Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

January 'SALE'

Coincidence corner. The Resident Wise Woman has an Australian friend, M, and since they live half a world apart, the two of them meet only occasionally, when their paths lead to the Czech Republic. I finally met M last year when all our paths coincided at last and, over a cup of tea in Southern Bohemia, M revealed a further coincidence: that some of her ancestors came from Cheltenham, the English town where I grew up. These ancestors were grocers, their family name was Beckingsale, and their shop was in the High Street. They were in business there by the early-19th century, and are mentioned in Rowe's guides to the town from 1845 and 1850, where they are recommended as purveyors of the 'celebrated Royal Cheltenham Sausage'. 'I believe,' said M, 'that the original Victorian sign is still on the shop.' Before long, I was off to Cheltenham to have a look.

To my amazement, part of the sign is indeed still there, although the shop (above) is unoccupied. One can clearly see most of the family name, and another sign, in different lettering, reading 'AND RETAIL', which is separate from the name sign and must be part of another generation of signage. The first thing that struck me, apart from the extraordinary good fortune that these signs have survived at all, is the lettering. The fragment of the name, in the picture at the top of this post, is in a typically curvaceous Victorian decorative letterform. Curved horizontal strokes to the L and E, a looped crossbar to the A, double-lobed serifs at the ends of the strokes on all the letters, more lobes halfway up the verticals, carefully drawn returns with bright highlights – all these are features common in this kind of decorative lettering, or at least once common, though survivors are now increasingly rare. The letters are lovely, and one hopes they will be preserved.

The other fragment, though, is something else. Where there were rounded lobes, now there are sharp points – on the serifs everywhere and also on normally-rounded parts of letters such as the D and R. I've not seen anything quite like this before. There's something rather hard and aggressive about the style with its serifs as sharp as arrows – the E, with its the bizarre crossbar, looks positively dangerous.

Much as I prefer the curly letterforms of Beckingsale's name, I'm glad I've seen their more angular neighbours and I hope these letters are preserved too, if only because they're so unusual. Here's to coincidences.

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Footnote The passage to the left of the shop is also interesting. Until about 1874 it was known as Beckingsale's Passage, after which it was renamed Normal Terrace (after the Church of England Normal College at the other end), although many locals referred to it by its old name for many years after the official change of designation. I was prevented by scaffolding from taking photographs of the passage, but there are images, and more information, here.