The village sign

The Langham village sign, situated on the green, was made in 1979 by Harry C Carter and restored in 1998. It is surmounted by a bishop’s mitre – in 1086 the eastern part of the tenancy of Langham, which includes the present-day church, was granted to William de Beaufeu, Bishop of Thetford. The mitre depicts the English flag, which at one time was also the pre-eminent maritime flag, known as the white ensign. That leads us, anticlockwise, to the sailing ship which commemorates not only Langham’s associations with the sea but also Captain Marryat, who came to live here in 1843.

The next quarter depicts the landmark church tower, of course, with its distinctive stair-turret. The Domesday Book lists two parishes in Langham, Bishop’s Langham or Langham Magna and Langham Parva, the latter being granted in 1086 to Peter of Valognes, William the Conqueror’s uncle, who, incidentally, provided land for the construction of Binham Priory, which was founded in 1091.

The two parishes were later united and the Langham Parva church (St Mary’s, situated on the north side of Cockthorpe Road where it forks from Binham Road) fell into disuse and was eventually demolished. The existing, Langham Magna, church was dedicated to St Andrew, the patron saint of fishermen and agricultural workers, among others, and acquired its double dedication when St Mary’s was no more.

The name lives on in ‘St Mary’s Lane’, one of the names chosen by the District Council in the 1970s when the housing estate of that name was built on the site of the former barracks for RAF Langham.

The next quarter celebrates the chief industry here, and the last refers to the turkey farm on the old airfield, which in 1979 was run by Bernard Matthews.

Village signs of this kind are frequent in Norfolk and Suffolk; let’s compare Langham’s sign with those in some neighbouring villages.

In what follows we are indebted to Adrian S Pye, who has made a special study of village signs and licensed his text and images under a Creative Commons licence.

He writes, ‘The design usually depicts a particular feature of the village, or a scene from its history, heritage, or culture. The signs are typically made of wood or metal or a combination of both. Modern cast and fibreglass signs are becoming more commonplace; the less elaborate are often made within the local community.

‘The tradition of village signs is believed to have started in Norfolk early in the 20th century when Edward VII suggested that village signs would aid motorists and give a feature of interest on the Sandringham Estate.

‘The interest soon spread beyond Norfolk, and can be attributed to Prince Albert, Duke of York (later George VI) who gave a speech to the Royal Academy in 1920 promoting the wider use of village identity signs.

‘In 1929, Harry Carter, an art and woodwork master at Hamond’s Grammar School (which now serves as the sixth-form buildings for Hamond’s high school in Swaffham), carved a sign for his home town. By the time of his death in 1983 he had carved over 200 town and village signs.

‘Acknowledgement must be made to the Women’s Institute, who sponsor many of the signs and present them to the villages and towns in their county.

‘While the practice is now widespread, decorative village signs are particularly common in Norfolk and Suffolk as well other East Anglian counties. Some village signs take the form of sculptures, such as those at Stibbard, Corpusty and Walpole St Andrew, which are constructed entirely from metal.’

Binham

Image credit: Jane Rackham; licence

The sign simply depicts the priory for which the village is famous.

Blakeney

Image credit: Pauline E; licence

‘The sign is surmounted by two hammers (known locally as bietels) and a chestnut. This refers to a local nonsense rhyme “Blakeney people go up the steeple to crack a nut with a five-farthing bietel”.

‘An English galleon, one of three from the village on the way to fight the Spanish Armada, is the primary feature of the Blakeney village sign. The mallard duck and drake represent the bird sanctuary, and fish forming the spandrels are a further reference to the strong maritime connection. The boy with a fiddle and the cave in the cliff relates to a legend in which the boy (and his dog apparently) tried to fiddle his way to Wiveton via a tunnel from which he never emerged and which itself disappeared. Strange that!’

Hindringham

Image credit: Adrian S Pye

‘The sign is carved out of oak and celebrates the 25th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It depicts the church and the mill as well as the unique 12th century chest which is in the church.’

Stiffkey

There are no fewer than four village signs in Stiffkey, three of them at the limits of the village, depicting a common tern perched on a post.

The principal sign, near the church, reminds us of one of the traditional pronunciations of the name, the other being ‘Stuckey’. It is dominated by a representation of cockle-gatherers and a Stiffkey blue or Stiffkey blew, the blue-shelled cockle found locally. The chalice and pig refer to the Bacon family, who lived at Stiffkey Hall.

Image credits: Theo Foster; licence

Bale

Bale’s sign commemorates the Bale Oak which once occupied a site next to the churchyard.

There is a painting in the church giving an idea of the tree’s appearance:

and below it a typewritten note:

The

GREAT BALE OAK

at

BALE alias BATHLEY

This picture is a reconstruction of the Tree as it would have appeared before it was pollarded in about 1750, in a vain effort to stimulate it to new growth.

The painting is based upon the following facts.

1. A drawing in the “London Illustrated News” for May 17th 1845.

2. A drawing made some time in the 1850s by some connection of the Jones family of Cranmer Hall near Fakenham, who were at that time Lords of the Manor of Bale Nogeons and Thorpes. This was reproduced in the Eastern Daily Press in May 1967.

3. An oil painting shewing the tree prior to the pollarding but not dated or signed. This is owned by D. H. Hammond Esq. [of] Bale Manor next door to the church.

 – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

In the picture The Cobblers’ tools referred to the shoemaker who used the hollow Tree for the whole of one summer as his shop.

The Pig is there because in the Frere MSS., which are the unpublished material sent to Blomfield for his Norfolk history (he died in 1752), it is said that the inside of the tree was used as a “swinesty”, i.e. a place to keep swine in.

The Raven is a reminder that the Tree probably was a sacred oak, which was why the Christian church was built beside it. The Raven was the constant companion of Thor, the chief of the gods of the Saxon–Norse mythology.

Here we see a connection with the Viking raiders who plagued the east coast in the last two or three centuries of the first millennium, and who themselves converted to Christianity. The sign itself has a suitably pagan flavour:

Detail of the top, showing the cobbler and swineherd:

Sharrington

The meaning of this sign is unclear, unless it is to indicate that the village is in a land of milk and honey provided by agriculture, which arguably it is. The date (1977) suggests the sign may have some connection with the Silver Jubilee of the late Queen.

Brinton

‘The jolly little character sitting on the sign is John Page, who in his day was a merchant, soap boiler, grocer, draper and tallow chandler, hence the two candles. The candle factory still exists in the form of Chandler’s Cottage.’

Gunthorpe

‘The sign is carved in wood and shows various periods in the history of the village. A wheatsheaf indicates that the village is agricultural and has been for most or all of its existence. A tree and four pigs, dated 1086, tell us that Gunthorpe was mentioned in the Domesday Book and had woodland and four pigs. Below is a dog peering at a crown, with the date 1201: this recalls, and I quote, “William, son of Robert le Mey, had 20s. lands, formerly the King’s demean, granted by Henry I. and held with Causton, by grand serjeanty, the keeping a hound (brachettus) for the King. In 1678 the poor have 25s. a year out of Malthouse Pightle, left by Christopher Ringer, and in 1777 John Towne makes a similar gesture”. A cottage loaf, bottom right represents the legacy. In 1747, Isaac Le Heup of Gunthorpe, local gent and landowner, died. He is represented by a gravestone bearing the initials I L.’

Langham’s sign is up there with the best of them in terms of symbolism and craftsmanship. Thank you, Mr Carter. Long may it stand!