Devon help us

Road signs in the UK are colour coded to help you distinguish different types of road. In Devon, though, you'll find more colours than anywhere else. What do Devon's colourful signs mean?

You know how it works. Blue-backed signs are for motorways. Green backgrounds are for primary routes. Black and white signs are for all other roads, and a brown background indicates a tourist destination. We've got a whole page explaining the many colours of the UK signage system.

If you find yourself in Devon, though, you'll soon stumble on signposts that don't conform to the system - they have unusual blue or brown arrows on them, and coloured borders, or sometimes no border at all.

The county of Devon is responsible for a greater mileage of roads than any other highway authority in the UK, and thanks to its rural nature, many of them are either very narrow, very steep, have very high hedges and no visibility around corners, or lack places to pass oncoming traffic. Some have all those features.

In the 1980s, to help drivers select suitable routes around the wilds of Dartmoor, the County Council sorted minor roads into types, erected all-new signposts with a new system of colour coding, and launched a publicity drive.

Signs were put up to explain the colour code at entry points and car parks across Dartmoor, and leaflets were published and made available at tourist attractions, information kiosks and local cafes.

The system was considered enough of a success that, in about 1990, it was rolled out to the entire county. You can now see these oddly colourful signs across the whole of Devon, from Sidmouth to Bideford and from Lynton to Salcombe.

What you won't see is any explanation of the system. With a few faded exceptions, the explanatory signs are all gone, the leaflets are no longer published, and the Council's website is silent on the matter.

That seems odd, so to fill the inexplicable void, here's an explanation of Devon's colour coding system. Apart from a handful of forum posts, we believe it's the only one available anywhere online.

True colours

Devon still uses the same system of road signs as the rest of the UK, so you will see A-roads and B-roads signposted just as you'd expect. Primary routes have signs with green backgrounds and non-primary routes have black and white signs.

Roads signposted in this way are suitable for all types of traffic, and are the only routes considered suitable for buses, coaches and heavy goods vehicles.

Smaller roads will use Devon's special colour schemes, which are all really an extension of the black and white signs you'd expect to see on minor roads. Devon just changes the colour of the borders and the arrows.

Blue: roads for medium sized vehicles

Blue borders and blue arrows indicate roads suitable for cars, minibuses and light goods vehicles - but NOT caravans. These roads usually have lengths of single track road and may have restricted sight lines or sharp turns, but with good opportunities to pass oncoming traffic.

Brown: roads for light vehicles

Brown borders and brown arrows point to roads that are really only suitable for cars and other light traffic. These roads tend to be predominantly single track and may be quite hemmed in, requiring low speeds and careful manoeuvres to pass other vehicles.

White: roads for local traffic

White signs with no borders, and either no arrows or white arrows with an outline, indicate roads recommended for local traffic only, and which may only lead to private premises or very small settlements. These are often extremely narrow, perhaps only just the width of a car, and may lack any space to pass an oncoming vehicle (or even a pedestrian) for long lengths. In some cases they may not have a fully sealed surface.

Patching it up

On ordinary road signs, a panel of a different colour can be used to indicate a different type of road - like, for example, where motorway numbers are placed in a blue box to make them stand out from the rest of the sign. Sign designers refer to them as patches and panels, and you can "patch up" or "patch down" to indicate higher and lower status roads.

Devon's system allows for the same thing to happen with its special colour codes. Where a destination is shown that will require you to travel on a lower standard of road later in the journey, it appears with the appropriate colour border.

You can see, for example, a blue border around Chagford on this fingerpost, because the road it points down is suitable for all traffic, but if you keep following signs to Chagford you'll eventually be directed along a road that's recommended only for medium sized vehicles.

Most of the examples so far have been on the kind of fingerpost signs you see in quiet rural Devon, but the system works on all types of sign. Here's a large advance direction sign on a fast A-road, where Aylesbeare appears in a brown border to indicate that it's reached by leaving the A3052 and taking a road suitable only for light traffic.

In some places, Devon's highway engineers get really ambitious, and start placing panels within panels. This sign indicates a left turn that's suitable for all traffic, but where the only signposted places will involve a later turn onto a road open only to medium sized vehicles - and within the blue-bordered panel there is then also a brown-background panel for a tourist destination.

Devon only knows

Understanding Devon's unique colour coding system making navigating the county much easier. Tiny side roads are no longer a nasty surprise, and if you don't want to risk having to reverse a caravan along half a mile of winding single-track lane, then you can avoid roads like that with certainty. So it's a bit of a mystery why the County Council don't do more to publicise it - hoping instead, presumably, that people will get the idea after seeing enough of the signs.

That seems unlikely, though, in a country where some drivers don't yet understand some of the most basic warning signs. A bit of education can go a very long way.

For now, this explanation will have to do. So take this valuable information, and next time you find yourself in Devon, wondering what lies around the next corner, and whether you'll make it to your destination with your wing mirrors intact, just take a look at the colour of the sign - and wonder no more.

If you know of any surviving signs on Devon's highway network that explain the colour coding system, please do let us know in the comments.