Book Review Dorothy Nicolle ALL About PUB Signs
A complete look at pub signs in Britain and beyond.
BOOK REVIEW DOROTHY NICOLLE ALL ABOUT PUB SIGNS Blue Hills Press.
There are quite a few titles on this subject, and I now own a modest collection of them. Nicolle’s is certainly one of the best, reflecting her genuine love, respect and passion for the subject and neatly linking many lavish glossy full colour illustrations to the text.
Her thematic but interlinked chapters show a careful selection process, moving from signs commemorating kings & queens to signs on sports and pastimes.
Nicolle’s most fascinating observations concern signs deriving from heraldic devices. Many artists wouldn’t depict a complete coat of arms, due to time limits, the number of colours involved adding expense to the cost of making the signs, or just not having the skill to capture a full heraldic shield well enough to paint it. Many artists would therefore depict a simpler detail from shield, so a shield for a baronial knight, which showed an ostrich plume on his helmet, would lead to a sign and pub name simply called The Ostrich. This would later leave passing citizens wondering how an urban British pub came to be named after a flightless African bird.
There is one astonishing mistake in the book, where Nicolle talks of pubs in popular TV shows (a chapter in itself detracting from the actual historic study). She refers to the bar in the long running British soap opera, Emmerdale Farm, as The Woolsack, and writes at length of the history of the Woolsack in Parliamentary history (the traditional seat for the Lord Speaker of The House Of Commons). The trouble is, the pub in Emmerdale Farm is called The Woolpack, named after the containers wool was stored in ready for transportation and shipment from the mills.
Nicolle redeems herself with many other excellent insights, arguing that pub signs are essentially ‘English’ rather than British, though they are of course found in Scotland, Wales, & Ireland too. Nicolle closes the book with a look at pub signs that have appeared internationally too, as the art form has been carried round the World.
An excellent work, and an essential part of my collection. Nicolle also shows support for the UK Inn Sign Society, www.insignsociety.com
Arthur Chappell
