Filey / Scarborough /Pickering / Glaisdale, Yorkshire
Befitting the largest of England's counties, Yorkshire
has wide variety of rural and urban examples of public lettering from
previous decades. On the east coast, Filey is a small seaside resort
with edge-of-the-building lettering:
'LADIES
GENTLEMENS
HAIRDRESSER'
(some obliterated
lettering in the white panel below)
Towards the edge of the town, above the sea is Filey Museum with this
curio preserved above an ancient doorway:
'1696
I MN
THE FEAR OF
GOD BE IN YOU'
with centralised dots either side of the word 'in' and
a crossed 'I' in
the mysterious 'I MN'.
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The villages of Willerby and Staxton are a few miles
inland and more or less run into one another. The school building
bearing the carved stone lettering:
'WILLERBY
SCHOOL BOARD 1901'
were being refurbished as living accomodation in 2007
when this
photograph was taken. The artdeco-style 'sunbursts' in the typically
tall windows for Edwardian schools are of interest.
The biggest coastal town in the area is Scarborough and
it has excellent examples of lettering.
'ABERDEEN WALK
PICTURE HOUSE'
on a fine stonework frontage which is now a furniture
shop. Nearby is:
'W.W. HESLOP.
BUTCHER.
ARMY CONTRACTOR.
TELEPHONE No. 89'
on the side wall of the old shop, now an estate agent,
but in a narrow
lane, quite a surprise for such large lettering. The 89th subscriber on
the Scarborough Post Office telephone exchange to be connected!
-
Wander round the neighbouring roads and you find the
highly condensed
and raked 'GARAGE', also
'BERRIMAN
& CHAPMAN
LTD [tiny lettering]
Builders &
Furnishing
Ironmongers
TOOLS for all TRADES'
(the last line reversed
out on a black
panel with 'for' and 'all' placed one above the other). A company still
trading from its lettered address!
-
and over the road this enigmatic mix of several layers
of signs; we can make out:
'... DRAPERY & [?] STORES...'
The North Yorkshire Steam Railway famously runs from
Pickering to Grosmont and it is at the fomer town that you can find the
sign below:
'W. LUMLEY & SON
AGRICULTURAL MERCHANTS'
on a stone and brick building which stand about half a
mile from the
station, along a country road which runs parallel to the line.
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Although not qualifying under the tenuous and abritrary
rules of this website, we couldn't
resist the fine, restored logo and lettering (above) on one of the
N.Y.S.R.'s locomotives:
'BRITISH... RAILWAYS'
That's when a livery really was a livery... Taken from the
platform near the hand-cranked level crossing gates at Grosmont, a
delightful village station. Steam trains now run through to Whitby, which has its own clutch of
historic signs. The railway and the River Esk are closely associated
from that seaside town to Grosmont, on to Middlesburgh on the Esk
Valley line. The small road which runs from Egton village down Limber
Hill and into Glaisdale passes the ancient Beggar's Bridge built by
Thomas Ferries the son of a local moorland farmer, which is only a few
yards away from the railway bridge. The projecting key stone of this
arching wonder has the date '1619' carved upon it; needless to say, the
road into Glaisdale passes over the river on a modern counterpart.
While browsing a book of period photographs of the area, we came
accross one of a party of people in and around a carriage on the bridge
with the horse which once pulled it dangling upside down in mid air,
suspended by the traces and bridle. Horrific, but everyone stayed still
long enough to have their photograph taken.
Beggar's Bridge with the stone railway bridge
behind it.
For more Yorkshire examples see also Leeds'
magnificent lettering.