Hampshire Record Office (Sussex Street, Winchester, Hampshire SO23 8TH Tel 01962 846154). Last Thursday Lectures; 1.15 - 1.45 pm - admission free, but donations welcome.

25 January 2007 - The Forlorn Hope: sources for military history in local record offices (part 1) by Heather Needham

12 February - 12 March 2007 Gypsy Heritage - An exhibition looking at Gypsy and Traveller homes, fairs, work and lifestyles from the 17th century to the present day.

Milestones Museum

'2 for 1' admission on daytime entry is available to Basingstoke & Deane residents throughout December 2006 & January 2007. Proof of address is required eg utility bill or driving licence.

The Basingstoke Canal - An exhibition by Surrey and Hampshire Canal Society exploring the history and restoration of the Basingstoke Canal. With special activities on Saturday 10 February. (Until 25 February).

8 January - 9 February 2007 Gypsy Heritage - An exhibition looking at Gypsy and Traveller homes, fairs, work and lifestyles from the 17th century to the present day.

Basingstoke Archaeological & Historical Society; 7.30pm in Church Cottage, Basingstoke)

11 January 2007 - Richard III by Prof. Michael Hicks

Willis Museum

11 November - 23 December 2006 - Faraway Festival Costumes, an exhibition of traditional dress from south west China.

13 January - 3 February 2007 The Southern Co-operative: Food Packaging and Rationing. The story of Southern Co-operatives packaging, transport and rationing during the 20th century.

Last month's TADS meeting December 2006

The History of England through Pub Signs, by Greg Gregory, Andover historian.

Now there's a title to whet the whistle! Greg Gregory enthusiastically toured Britain by slide-show to entertain about 50 TADS' members.

We went with him from the pre-historically named 'Stonehenge' pub up until Queen Elizabeth II's 2002 Golden Jubilee pub sign 'The Queen' at Blackwater (Surrey/Hants border). Once you weren't allowed to depict a LIVING Royal on a pub sign for possible of fear of being beheaded .......

So, this is about education by entertainment and pubbing, which it must be akin to death by chocolate!

It was a truly fascinating to see beautifully researched and painted signs, depicting our comical, serious, politically correct, and incorrect artists' impressions, with poetic licence also thrown in, of how we once were.

Take Professor Barry Cunliffe's 'Danebury' (Hants) ancient Britons and their earthworks, the 'Albion' England's ancient name on scores of pubs. Queen Boudicca, plus warriors, swept fiercely out of the 'Queen's Head' (Bramsfield, Suffolk); and the poor Roman legionnaires who drew the short straw and ended up in a chilly Northumberland with a pub later named in their honour 'The Hadrian'. The 'Roman Bath' (York) showed mosaics and the 'Nine Saxons' (Winklebury) actually has 9 skulls!

We were reminded of that 'Offa's Dyke' (Rivers Dee to Severn) kept the Welsh in/English out. 'Bedeslea' (Romsey) hinted at English ecclesiastical history, 673- 735.

Enter 'The Danes'(Theakston, Yorks), usually wongly depicted in horned helmets, and the battles between us (Saxons) and Danes at 'The Blowing Stone' (Oxon) when King Alfred frightened the enemy by blowing them away... 'The Hilderthorpe' (Hull) sees charismatic Alfred in a huddle, spying on the said Danes and 'King Canute' (KNUTSford, Cheshire) repelling the waves.

'The Flying Monk' (Malmesbury) depicts an airborne Monk of 1015 who tried to fly and broke both legs. England's first aviator, Greg said.

Possibly the Normans thought they made the cultural sun rise for us; 'The Rising Sun' (Winchester) and in the 'Crofton' William the Conqueror gives away some of old England's lands to his Norman knights.

Henry I died of eating too many lampreys: 'Lamprey Hotel' (Glos) and Henry II's 'Thomas Becket' (Canterbury) has a stained glass window effect. Crusader Richard I's interests were not in England and with his subjects: he spent 6 months here out of 12 years. 'The Saracen's Head' shows one of his fierce opponents. Interestingly the New Forest's 'Crown Stirrup' (Lyndhurst) shows the size of stirrup the dog's small paw must fit through, or be banned from the hunt.

Does an abbot have a mitre? Artistic licence allowed one, 'The Abbot's Mitre' (Chilbolton, nr. Andover). Poor King John couldn't write: he sealed 'Magna Charter' [Carta] (Lincoln) instead. Edward I built castles: 'The Castle' (Conway); and medieval villagers were enchanted by the 'Black Bear' (Whitchurch, Salop). Friendly banter at last ensues from the 'Scots Wha Hae' pub at Bannockburn's battle site. We were beaten!

'Ye Arrow' (Rochester) alludes to Agincourt; and the original Prince of Wales reminds us of 'The Black Prince' (Eastleigh), Ich Dien and the Fleurs de Lys on our flags, 1349 onwards.

We have 'The Star and Garter' (Fratton) where Edward III put the first garter on the Countess of Salisbury; and Fishbourne (Chichester) has a 'Woolpack' for wealth. The 14th century 'Traveller's Rest' (near London) depicts Dick Whittington and a splendidly anthropomorphic cat; while 'The Talbot' (Worcester) shows a now-extinct hunting dog known as a talbot.

We hear of 'London Apprentices' (Isleworth); the Wars of the Roses 'Duke of York' (Exeter) and Edward IV's 'William Caxton' (Tenterden) who's playing chess this time. At the 'Battle of Bosworth Field' the king lost his crown in a ditch and was so peeved he stole the locals' LAND the following day! Another 'Queen's Head' tells of Henry VIII's poor, sad Catherine of Aragon and 'The Cardinal's Error', how Cardinal Wolsey also made a costly mistake challenging the said Henry.

'The Market Tavern' (Gt. Yarmouth) depicts a dog stealing food and 'The Old School' obviously reminds us of Oxford's cerebral ethos. The 'Lord Burghley' (Stanford) still has Cecils there; while Edinburgh's 'The Blue Blanket' shows apprentices raising riot. Crafty Elizabeth I turned a blind eye to Francis Drake's piracy for a share of the loot; 'The Compass (Ludlow, Salop), and Sir Walter Raleigh nearly gets doused while smoking his first cigarette in England; 'Virginia Ash'.

'Shakespeare' pub signs are popular, and Guy Fawkes' REAL 'Dark Lantern' (Aylesbury) is in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum. The 'Newlands Inn' (Southampton) refers to our conquest of the USA, 'The Gun' (Newbury), 'Royal Oak' (Ecchinswell) to Charles II's fighting and tree-climbing antics. Remarkably 'The Monument' (Newbury) isn't in London where the Fire of London began. One pub sign the 'Monmouth Ash'(Verwood), shows a grim, pale-faced James II allegedly having just had his head a sewn back on!

The 'William and Mary' paints a short man raised up to the same height as his lady wife! (They are the only husband and wife in English history to reign as co-monarch's - William 1688-1702 and Mary, 1688-94).

The flamboyant 'James III' pub sign (Stirling) shows Scots wearing kilts, the patterns of which have extreme artistic licence: and the 'New Buccaneer' (Hayling Island) seems to once more condone piracy in the constant quest for gold...

'The Two Chair Men' (Queen Anne's Gate, London) carried a lady in a sedan chair - the list is endless. 'Isaac Newton' (1642-1727) was into cat flaps as well as gravity. The red-coated, high heeled 'Aristocrat' (Aylesbury) our longest reigning KING, George III: 'The Older George' (Fairoak); Captain Cook and Joseph Banks feature in Bournemouth's 'Botany Bay'; while the 'Marquess of Cornwallis' sign tells when we had to surrender America to the Americans.

Birdlip Hill (Glos.) has 'The Air Balloon'. Charles James Fox is 'The Intrepid Fox' of political satire fame. The Mendip's 'Rock of Ages' is a rural pub and the Napoleonic Wars are commemorated by the 'Allied Arms' (Reading), 'Trafalgar Bay' (1805) (York), and 'The Prince Blucher' (Tiverton). The daring bare-knuckle boxer 'Tom Crib' (1820) (Haymarket, London) made himself scarce whenever arrest was imminent by nipping over a parish or county boundary to avoid the law!

Some of the Tolpuddle Martyrs were able to return from Australian deportation when pardoned: 'The Martyrs Inn' (Tolpuddle, Dorset).

Rowland Hill's 'Penny Black' (Islington, 1840) sign shows a pre-perforation era sticky stamp, cut from a sheet. That's quite remarkable historical accuracy. 'Fitzpatrick's' commemorates Irish emigrés: and Isambard K Brunel, the stove-pipe hat wearing engineer of the 'Brunel Arms' (York) fame, wanted to be taller. Vanity shows throughout history!

Queen Victoria didn't like birds flying around in her 1851 'Great Exhibition' hall (London) so the Duke of Wellington obtained sparrowhawks to remove the same. Some rather vain pub sign artists slip themselves into the picture: 'Durham Light Infantryman' and Andover's 'Weyhill Fair', a Fuller's pub, which shows a man who sold not only sheep but his wife and child too!

'The Star' (Bentworth, Hants) is painted as an 1899 pre-steering wheel Star car and 'The Empire' colours Queen Victoria's empire in red. The poor boy of London is selling his newspapers 'The Front Page' (Chelsea): while the rich man 'Tom Brown' (Salisbury) is based on a photograph of Winston Churchill. 'The Grapes' (Southampton) astonishingly shows the Titanic plus iceberg with grapes alongside.

Before conscription, 'The Volunteer' shows a WWI soldier in a trench (Christchurch). Film stars, sportsmen, hungry marchers, the Dunkirk evacuation; 'New Welcome Sailor' (Burnham-on-Crouch), depict all kinds of struggle.

Douglas Bader (WWII also) is painted on the 'Bader Arms' (Tangmere, W. Sussex) although Lady Bader requested changes to his uniform. 'The Escape' (London) had a map and barbed wire, but the sign is now removed to Bomber Command country (East Kirby, Lincs). {TADS visited on an outing once}. 'The Queen's Arms (Leics.) shows an anonymous modern queen holding a baby - maybe Prince Edward. 'Dr Beeching' (railway cuts); 'Man in Space' (Eastwood, Notts.); 'The New Penny' (London) decimalisation (1971); 'Englands Rose' Princess Diana (Thame, Oxon.). Once London's 'The Bull' became the 'Falkland Arms' but has since reverted to its original name. Healing old wounds, perhaps.

Greg. said some signs just disappear into thin air. Some landlords aren't bothered by their pub signs, so the educational aspect fails us there.

Our 'Lowes Corner Hotel' in Tadley became 'The Treacle Mine'. Change is always with us.

One of our TADS' members cycled round Kent and East Sussex as a lad in 1949 collecting cigarette card-type aluminium pub signs for his albums. We saw them and they are priceless and interesting. Maybe we never focus too much on pub signs, but they can be beautiful, interesting, funny, risqué masterpieces.

Thank you, Greg, for your encyclopaedic knowledge of the pub signs you have photographed in your pubbing travels around our island.

Rosemary Bond

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