Ghost Signs

There are brazen spectres who haunt the villages and towns across England. Ghosts of revelry writ large and high, swinging in insult to all who pass by. I am talking about old pub signs. Those that are left up after domestic conversions.

I have worked around pubs, spoken to enough publicans and read enough industry reports to understand that there are numerous economic and societal reasons why pubs shut for good. This isn’t a post lamenting that some pubs are simply no longer viable or that circumstances conspire to see them permanently close. This is about after that.

Sometime after the Publican locks the door for the last time, the keys find their way into the hands of an aspiring homemaker. Change of use planing application is submitted and approved. With a pen stroke A4 becomes C3. Work can begin. Builders come in and gut the interior, before rebuilding it into a domestic dwelling. Inside is broadly unrecognisable from its previous incarnation. Perhaps one or two small architectural trinkets are left to signify the buildings history; a licensee plaque above the front door, or the last orders bell, now hanging at the bottom of the stairs. But these relics are really for the personal enjoyment of the homeowner. No one will see them unless invited in to do so. But in the homemakers misplaced mawkishness they decide that leaving the hanging pub sign up on the front of the building is a good idea. I feel strongly that it is not.

Even unviable pubs had customers. Not enough customers, but some. It might be a small group of old boys who meet for a lunchtime pint on Tuesdays, a Monday night darts league team, a couple who come for a roast every Sunday. Even if some customers didn’t drink there much in the last year or two, there will be people in in the local area who used the pub at some point. People who have a fondness for the pub as it was at the time they frequented. When that pub is turned into a house it is gone forever. It’s not coming back, and customers, past and present, frequent or not, are permanently evicted. Having the sign up is a constant reminder to the community of what they have lost. The sign mocks those that miss what it signifies. It says to the neighbourhood “if only you’d popped in a bit more often, maybe I’d still be here.” To me it reads as a vulgar display of arrogance. This public space has become my personal domain. Tough luck. Here’s what you could have won.

Keep the sign. It is a heritage piece. Besides, it was included in the price for the house. It’s yours. I plead to all homeowners of ex-pubs though, move it out of public display. Hang it off the fence in your garden, turn it into a statement piece in your hallway, mount it onto the ceiling of the loft conversion. Just don’t leave it hanging high outside, sardonically taunting those who’s lost their social hub so you could gain an open plan kitchen diner.

Post note:

Having spotted yet another sign for a now ex-pub earlier this week, which prompted this blog I conducted a straw poll on this topic on my Instagram stories. “A pub is turned into a house, keep the sign up?” The options were “it’s a nod to heritage, keep it up”, or “it’s disingenuous, remove it.” The results were 48/52% in favour of removing it. With only 50 participants in the vote this doesn’t really prove anything, but I felt it was worth mentioning nonetheless.