Othery, Somerset

The full set

Apart from the fact that is has one of my favourite English place names, I remember Othery* in Somerset for this fine preserved Hovis sign. I’ve pointed out Hovis signs before, including the typical protruding one I photographed in Brackley, but it’s a long time since I’ve seen this fuller version, in which the words ‘Golden brown’ are added to the brand name. Hovis† flour was a creation of the 1890s, but the company expanded rapidly after 1928, and by the 1930s these signs were in place on the premises of many bakers who used the flour to make the popular golden brown bread. Hovis supplied tins, with the brand name on them, in which to bake loaves. They dished out these signs. And they even produced maps and guidebooks, aimed at cyclists and marking tea rooms where one could enjoy a slice or three of Hovis bread.

Hovis still exists: I had some of their bread only the other day. The brand is as famous now for its effective advertising§ and promotion as it is for its products. The promotion ranges from the famous 1970s commercials, featuring a boy pushing a delivery bicycle up the achingly picturesque Gold Hill in Shaftesbury to the accompaniment of a brass band playing the slow movement of Dvořák’s New World Symphony,¶ to these golden signs, advertising bread still sold today with graphics dating from an earlier era.

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* The Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names says it’s derived from Old English words for ‘other’ and ‘island’, the other or second island. This figures, because Othery is on a kind of extension to a larger island in the wetlands that make up the Somerset Levels.

† Since I seem to have taken an etymological turn, the name is a contraction of the Latin ‘hominis vis’, the strength of man.

§ There’s more about the company and its advertising on the website of the Historic Advertising Trust.

¶ They play this slow movement very quickly, by the way, but it’s still what it is. By linking it to Hovis bread and picturesque English townscape, the commercial has succeeded in linking a piece of music originally associated with Bohemia (aka the Czech Republic, home of the composer) and the USA (where he wrote the symphony), with England. An interesting cultural consequence.

Brackley, Northamptonshire

A nice slice

A nice slice of brown bread and honey always seems to conjure up for me images of pleasant winter evenings in front of the fire. Comfort food, and, if the bread is wholemeal, nutritious too. In my childhood, Hovis, popular bread that was widely advertised on green and gold signs, seemed to fit the bill.*

The Hovis Bread Flour Company was founded in 1898 to make wholemeal flour, and their name, a shortened form of hominis vis (Latin for 'strength of man') was chosen after a national competition. The company expanded rapidly during the early years of the 20th century and again in the 1920s after the vitamin content of wheatgerm was discovered and publicized. The expansion came in the wake of clever marketing, too. Hovis produced special tins, embossed with the company name, with which bakers could bake loaves made with their flour. They provided branded bags, boxes, and even kitchen bread bins. Wherever they went, British people were reminded of Hovis wholemeal flour.

And then there were the shop signs, green, with gold letters standing out in relief. Their ingenious design ensured that they could be seen and read by passers-by coming from any direction, making them more effective than either a flat sign screwed to the wall or a hanging sign sticking out at right-angles like a pub sign. There are not so many of these signs around now, so I was pleased to find this one, attached to a building in Brackley. Hovis bread is still available and the sign is still doing its job, standing out and doing its bit to convince us that bread made with Hovis flour is outstanding.

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*The virtues of Hovis were imprinted on me well before the famous Ridley Scott commercial, first aired in 1973, another effective piece of marketing. In this curious confection, cobbled steep implausibly picturesque Gold Hill in Shaftesbury stands for a kind of eternal England, curiously underpinned by a speeded up brass-band arrangement ('Hurry up lads, commercial only lasts 40 seconds') of Dvořák's 9th symphony, with its Native American-influenced theme.