A lot of towns have old street name plates which are slowly being replaced with more corporate looking signs. This is happening here in Chelmsford, and as far as I can tell the lettering is unique to the area. It also has questionable aesthetics, and I expect that more and more will vanish as time goes on. My initial aim was to see if I have enough to create an alphabet, but my former typography tutor suggested that I document as many as I can. So this is what I am slowly doing.

The signs are cast metal, and I expect that there was a foundry which produced them. They would have had wooden blocks to make the moulds with (and I wonder what happened to those). They appear to be fairly roughly made with little interest in balance or letter spacing (mind you, modern signs have the same problem). The letter forms themselves are oddly proportioned, with the capitals very brutish in contrast to some of the feeble looking lowercase letters.

Some examples:


High Street by hairydalek, on Flickr


Moulsham Street by hairydalek, on Flickr


Sunningdale Road by hairydalek, on Flickr

I am finding other similarly made, but differently lettered signs, so those are being documented too.

The set is here, which will grow as I record more (Google street view is good for this). My OCD has kicked in. I feel I need the full set now. Damn.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hairydalek ... 660578907/

It's deja vu all over again. I guess you posted this on G+ ?

An interesting piece of historical documentation. Some of them could be very old already, so I wonder how long they'll stay up.

I also wonder if some of the letters have been recycled already, given how they don't all match very well. Although that's probably just because they're hand made.

To be fair, at least they're not using Comic Sans.

The odd thing is they don't have a border. Victorian and Edwardian street names generally have a solid raised black border, so the design really fits somewhere between the 1920s and the 1960s. As Chelmsford has been growing in the last 40 years or so, and new signage should really have followed more contemporary designs, I wonder if these signs are contemporary with the buildings in the roads.

An interesting project.

Yet!

I have to defer to my former typography tutor who says the letterforms are Victorian. He is generally correct about such things (he's been collecting what he calls "vernacular lettering" for a long time). However, as you say, a lot of the signs are in areas built post 1930. Some using the slab-serif font, and a few using a sans serif font. However, I am finding these in roads far older than the estates on the edge of town, which leads me to believe that they are older.

The only street name signs I have found with borders on are more recent pressed metal and vinyl lettering.

I expect a trip to the Essex Records Office will answer some of these questions if they have procurement documents for them.

I've plotted the locations of the signs on a Google Map. This allows me to colour code depending n type - red for the slab serif typeface, and blue for sans-serif ones.

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=21 ... f679&msa=0

I have just over 100 photographed now. By my reckoning, I have about the same number again to go. Google street view has been handy in locating ones in areas of the city I have not spent much time in.

I love old typography, looks like an interesting little project. As you say, the capitals are completely out of balance, weight-wise, with the lowercase characters. The lowercase "a" stands out too, and the "t" looks too tall for the rest of the letters. An odd mix of shapes for sure, but it all adds to the charm of them I think.

Just out of interest, and because I'd also like to know the age of this style of signs, I just did a quick Flickr search for Chelmsford Road Signs, I assume you've already done this...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuart166a ... 71/detail/

One of these old postcards, dated from 1932, shows this building on Fairfield Road, Chelmsford...



Zooming in on the sign in front of that building shows this style of sign...



Don't know if this helps at all. Does that road still exist, I notice that the building featured is awaiting demolition according to the description (see link at the end)? I guess if that road still has the style of sign that you're photographing, it proves it dates sometime after 1930s. However, the description, if correct, also says that the area has been redeveloped twice since this photo was taken, so this may be a red herring.

My guess, and it is just a guess, is 1950s. Be interested to know if you can narrow it down.

Note: the images above I've had to upload to my Flickr account from a snapshot, as the original owner has disabled linking and downloading. Their original page is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuart166a ... 3511751271

Maybe you could try contacting this Flickr member to see if they have any more postcards that show signs from different eras? The council may be able to help too, don't know if they have an archive of such things?

Hope that helps.

Fairfield Road is now where the bus station is, and that was rebuilt a few years ago. It looks nothing like that photo. The road signs there are now of the Kindersley font that Chelmsford seems to prefer.

Stuart Axe seems to have a massive collection of Chelmsford photos, and he also spends a lot of time documenting the city, he also spent a while favouriting all my street sign photos - my phone was making notification noises when he went through them all the other day

My plan is to go to the Essex Records Office to see if I can find records of procurement/commissioning of the signs, which will hopefully date it and possibly even give me schematics.

My former typography tutor, who has been encouraging this endeavour, thinks that the slab serif lettering is Victorian in origin. That does not mean that the signs are from that time, but the letterforms or even moulds may date from then. I am finding this kind of sign in a lot of places, but I am aware that being next to an old building does not mean the sign is that old. Really, I need documentation.

Firstly, I've completed my trawl of the city, and have photographed over 200 of the old surviving signs:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hairydalek ... 660578907/

There may be a couple of stragglers, but this is, I believe, the majority, if not 99.999% of them.

Now for some interesting information. One, just one, of the slab serif signs has a maker's name on it. This one:

Heath Drive by hairydalek, on Flickr

It says "Royal Label Factory". I have managed to verify this by finding photos of their marks on other signs. It's really lucky to find that because some of the signs have deposed backs (they have been repositioned) and they bear no indication of where they were made. So I just got lucky.

And here is a photo on Flickr of the factory at work:

Royal Label Factory, Stratford by tedmcavoy, on Flickr

More interesting is that the RLF is still operating (they are in Buxton), and their website says that they have archives of unusual lettering. So I'll be composing an email to them in the next day or so asking about the work they did in Chelmsford and what the complete alphabet looks like.

I did a Google search for the road. Fortunately it is a cul de sac so it is easy to get the streetview of it now. It looks like that building has been replace with a Tesco Express.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=fairfield+road+chelmsford&oe=utf-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&ei=sTJXUbG4L4X30gXG2oGQAw&ved=0CAsQ_AUoAg

That's fairly recent. The previous bus station that was there before was demolished and a new one put up in its place. That Tesco forms part of a new complex which includes an all you can eat Chinese buffet and a block of flats.

Well, in relation to the slab serif lettering which I thought was unique to Chelmsford, I noted some in Bishop’s Stortford on Sunday as I was driving though. So may go back with a camera to photograph a couple of the ones there. Those are white lettering on a blue background.

There's two street signs near me that are made up of ceramic tiles.
</Random>

Mark

POIDH