Norwich Road
A mile or so up Norwich Road from the Rose and Crown
Brewery, we find
the
vestige of another era of brewing in the town: 'Tolly Cobbold', one
word
on each side of The Emperor' public house. The pub sign depicts
Napoleon,
once the most feared and hated enemy of the British, who gives his
self-proclaimed title
to the hostelry; it is the original name, too as you can see the
original
embossed letter 'E' to the left of the central modern maroon/brown
sign, and the side of the last 'R' to the right.
Judging by the spacing, there's also 'Tolly Cobbold' or 'Ales &
Stout'
lettering below the name. It's likely that a pub called 'The Napoleon'
would have beeen far less popular with patrons. The use of theatres of
war and names of warriors in road and pub names is not unknown: down
Norwich Road towards the town is the Inkerman public house. Inkerman,
fought on 5th November 1854, was the principal land battle of the
Crimean War of 1854-56. This war was fought against Russia by an
alliance consisting of Britain, France and Turkey and its object was to
prevent Russia from seizing Turkey.
[UPDATE April 2010: For a brief
day or two, during repainting, the Emperor was devoid of its sign board
and the original lettering revealed:
'THE
EMPEROR
INN'
The lettering is once again covered now.]
See The Blooming Fuchsia for more public
house lettering.
More examples of 'Tolly Cobbold' embossed letters on public houses
can
be found in Needham
Market and Old Felixstowe. See also
the Off
licences
page for more Tolly signs and The Globe
for 'Cobbold's'.
The Ferodo sign on Norwich Road
railway
bridge, just up the road.
Recognised for decades by travellers up and down
Norwich Road is the
painted lettering in huge trademark font on the railway bridge:
'FERODO' the motor tyre manufacturer who also made the products
proclaimed on the bridge's parapet in smaller lettering:
'Disc brake pads', now readable more from the Ipswich side of the
bridge (top picture) and almost weathered away on the Norwich side
(bottom picture). The smaller signs on each side which show a
chequerboard below and curved top display: 'Formula Two-Four'.
Symptomatic of our strange culture of over-signing
the public highways is the difficulty in photographing the whole of
'Ferodo' from the right angle to see all (most) of it, the most
obscuring clutter being the triangular height restriction signs. All we
had to do was wait until a train passed over the bridge for that
multi-infrastructural effect ... talking of
which:-
This postcard predates the Ferodo advertising (around
the turn of the
century) and shows a very different (almost) centralised lettering of
an official tone:
'Passengers are requested to keep their seats while the car is
passing
under the bridge.'
The people of Ipswich had never ridden so high above
the roads before and, given that the pale rectangular sign giving the
destination and route number at the front of the tram seems higher than
a man's head, perhaps they were being rather over-cautious. The absence
of any housing to the right of the road on the Norwich side of the
bridge illustrates the early date; this area is now occupied by the
Crofts and the right turn into Ashcroft Road is at the point occupied
by the cart stands in the middle of the road, just visible in the
picture). The tram company stopped their vehicle in an appropriate spot
for this promotional picture, the camera operator set up his tripod,
wet plate camera and cloth and
awaited a train crossing the bridge for the full effect.
Photograph courtesy Dave Riseborough
Above: in digital camera fettle, the Norwich Road bridge by Dave
Riseborough, reproducing (by happy chance) in January 2010 the same
configuration of train and bus as the c.1900 photograph above it. Hats
off to him.
Incidentally, David Kindred's Flickr collection of vintage images (see Links) shows this bridge in a different guise.
The caption reads:
'Maintenance staff inspecting damage to the rail bridge on Norwich
Road, Ipswich in the 1950s. The bridge had been hit by steel loaded on
a lorry.'
painted boldly on the parapet is: ''The SAFEST BRAKES in the WORLD'
and underneath on the main body of the bridge: 'HYDRAULIC LOCKHEED BRAKES'
the 'Lockheed' in branded logo - white caps with drop shadow. (On a
British Railways poster under the bridge an advertisement for rail
travel to 'London: 9/6' (nine shillings and sixpence; nearly ten bob
was a lot of money in those days!).
See more about the Ferodo brand and several other Ferodo bridges around
the country on Ed
Broom's site on the Links page.
More can be found about railway
bridges, railway pubs and club in Croft Street
and the railway as it skirts Bourne Park.
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throughout the Ipswich
Historic Lettering site: Borin Van Loon
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