Saxmundham
Saxmundham has maintained its position as quite an
important town in
eastern
Suffolk with its rail station, market and its position for many years
on
the arterial road to Yarmouth, the A12. Now by-passed to avoid its
infamous
bottleneck of ancient buildings, it retains several notable examples
of
lettering on its walls.
(Courtesy
Andrew Smith)
Flick & Sons, estate agents once bore an impressive
rounded-topped relief
shield: 'ESTABD. 1833' with the
'B' bold in relation to the roman remainder. Unfortunately (as shown in
the second image) in 2006 the shield was replaced with a (possibly
plastic) version with much more regular characters.
Flick & Sons stands opposite the
Bell Hotel with its long cartouche
bearing
its name and the town in serif caps, now so weathered that the
signwriters
font outlines alone preserve much of the characters towards the right.
We
wonder if the two white trapezium shapes between first floor windows
cover
up earlier lettering?
And below is Andrew Smith's image of the hotel after a
facelift (picture taken
2004). The 'trapeziums' now have their pair of tails restored and more resemble scrolls, once possibly
carrying lettering such as "Wines & Ales" and "Good Food"?
(Photographs courtesy Andrew Smith)
Above: the old Post Office at 22 High
Street, Saxmundham with the raised lettering in a very poor state.
And right on the road's bottleneck, next to the old Post Office is a
business of the sort becoming much rarer in the bigger towns where huge
B&Q citadels stand with superstores as gateways to the
conurbations:
'W. WELLS & SON
IRONMONGERS.'
[UPDATE 15.4.2011: Andrew Smith
reports that this is now "The Store" clothes shop: they have restored
the whole shop and repainted the new shop name in similar brown
capitals.
And the Ransomes plaque is still there.]
On the wall facing the road, a cast iron plate
boasting the
company's
dealership in the region's famous cast iron products:
'RANSOMES' PATENT PLOUGHS AND IRONS SOLD HERE'. When was the last time
a
customer came into the shop demanding these? It's also worth indulging
in a bit of pedantry concerning that misplaced apostrophe: shouldn't it
be "Ransome's" as it was the firm founded by Robert Ransome? One
assumes that, as with "Woolworths", "Sainsburys" and "Tescos", such
large company names are colloquialised as a sort of possessive plural,
so the possessive apostrophe below follows "Ransomes". The local
history resource for this company at University of Reading uses this form. See our Ransomes page
for the only trace of the name on a building near the former huge
riverside foundry in Ipswich.
At the front of this shop we find raised or
repoussé lettering: 'IRONMONGERS' in an art nouveau relief frame
with a font to match with 'FURNISHING' and 'W.WELLS & SON' further
round.
(Courtesy Andrew Smith)
Iron founding was a major
industry in parts of 19th
and 20th Century
Suffolk. As well as the Ipswich-based Ransome companies,
Garretts of nearby Leiston created a small industrial town in the heart
of the countryside. A fine, well-preserved town pump in cast iron
stands not far from the shop above.
(Courtesy
Andrew Smith)
The relief text picked out in gold on the pump
reads:
'PRESENTED BY W. LONG ESQR.
A.D. 1838' and on the base:
'Garrett & Sons Manufacturers Leiston'.
[UPDATE
May 2010:
"Regarding the pump in Saxmundham, which you feature at
http://ipswich-lettering.org/saxmundham.html - in 1868 W.Long was the
local lord of the manor, whose seat was Hurts Hall.
From the Saxmundham Town Council website (see Links):
The Long family have been associated with Saxmundham from the 17th
century, originally coming from Wiltshire; there are several memorials
to the Long family in the parish church. Samuel Long (1638-1683) was
appointed secretary to the Jamaica Commissioners immediately after the
conquest of that island, and on his return to England purchased Hurts
Hall and the manor. The much older sub-manor of the Swan family was
absorbed into the Long manor in about 1778. The Rt. Hon. Sir Charles
Long was MP for Dunwich and created Baron Farnborough in 1826.
According to the 1840 census, William Long lived in Hurts Hall with his
wife Ellenor, their five children, a governess, five male servents and
ten female servents. It was William who built the Market Hall
(originally a corn exchange), the school rooms next to the parish
church, and he donated the Town Pump. Hurts Hall was the seat of the
Long family until the 1950s.
Regards, Dick Williams in Cheltenham" whose excellent Village Pumps
website (see Links)
is not to be missed.]
So let's look at the Market Hall (below left) which stands hard up
against The Bell
Hotel.
Here we find atop the fascade the large town emblem
incorporating the Long family (as commemorated on the town pump)
coat of arms, wheat designs, and
inscription 'DIEU ET MA PATRIE': 'God and my country'. We'll get the
text on that small tablet below the crest at some point, too.
(Photographs courtesy Andrew Smith)
15.4.2011 - A contribution from
Andrew Smith, designer of the Saxmundham
Town
Council website (see Links; they have a page
on Saxmundham Museum):
'I can’t remember if I’ve ever sent you the old pic I have
of the Wine shop in Saxmundham – the pic is from the turn of the
Century (1900 that is) – that’s my guess, but it may be a
little older than that. Interestingly it is called H Waller & Sons
and I have Wallers in my family.
Interestingly, it was a Threshers wine shop until about 2 years ago
– it was a “Local store” for a while and then closed.
It’s been empty for a while but people have been working on it
now for several weeks. They’ve taken a lot of care with the
façade, but now obliterated the
“Peter Dominic” painted lettering. So I got a pic for your
collection and will try to get one when it’s finished.'
(Photographs courtesy
Saxmundahm Museum and Andrew Smith)
The rather wonderful sepia image (above) of a time when a herd of pigs
could stride purposefully down the middle of the A12 (although it may
not have been called that then) shows two of the three of the
cartouches on the fascade. This confection of romanesque arches and
square half-columns has always drawn the eye in Saxmundham's main
street. We well remember it as a Peter Dominic off licence from over
thirty years ago. Many thanks to Andrew.