The Street Jewelry Collection at the Colne Valley Postal History Museum
In addition to the many postal history related items in the collection, the Curatorial Team has also amassed an interesting collection of fascinating way-side signs that once adorned our streets like jewelry. We have some extremely rare AA signs which used to be erected in villages and towns, together with some advertising signs and other interesting road signs.
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These splendid AA Village signs were erected when there was no statutory duty on local Councils to put up sign posts. Consequently, both the AA and RAC undertook large signage projects throughout the country. They date from 1912-1928 and exhibit numerous small differences. We started with one in 2000 and today we have 54, the largest collection in the country and the true home of the AA Village Sign. Abandoned by the AA at the outbreak of WW2, there are still some of these signs in their original locations, but by far the largest number are in private hands and small motoring museums around the
country.
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Our first AA sign came from a salvage yard in Ipswich and, not surprisingly, is for a Suffolk village. Wetheringsett is just off the A140 between Ipswich and Diss. This sign was in very poor condition when acquired. A large area of wasting at the bottom has since been repaired. |
Our second AA village sign was a surprise acquisition from another salvage yard, this time in Devon. Consequently it is a West Country sign. The village of Loxhove Cott is high up on Exmoor, between Barnstaple and Lynton. The sign was in much better condition than the first. |
Our fourth AA sign was the first to come from the ubiquitous Ebay. It was sold by a Cambridgeshire dealer who retained the Warboys sign in his collection. |
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Our third AA village sign is this superb example from Ottery St Mary in Devon. It is rather interesting in that all three of the local names carried, the others being Seaton and Sidmouth, were also names carried by West Country Class Pacifics of the Southern Railway.
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Our fifth AA village sign came in a sign swap with a collector in Belper.
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This one has now been restored and came in the same swap. |
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This was our first "winged" sign and came from a dealer in Manchester. |
Codnor appears to have been used for target practice! |
The third sign in our swap deal with Belper was this rather poor Popham. It has now been restored. |
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Acquired via Ebay from Manchester, Langford is near Bristol Airport |
Another Ebay win, when cleaning started this was revealed to be one of the very rare violet-blue on yellow signs, made by Bruton & co. |
Our latest win on Ebay, this one had to come back to Essex! It is very different to the one in Alan Mattin's collection which you can see in the main Village Signs page by clicking here. |
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An auction win from GC Railwayana
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Part of our recent 4-sign deal!
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An East Anglian gem - Norfolk |
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We didn't bid when these appeared on Ebay, but they came our way as part of a complex swap anyway! |
Another Norfolk gem in very good condition. |
This Hampshire sign unusually has a bracket fixed to the rear. |
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