Wednesday 9 September 2009

Creature Feature No 6

We haven't had a Creature Feature for some time, and then I remembered this sign, recently discovered near Cold Newton in Leicestershire. I remember Sludge Hall from my childhood, and thinking just how appropriate the name was for this isolated farm that was indeed on a lane covered in beastly excretions. I think this is vernacular signing at its best, a sheet of tin cut out to cow shape, producing a beautiful image to catch one's passing eye. I'm not sure what 'W.H.' stands for, but I shall have to be very careful that Wartime Housewife doesn't appropriate it. One off signs like this are such rewarding discoveries as one traverses Unmitigated England, (there's a pig I need to get to grips with near Oundle), a refreshing change from the ubiquitous corporate gobbledygook that all too often impinges on our peripheral vision. So thankyou to the anonymous signmaker who made this. I can see you now, bent over in the barn behind welding goggles, black, white and pink paint tins at the ready.

5 comments:

Philip Wilkinson said...

Wonderful. I love signs like these. The sort of thing that Margaret Lambert and Enid Marx used to go on about in their books on English Folk Art. I look forward to hearing all about it when you get to grips with the pig...

I also like the direct and straightforward wording of quite a lot of farm signs. A favourite one I saw in my own area not long ago just said, 'Fresh horse muck'. Does what it says on the tin? There isn't even a tin.

Wartime Housewife said...

OH NO! My Secret Lair has been revealed.

Thud said...

A farm near me advertises meat in a box with the large sign...'love meat tender' I will buy.

Ron Combo said...

Almost a better name than Cold Comfort.

Jon Dudley said...

...for which the sign might be a tin cut-out of the farmer's wife in dressing gown, curlers and wellingtons.