Over the years I have noticed that there a little signs for things like the shop or Oakhurst Cottage dotted around the village. Hambledon is quite spread out for a village, and people who don’t know the village wouldn’t know where the shop or church or cricket green are.

So I’ve wondered if it would be more useful, and in keeping with the village to have fingerposts instead. Following the 1964 standardisation, most old-style signs of all shapes and sizes were ripped up and replaced. But a lot of rural areas still have fingerposts, especially Hampshire. (though a personal favourite is Buttermere in the Lake District) As you can see below, Hampshire’s are often only shoulder height, but I’ve made the images below a more standard road sign height.

At the last Parish Council meeting, I presented the idea of placing new metal fingerposts around the Village. Old signs tended to be cast iron, but replacement ones are usually aluminium now. One of the advantages of metal fingerposts is you can have more directions for it to be pointing at, as the writing can be clear smaller. They obviously last longer than timber ones too. 

There is a requirement that signage needs to be a certain distance from a highway, and that may place it on private land. I’ve photoshopped some examples of replacing either existing directional signs, or public footpath ones, to potentially get around that issue. But I have placed in photoshop a couple of examples of new locations too.

As you can see, the signs may be able to show the existing locations such as Chiddingfold or Dunsfold etc. But we could also add the shop (post office), stations, the Church and the Pub. 

The Parish Council have said they will investigate what is and isn’t allowed on signage, and obviously there’s the hurdle of funding. The council suggested sharing on the website for people to feedback on, I hope you like them. 

Gareth Munro – June 2024