Signage

Signs and sensibility Substack icon 24 September 2026

The one great attempt to make London’s streets logical - and how one retired chauffeur’s favourite routes changed the way you get around the capital.

On Ukraine 28 February 2022

Until recently Ukraine's extremely well designed new road signs were the only reason we had to think about the country. Plus, some ways to help in the current situation.

Devon help us 16 September 2021

Road signs are colour coded for different types of road, but in Devon there are more colours than anywhere else. What do Devon's colourful signs mean?

Somerset shows the way 27 January 2021

Somerset County Council have started restoring the county’s many fingerposts to their former glory. Somerset resident JR offers a guided tour of some of the county's remarkable historic signposts.

Local signs for local people 26 August 2019

Blue-bordered “local” direction signs are rapidly disappearing from our roads. They had their problems - but also an awful lot of fans.

Tags

Clear and legible

A century ago, one short memorandum issued by the Ministry of Transport laid the groundwork for a system of standardised, uniform road signs and a great deal more.

Histories

Oxfordshire Signs

This is the story of one man at Oxfordshire County Council who pre-empted the development of modern road signs - much to the annoyance of the men from the Ministry.

Routes
A40
Histories

What's new

Signs and sensibility

The one great attempt to make London’s streets logical - and how one retired chauffeur’s favourite routes changed the way you get around the capital.

A bridge under troubled bridges

A bridge that was ruined by another bridge, and a type of highway planning beyond any of the UK’s worst nightmares.

The monster seen from below

What might it have been like to stand in one spot and witness the arrival, and the uncertainty, of plans for an urban motorway in West London?

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Rainbow Signals

The annual London Pride event was accompanied, in 2016, by some quite unusual changes to traffic lights around Trafalgar Square. The green men went missing — and seven new symbols took their place.