Borin Van Loon: Signs from outside Ipswich: Southwold

Southwold

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'ADNAMS & C^OY. L^TD.'

What can we say about Adnams Brewery which hasn't already been said? That they're rather Coy? A fine, well painted cast iron sign with fleur-de-lis flourishes bears that curious superior 'oy' after the capital 'C'. Interesting character style, too: the crossbar of the 'A' almost disappears. Beneath it the coloured and gilded Southwold Jack waits to strike his bell.
Brewing in Southwold goes back as far as 1345, but the two brothers George and Ernest Adnams bought what was to become the Sole Bay Brewery in 1872.

Strolling from the wonderfully refurbished Southwold Pier up the cliff to wards the lightouse, we find the above wall, once a trader's advertisement. Two generations of lettering are still visible [the earlier in square brackets]; the picture on the right shows an enhanced version:

'--------
& SON [STORES]
FAMILY GROCER
PROVISION
MERCHANTS
--------'

From memory this is in Chester Road, as it is approached from North Parade (Stradbroke Road visible in the left background of the photograph - which may still have the horse's head mounted high on one of the house walls!). It would be great to find out who ran this emporium in decades past, in order to decode the company name. Any ideas?

'TOWN HALL'
in large and small caps, picked out in black against a white panel set into the Suffolk white brickwork of the Town Hall's frontage in the Market Place. The sign sits over the Town Council's information cabinet which is topped by clocks indicating high and low tides; a small board advertises lighthouse tours indicating Southwold's role as a major tourist attraction and seaside resort in the area. The asymmetrical frontage of this attractive building (shown above left) includes a flagpole to right of centre of the roof, red pillar box, rooms extending over the coaching entrance and the town's crest*** in the centre of the balcony (from which the town's Christmas lights are switched on each year). The balcony is clearly a later addition and the four supporting brackets below it are necessary to support its weight, plus any people standing thereon. One can imagine the quandry faced by the 'mayor and corporation' when the builder told them that there was no room for the third bracket, unless it obscured the 'A' of Hall. The fenestration gives no wiggle-room, so the proud sign had to be obstructed.

(***lettered: "Defend They Right" The motto of the ancient Borough of the Town of Southwold.)

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Southwold

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