The Lee, Buckinghamshire

 

Distinctiveness at the fingerpost

In 1964, the Warboys Committee, led by Sir Walter Warboys, reported on traffic signs on the roads of Britain. The committee concluded that the existing signs were no longer good enough – increased traffic levels and the speed of traffic on the roads meant that signs could be difficult to read. New signs were developed that are still used today. They included everything from the triangular warning signs with their clear symbols and minimal use of words, to the rectangular direction signs on primary and local routes, which were adapted from the direction signs on motorways introduced in the late-1950s. One result was the disappearance of many of the old fingerpost signs, with their pointing arms bearing place names and distances in miles (sometimes down to the nearest quarter or even one-eighth of a mile).

Fortunately for people like me who care about historical artefacts, a number of the old fingerposts were kept in some areas, and when one looks at them it becomes clear that something was lost with their large-scale disappearance. It’s not just the demise of those very precise distances, it’s also their quality of local distinctiveness.* Roads and their signs were largely a matter for local government – county councils particularly – and counties produced their fingerposts in similar ways, but with subtle differences. In places where a number of the old sings remain, you can find, for example, in Somerset, numerous iron posts with a pyramid-shaped finial, each of its four faces bearing the initials S.C.C. (Somerset County Council). Parts of rural Oxfordshire retain wooden fingerposts with rather broader arms than usual. In East Sussex there are also some of the old wooden fingerposts, with their scalloped-cornered arms and tapering posts with an octagonal finial.

In Buckinghamshire recently, I noticed this one near the village green at The Lee, with its white ring bearing the words ‘Bucks County’.§ It seems to be in someone’s garden, though it still points usefully in the right directions. I wonder if it is an example of a private individual preserving a bit of history. While I understand the need for modern signs, I’m glad these early ones are preserved in some places, to remind us of the various local ways in which fingerposts were designed and made.† The quality of local distinctiveness is frequently eroded away in the often worthy cause of standardisation. But it’s something that makes places what they are, just as much as the brick and tile of the house behind the sign, or the weatherboarded former outbuilding in which we were staying when we were in Bucks. Let’s celebrate local distinctiveness when we can.

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§ Click on the picture to enlarge it for a clearer view.    

* This concept is discussed and encyclopaedised in the excellent England in Particular by Sue Clifford and Angela King (Hodder & Stoughton, 2006)

† And to be reminded of such resonant place names as Swan Bottom