 years ago. I don't know of another one left.

[mitsisigma01]

Not old but memorable 

[barrett]

Excellent idea for a thread, following with interest. As above, there are loads of rural fingerpost signs down south but its rare to see anything old in a built-up area.

Remarkably, this one is still standing in SE London and, more remarkably, I'm pretty sure it's on a pretty recent replacement pole, which means somebody somewhere made a decision to preserve this and not chuck it in the bin. Lovely.

[dozeydustman]

4 minutes ago, barrett said:

Excellent idea for a thread, following with interest. As above, there are loads of rural fingerpost signs down south but its rare to see anything old in a built-up area.

Remarkably, this one is still standing in SE London and, more remarkably, I'm pretty sure it's on a pretty recent replacement pole, which means somebody somewhere made a decision to preserve this and not chuck it in the bin. Lovely.

Looks very much like Bostall Heath, Abbey Wood - my mum’s side of the family’s stoping ground. There are one or two survivors around there. Until very recently, last 5 years, there was a light-box style give way sign (i.e. internally illuminated) with very sharp corners - even the red triangle of ‘give way’ had points instead of rounded angles.

[500tops]

Not my photo, but I drove past this in Blackawton a few weeks back...

[Tadhg Tiogar]

16 hours ago, riek said:

there's a few of these a mile or two to the north of Bristol where signs for the old Aust ferry (which crossed the Bristol channel before Severn bridges were a thing, and is famous for Bob Dylan photos) have been expertly* modified because the ferry isn't there any more, and hasn't been since 1966....

 

There's a similar pre-Worboys sign still standing on Belsize Road, just before the junction with Kilburn High Road.

[bunglebus]

A couple from Yorkshire. 2nd was inside a dimly lit pub

 

[tooSavvy]

Not a Govt roadsign.... But very memorable cast iron plaque, on a pole yon side of the drystone wall.....

At the top of the long incline down into Haltwhistle, from the A69 [roman road]

"United Drivers - Engage *Lowest Gear"

*probably sage advice for most HGV

Sadly, no more

 

[sierraman]

I like those ones you sometimes see in the sticks that’ll go ‘Gweek 1 1/3 miles’. 

Or when you spot a solitary red phone box in the middle of nowhere that’s not become a toilet or smashed to fuck. 

[Frogchod]

Old signs fetch big money here. 

Quite often see them at car boots in terrible barley legible condition that the sellers think are worth hundreds. 

[busmansholiday]

5 hours ago, tooSavvy said:

Not a Govt roadsign.... But very memorable cast iron plaque, on a pole yon side of the drystone wall.....

At the top of the long incline down into Haltwhistle, from the A69 [roman road]

"United Drivers - Engage *Lowest Gear"

*probably sage advice for most HGV

Sadly, no more

 

Various versions of that were around. There's still the remains of one (and TEES, instead of United) on the A169 as you get towards Saltersgate heading towards Pickering. First one I came across, and did select 1st was on the A174 at Sandsend heading north.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

22 hours ago, Asimo said:

My first wife went to the tiny primary school this sign warns of.  The school closed in 1970 and was immediately converted to a home.

These cast aluminium signs were everywhere 50 years ago. I don't know of another one left.

That's amazing. It's so good it needs a preservation order slapping onto it. Which school was it, out of interest? 

[martc]

It almost says Loch Lomand on the other side -  the junction of the A82 and Glasgow Road Dumbarton

The rural roads of the East Riding are riddled with finger signs, still maintained/replaced by the council, eg -

 

[warch]

Is this an older sign? The post looks quite modern but the red triangle looks quite old fashioned to me. Photographed in the Lane opposite my house.

[Pieman]

A couple local to me, taken from Google Streetview.  The second one is a well-known landmark and the junction is known locally as The Fingerpost.

[mk2_craig]

Still a few of those “pre-Worboys” road signs in Jersey, haven’t got any of my own photos but I’m sure there was a thread on a website somewhere. 
 

EDIT: Sent to me by a friend

Here’s one I did see recently, it is presumably not older than the sixties but features an older variant of the bus silhouette icon than the standard one that’s been used everywhere for decades. 
 

[Crusty Sills]

These are in my village. 

[Fumbler]

Down here we have loads of fingerposts and things like that. I forget where but there's an early "modern look" hazard sign, same as what's featured on Look At Life when they were showcasing the new signage in lieu of the new motorways being opened.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

This one lives near me. For the longest time it was an ordinary No Entry sign, until it started to peel and reveal its past life.. 

[somewhatfoolish]

Round my way we have these funky little numbers; successive road crews have raised the level of the pavement so the bottom of the sign is obscured, every so often someone gives them a coat of paint as the council do little other than send us bills and collect the rubbish these days.

[tooSavvy]

Having driven around a fair bit of Scotland, as WVM, I do say I noticed major road 'splits' with destinations painted on the wall.

Musselburgh, I think, has something painted up [likely was the 'old' A1/Great North Road] similarly indicating route to Auld reekie vs Sassenach shire...

[busmansholiday]

On 7/14/2021 at 1:21 PM, warch said:

Is this an older sign? The post looks quite modern but the red triangle looks quite old fashioned to me. Photographed in the Lane opposite my house.

Certainly is old, this is the modern (well been around for about 50 years now) version.

[bangernomics]

This one reminded me of.




This one in Leicestershire.

[High Jetter]

This is the only one I can think of locally, maybe I need to be more observant. It could do with some TLC.

 

[warch]

I love this site sometimes, there I was, innocently ignorant of the wonderful and varied world of road signs, now I'm well versed in the work of the Worboys Committee. It's fun and educational!

My wife did have questions when she caught me looking at some old signs on Google images though...