Street name signs of Birmingham (5)

And finally in our survey of the metal street name signs of Birmingham, we look at a few oddities. The standard form for signs is for the street name to be in black (on a white background) and the postcode in red. Any extra information underneath the street name is in black. This is usually adhered to but there are a few examples around the city where it isn't quite right!

Back Road, Kings Norton

Greenfield Road, Harborne

Mill St, Aston

Finally, we have a Birmingham pre-war street name sign... but in Southam, Warwickshire! There must be an interesting story about this sign...

Street name signs of Birmingham (4)

There is one more type of street name sign in Birmingham which needs to be mentioned. These are the signs for the Queenway roads (or Ringway roads) that survive from the post-war ring roads around the city centre. These have a style similar to the other post-war signs discussed in part 3 of this series but have red letters on a white background and a red border.

Great Charles Street, Queenway

Also in part 3 we mentioned that the new sign design was larger and therefore could include extra information about the road, such as if the road was a cul-de-sac. Before that, with the pre-war signs, that information was denoted using a small additional sign placed underneath the main sign. There was also one which said "leading to" though this seems pretty rare, i have only seen this in one place.

Key Hill, a Cul-de-Sac

Northampton Street which leads on

Finally, pre-war signs in the 1930s the street name signs began to carry the postal distict number. In the Jewellery Quarter can be seen a "number 1" sign which carries the same information. I wonder if any more of these have survived?

Postal District 1

Street name signs of Birmingham (3)

After the Second World War many places in central Birmingham needed reconstruction after the Blitz, and many people moved out of the old central areas to new build suburbs as the city expanded into places like Shard End. A new design of street name sign was also developed, a more modern design befitting the times. The new signs used a sans serif font on a utilitarian rounded rectangle design. The new design gave sufficient space for additional information such as if the road was a cul-de-sac. The signs usually included the postcode.

This design is still very common across the city especially on post-war estates. It remained the standard until Birmingham switched to printed vinyl signs in the late twentieth century. The early form of these copied the same typeface and design.

Firtree Road, Erdington

The Shardway, Shard End (notice the cul-de-sac information)

Poplar Road, Edgbaston

Printing House Street, Birmingham

Street name signs of Birmingham (2)

In the early 20th century the fast growing city of Birmingham developed a new standard design for it's street name plates. The design was similar to the octagonal signs of before though was more elaborate with fleur-de-lis at each end. The typeface used was Baskerville Print which had been designed by Birmingham printer John Baskerville.

The signs were used throughout the city and can be seen in many places with pre-Second World War housing. The oldest signs just had the street or road name on them though some later signs also included the postcode after Birmingham introduced them in the 1930s.

An interesting variation on the signs is with abbreviations. Words like "road" and "street" are shortened on some signs though written in full on others even though there is little actual difference in the length of the sign! Even how the abbreviation was made could vary. Signs were either wall mounted or in many cases mounted on an elaborate metal stand as shown below.

Tyburn Road, Erdington

Orphanage Road, Erdington showing the postcode

Hinckley Street in the city centre

Chantry Road, Moseley

Street name signs of Birmingham (1)

Knowing where you are in a place is always very important. Unlike a lot of locations around the country where standardisation is the word, there is quite a variety of designs of street name signs in Birmingham which this series will look at. We will only cover metal signs, not the plastic ones which took over in the 1990s.

The oldest signs date back to the Victorian years and survivors these days are fairly rare. They had a simple octagonal design with black letters on a white background. They can still be seen occasionally in some of the oldest (and less changed) parts of the city.

Cotton Lane, Moseley

Well Lane, Digbeth

Tenby Street North, Jewellery Quarter