That this one struck me as worth including could seem surprising at first. Gloomy little empty thing good for nothing but a gripe about where they're all going. Not just the sign, but even all trace of the support gone, just a few letters left up top. 

But it's the new occupant that caught my gaze. I suspected the place was squatted when I first came on it - hoped at least it served that function, late night parties recalling lock-ins among the wildest, the deserted island space perfect for the beefiest sound system, imagined the bricks puffing mortar to bass rhythms at night. But in fact, passing late, it seems to have gone unnoticed by those in need of free accommodation, 

Which all leaves the little creature at the breeze-blocked door doing ghostly office as a sign. What that could be of, what kind of Duke this is of what Cambridge I couldn't say, but it seemed to need recording before it peeled, a new occupant was found or the place demolished.

Duke of Cambridge, Cambridge Crescent.

Don't want to moan, but got to be realistic. 

It's late to start saving these images up. Mine's not the only pub to have gone. Might run a series 'Pub Signs of the Times'.

Where would I start? In the '70's, it was, we set out. Not a happy time at all, you'll recall, which was great for bitter. I started pulling pints on various places on Mile End Road popular with students - St Mary's up the road.

What a bunch. Love them or hate them, beat 'em or join 'em, was the general attitude, and my tactic varied with my mood. My first defense against their unbounded enthusiasm was a wall of moroseness, but they simply failed to notice and I got bored. Next I tried embarrassment, encouraging them with freebies in the hope their discourse would descend to such depths of incoherence that even they would notice, but, of course, their ability to spot nonsense decreased at exactly the same rate as that to produce sense, so only I noticed the decline of reason. In the end, you have to admire them - or I did, at any rate, fell for them and joined them, got philosophy, indulged an urge to compete with the best of them, lock-up bouts of psychobabble lasting into the early hours, smoking out the last vestiges of sense not washed from the cranial nooks by beers with weed before shooting them down with powder and tabs. A time, it felt, of great possibility, which is when I met the wife to be that never was. Here's one I used to work, gone the way of all flesh.

One of the most recent changes has been a tendency of the places to turn into what they call now gentlemen's entertainment venues, which is actually a much more pleasant name than they used to have, implying a much more egalitarian attitude to ladies in the City furnishing them with punters.

 

But what I find interesting about this one you only see looking closely. What the landlords hadn't reckoned with was the concern of the locals. Must be great if you're a local woman to know that there are people out there willing to protect your right to be respected as you walk veiled behind the head of the household. 

Still, life must go on, and enterprise is its means, even at the price of a cut-throat competitiveness amongst glaziers.

While on the subject, this one interested me, too in the same sign of the times way. 

Why someone lets their sign get to that state it was hard to think. 

Although on the sign itself now you can only just make out the battle axe, the faience shows the place was once proud. 

The simple explanation for the decline of signage is visible on the side wall: change of use.

Talking of whit, The King's Arms of Chiltern Street, E2, has it to a charming degree. Fact it would win no prizes for execution only adds to the quality - this is a local, and you can bet it pleases the locals. You don't like it, there are plenty of anonymous pubs with anonymous signs on anonymous high streets with perfectly painted heraldic devices looking dourly down on unnoticed.

Don't know what it's like inside. Can't enter the places anymore. Mustn't. If it was her that started it, way ahead of me in capacity to begin, she was, the wife that wasn't, I was soon catching her up at the finishing post - the place, wherever it is, they go that she went. 

No need for signs to be restricted only to hanging things that swing. On that criterion, the White Hart, Mile End Road would be excluded, which would be a shame, given the interesting stonework. Clearly Victorian, it speaks of an age of confidence for the industry barely imaginable now. Whoever did it was clearly an architect of serious learning, because here we have a perfectly placed bucranium just a little altered to represent the pub name - bull or ram's skull replaced by a dear's. Sort of whit, really, but subtle and learned.