ARCHITEXTS: THINGS WRITTEN ON BUILDINGS (5)
They don’t take any nonsense in Dorset. You damage this bridge and you’re out, understand? It’s been here since the 16th century and we want it to stay that way. Not that there’s any room for misunderstanding with all this typographical shouting (‘guilty of FELONY’, ‘TRANSPORTED FOR LIFE’), which reminds one of the barely suppressed menace of old income tax forms (‘if you are a MARRIED MAN’). It all looks like zero tolerance, a century before anyone thought of the term. I don’t think they’ll put you on a slow boat to the antipodes any more if you damage this bridge, wilfully or not. But you’d better behave. Just in case. OK?
Many thanks for the picture of the bridge sign at Wool to Peter Ashley, who blogs about England’s glories and eccentricities here.
1 comment:
I'd never really taken in the name of the court official who signed-off this draconian threat. Apart of course from tittering like a schoolboy at its implication.Is he by any chance a relative of Lee Ho Fook, one of my favourite restaurants in Gerrard Street, celebrated by Warren Zeavon in Werewolves of London?
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