Apart from walking hills with your whippet, the top semi-legal activity in Sheffield is visiting ghost signs.
This one in Kelham seems to be for Lilliput Wives, which were only outlawed in 1973.
No relation to Lilliput Wives at all, Mrs RM despatched me to Homebase just south of the city to collect something called a radiator cover. It’s opposite the Dunelm I was sent to last month, so I already had a pub route in mind.
That route takes you past the “Antiques Quarter” of Heeley, where lots of pashmina and bobbled hats were gathered on the pavement queueing for artisan coffees.
Apart from that, the A61 was far quieter than I’ve ever seen it, and Homebase had a grand total of 7 cars outside.
I took the steep hill down from mumsy Meerbrook to naughty Norton Hammer, which is less exciting than it sounds.
Some people are fussing over foreign holidays this year; I just want to walk round northern housing estates snapping Ind Coope Burton ghost signs, and go in the occasional pub.
GBG occasional the Archer Road Beer Stop ISN’T a pub, but that’s allowed it to stay open to sell cask while all the other pubs can’t. Not fair, but that’s life.
It’s a quaint old place, catering to all rather than the Untappd ticker. Cask from Ashover, cans from Sweden, Guinness from Guinnessland.
Cans are shiny and full of strong beer, but you can’t beat real ale like the gorgeously rich Zoo from the Peaks.
Someone should set up an organisation to promote it.
retiredmartin 
Not quite a ghost sign as yet –
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4841233,-3.2248969,3a,75y,274.36h,94.45t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sRXLjxAAe6gKsV70mV2fpjg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
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Etu,
That really is old. I remember “The Sign of Hospitality” on pub signs when on holiday on the Cambrian Coast sixty years ago but I doubt if it was used much after Hancocks was taken over by Bass Charrington in 1968
Similarily “Hansons Mild. A link with the past” was on A449 and other Wolverhampton railway bridges long after the beer was discontinued in 2007, and might still be there.
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Have you seen what it says on the other side? – the picture is interactive.
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Etu,
I thought I was crashing into another car going under that bridge.
Yes, and it’s quite a few years since SA has been described as Best Bitter.
I remember a cask of SA on the bar in the back room of a pub after a wedding I attended in Cardiff.
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Martin,
Looking carefully I think that behind and between the IND and the COOPES I can just make out HOOSON which was a brewery in Aston Street owning 31 pubs that was acquired by Ind Coope in 1914.
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And that reminds me of PARKERS of Burslem ( closed 1963 ) on the side of a former pub two miles from me that has gradually been fading away to reveal BUNTINGS of Uttoxeter ( closed about 1940 ) underneath.
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Those Buntings folks knew how to use good paint!
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Dave,
Yes, it was proper paint before the war.
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“This one in Kelham seems to be for Lilliput Wives, which were only outlawed in 1973.”
Is that the British version of the Stepford Wives? 😉
“No relation to Lilliput Wives at all, Mrs RM despatched me to Homebase”
(slow golf clap)
“Some people are fussing over foreign holidays this year”
From what I hear, a foreign holiday for you lot will include going to the next county. 😉
“GBG occasional the Archer Road Beer Stop ISN’T a pub, but that’s allowed it to stay open to sell cask while all the other pubs can’t.”
Ah. Kind of like ‘dollar stores’ over here allowed to stay open as they sell food, but you can still shop for anything else whilst in there.*
* – this is in Ontario, in BC where I live everything is open
“but you can’t beat real ale like the gorgeously rich Zoo from the Peaks.”
If that’s Peak Ales in Bakeworth, they don’t show Zoo on their website anywhere!
Cheers
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