London street signs

Finally the journey leads to the city of Tamara. You penetrate it along streets thick with signboards jutting from the walls. The eye does not see things but images of things that mean other things [...]

The city is redundant: it repeats itself so that something will stick in the mind. [...] [Calvino, Invisible Cities: Tamara (p13), Zirma (p19)]

In Hampstead there are at least two roads where the sign-fitters ran out of letters for the mosaic-tiled strret name plates, and were forced to re-use the design's constituent elements to get the job done: on WILLQUGHBY Rd. NW3 (map), a Q is pressed into service as an O. And by the time they got to TEMPLEWQQD,AVENUE,NW3 (map), they'd run out of spaces as well (substituting in the comma tiles), but had started making design decisions: the Q tile standing in for an O will read better if it's placed upside down.

Seen elsewhere in the city, randomly... streets that record their own history:
Bridgeman Road formerly Lofting Road - Barnsbury roads take care to avoid any confusion (map)

... and streets that don't quite:
Bavaria Road was once Blenheim(?) Road - in Holloway (map)

... streets whose names are being effaced:
Little Green Street - a metal sign in Tufnell Park is being levered off its fittings by a vine; an older painted version above is barely visible (map)

... and streets whose names are appropriate:
Ruined building on Elder Street - in Shoreditch (map) ["Names, for instance, are important in crystallizing identity." Lynch, The Image of the City, 108]

he has not succeeded in discovering which is the city that those of the plateau call Irene. For that matter, it is of slight importance: if you saw it, standing in its midst, it would be a different city; Irene is a name for a city in the distance, and if you approach, it changes. [...] perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene. [Invisible Cities: Irene (p124-5)]

Related:

• Jack Schulze's St John St and Public Lettering: London street signs
• Dan Hill's Remembering signs and lettering and Consistency and the UI of street signs (differently designed street signs on one London junction)
• Christopher Long's London's nameless streets (on problems with street signage, 1996)
• London Transport Users' Committee's Where Am I? Street name signs in London (PDF, 2003) - this interesting report points onward to New York's signage regulations, a website on street signage globally (it's like a Franco-South-American version of Jack's Public Lettering), and the Sign Design Society (website looks a bit fallow).
• UK Dept of Transport's Circular 3/93 - guidelines for councils on street name plates and numbering (PDF)
• update: more street, road and other public signs in Phil Baines's and Catherine Dixon's excellent Signs: Lettering in the Environment book. You'll want this on your shelf.

Comments

[Phil Gyford]

What a coincidence - but an hour before reading this I was walking through London Fields and noticed a similar "recording own history" set of signs for the first time: "MARTELLO ST / FORMERLY / xxxx ST" (I forget what name it formerly was unfortunately).

[Dan]

Cracking post, Rod. Ta for linking to the above on mine - on a related note, punters might also want to check a few JPGs of street signs I took around a single junction in central London, which feature differing information design: http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2003/11/consistency.html

[Russ]

I find it fascinating that you have found all this out - did you do it yourself ? I have a Sat Nav in my car, and it thinks that Ashley Crescent is Wickersley Road, and I think it may have a point, because the whole road would have at one point been Wickersley before they built the housing estate Ashley, and decided presumably to rename that part. Does that count for anything ?

[Rodcorp]

Here's a site that intends to survey all of the signs in New York City from 14th Street to 42nd Street: http://www.14to42.net/

[Jude de Silva]

Hi,I'm a journalist for BBC London and have found your site interesting. I came across it researching an idea to uncover some of the stories behind London's street signs. I'm aware that many signs, for example, are named after local people or events. I'd be interested in you thoughts. Have you done something similar?

[London Dan]

I came across your site the other day and found it really interesting but what I didn't expect was to see one of the signs you pointed out (Willqughby Road in Hamsptead) whilst travelling on a bus yesterday. Very random that I saw the sign on your site and then the same night I go out on a bus, on a route I've never been on before, and just by chance it happens to go past the end of Willqughby Road, NW3!

[Colin Sullivan]

Hi There,

My daughter is getting married in June 2005 and wants various London street signs, which are of sentimental importance as table signs at the reception. Can anyone help me find an art source for these, or a template I could use to create these 'table' signs in the authentic and correct format.

Thanks for your help

Colin

01279 652255
07787 125001

[rodcorp]

Another creative sign at RQSSLYN1MEWS6NW8, here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rodcorp/43795802/

[John Edwin Peter Catlin]

I have an enamelled london EC1 street sign, is there anyone who deals in such signs if can they please contact. Thanks, John.

[Richard Small]

Hi there, I am a 4th year student at the University of Reading studying 'Typography: Design for Communication'. I'm currently researching for my dissertation title "The social, historical and practical uses and influences of English street-name sign design. " This website has pointed me in some great directions already and i'm very grateful! If anyone has any extra information they would be able to give me then it would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Richard
[email protected]

[amin]

I'm coming to london for studying at the oxford university and i'm looking for london'road signs and their uses can you help me thanks

[Jane]

This is all really good stuff. I especially love the NW3 road names.

I came across your site trying to find out the dates when street names stopped being hand-painted and became metal/enamel signs. I have quite a collection of photos showing various ones including some for streets that don't exist at all any more, ones where the street has been re-named and others in the Lower Clapton area showing the now defunct NE postal area. i think you will find them interesting.
I will post a selection on my blog by the end of the week... please have a look: www.janepbr.blogspot.com

Re the wonderful gold street name on the building in Gower St; the whole building is covered in wonderful motifs and well worth a closer look.

And above the sign for Bavaria/Blenheim road is a sign for the coffee house that used to be there. Amazing!

[Jane]

re street names please see my blog: www.janepbr.blogspot.com

[Jonathan]

Hi, I would be interested to know if any of you guys no the fonts used by THe Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea for their street name signs?

They use a black type for the strret name & red gothic like typeface for their Borough name. ANy help would be most appreciated.

[Paige]

What is the font for the Bridgeman Road/ Lofting Road sign?...Cool stripe pattern in margins by the way. Where did you source them?

[Jane]

Hello Jonathan,
if you attach a ref/link to an an image of one of the signs I will attempt to identify the typeface. There is a book available called Kensington and Chelsea Street Names: A Guide to Their Meanings (Paperback) by B.R. Curle that might be helpful; I found it on Amazon.

[jonathan]

Thanks Paige, I have some pics of some of teh road name plates but don't know how to load them onto this message!

Still no luck identifying the fonts used, so any help would be very much appreciated

regards Jonathan

[John Freeman]

Help, I'm making a model & I need to know what the London (I came from there but now live in Australia)street signs were post war & before 1968 when they unneccesarily changed them.

Thanks John

[getdavemoore]

ace post, clearly interesting a lot of people (including me of course!) It was the use of Q that brought me here, surprising they got away with it, but what fortune. another for the list that got me: SIGQURNEY RD in St Johns Wood - contact me for photo
thanks - Dave