Road signs only started to become common in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Since time immemorial, with the horse being the prime mover, milestones had been used to provide information about direction and distances, and signposts giving such information were rare. On the turnpikes established in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, milestones were obligatory. From the 1900s, however, the widening use of motor vehicles with their higher speeds required a new and different marker from the old established milestone. The earliest fingerpost sign is almost certainly that standing at the meeting place of the A44 and B4081 roads near Broadway Hill in Gloucestershire. On it is the date 1669.
These signposts came in varied styles, often designed and manufactured locally, and they could be very distinctive to the local authority which erected them. Examples are those put up by the old West Riding of Yorkshire County Council. Uniquely, perhaps, and even rather eccentrically, their signs gave the grid reference of the location of the sign itself as well as the name of the place. With road traffic inexorably rising in volume, standardised and supposedly simpler and more visible signs have increasingly replaced the old, idiosyncratic signs. Where old ones can still found, they are frequently off the beaten track.
Railways came to play an extremely important role in the life of both town and country in the nineteenth century and have continued to do so in lesser or at least different ways since then. Many passenger and goods stations and, of course, whole lines have been closed and virtually all traces of their existence obliterated. Sometimes only a superannuated sign can provide a clue to the whereabouts of an erstwhile station. Here we list a few examples of such anachronisms. These all made it into the late twentieth century but we cannot guarantee that they all remain in situ at the time of writing. We like to think of them as signs to ghost stations.
BALNAGUARD
In a brave but forlorn attempt to attract more business, the LMSR in 1935 opened a basic halt at Balnaguard on the Aberfeldy branch of the former Highland Railway. In the centre of the small village there was, at least as late as 1981, a black and yellow sign indicating a path to the LMSR halt. Only half the sign was still in situ, so it read ‘Balna’, but the cunning and resourceful traveller could nip round to the other side and read the ‘guard’ bit, if only for reassurance. It is to be hoped that no naïve traveller has set out along the footpath to the halt in expectation of catching a train. The line closed in 1965.
DRUMMUIR
This sign, still extant in 1989, pointed to the station from the main A920 road through the village. A rectangular sign showed an arrow with the words ‘Drummuir Station’, and reassured the weary traveller that it was only a quarter of a mile away. Drummuir was on the line of the Great North of Scotland Railway between Keith and Craigellachie which closed completely in May 1968.
DUNMOW
Still informing or perhaps confusing would-be travellers in 1980 was a sign in the small Essex town of Dunmow. One arm of this was unusual for sporting the words ‘L.N.E.R.Station & Goods Yard’. Dunmow was an intermediate station on the rural Bishops Stortford to Braintree branch of the Great Eastern Railway, which became part of the LNER. The arm containing the words quoted above seems to have been stolen, probably in the late 1990s. It may well have pride of place in the collection of a reclusive ‘enthusiast’. Passenger services ceased at Dunmow in 1952 and goods services followed suit in 1969.
EASSIE
Eassie was a small wayside station on the main line of the former Caledonian Railway between Perth, Forfar and Aberdeen. It closed to passengers in 1956 and to goods in 1966, but the sign was still doing sterling service at least as late as 1991. A little bit of people’s art in the medium of iron, it informed those who gazed upon it that Eassie Station was a mere one and three-quarter miles away.
HAROME
In 1999 a sign at a road junction in North Yorkshire was still proudly flaunting the words ‘Harome Siding’. This was a mute reminder of the importance of the railway in the rural economy. No passenger facilities were provided at the siding which was a considerable distance from Harome (what a wonderful name!), but doubtless in its time it had been of great use to the farmers of the district. Having gone into raptures about the name Harome, it is only fair to add that the indicator on the same post but pointing in the opposite direction tells the observer that it is only two miles to Wombleton. What about that for a name?
Harome Siding was on the Pickering to Gilling branch of the North Eastern Railway which officially closed in August 1964.
SCORRIER
It was unusual for milestones to be used to provide directions to railway stations, but in 1996 one could be found beside the B3298 road at Scorrier advising that it was half a mile to Scorrier Station. Scorrier was on the main line of the former GWR between Plymouth, Truro and Penzance. It closed completely in the autumn of 1964.
THORINGTON
Boldly providing some succour for any stranger looking for a railway station was a sign in the village of Frating in Essex. This pointed down a country lane to Thorington Station, adding that it was only two miles. This sign was still doing what it was designed to do in 2003 although the station itself had closed for passengers in 1957. The line between Colchester and Clacton on which Thorington was a wayside station is still operational.