BUTTERFIELD Promising sign of progress
THE future of an important, historic piece of street furniture in my home town of Ashbourne looks set to be decided on this week. And, no, I’m not talking about the Black’s Head. Derbyshire Dales District Council will be discussing that this week, too, but that faces a future of living in a box. And the only questions remaining are where the box will be and whether it will be a transparent display case, or locked chest.
While the debate over whether the Black’s Head is racist or not, whether it should go back up or not, and whether it does depict anything culturally sinister is fascinating, I’m starting to become more interested in the sign it sat upon for so many generations.
The “Green Man Gallows”, as we all know it, has bridged St John Street for as long as pretty much anyone in the town can remember. It appears in all the paintings you see of Ashbourne and it’s a landmark that gives us an unusual claim to fame.
It is, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest pub sign in the world.
The history of “The Green Man and Black’s Head Royal Hotel” is largely irrelevant in this, as the sign has no links to the modern Green Man pub that sits in part of the building it’s now attached to, but the wooden gallows sign is Grade
II* listed and, at one point, was privately owned.
Its former owners, two local businessmen, treated it to quite a spruce-up by a local artist and even buried a time capsule beneath its stanchion - but they eventually handed it over to the district council after trying and failing to convince the town council to take it on.
In 2006 a beautiful painting of the green man that swung from the centre of the structure was removed - not for health and safety reasons per se, but by a passing lorry. It’s never been put back up.
And now it’s also missing its “offensive” centrepiece, but that’s not really the issue.
As far as anyone can remember, and we’ll hopefully have this confirmed in the coming months, Derbyshire Dales District Council has never done any maintenance to the gallows sign. It’s in quite a state.
Decades of lorry exhaust fumes puthering over it, and years and years of English weather, have left it looking quite sorry for itself. And it deserves a bit of a renaissance.
And that, we all hope, is what will be happening to it soon. Ashbourne Town Council has formally told Derbyshire Dales District Council that it wants to take on the ownership of the gallows sign, and the Black’s Head.
Apparently, Derbyshire Dales District Council would write in a clause to ensure the Black’s Head is never mounted up on the sign again, but that’s a discussion for another day.
Ashbourne Town Council does tend to take good care of its assets. It has recently spent a six-figure sum transforming the Town Hall, and big plans are in place to replace the crumbling elderly persons’ rest room in St John Street with a posh seating area.
So it will be in the best possible hands, providing the district council does agree to hand it over. Funds for a renovation will be put into the precept and, by this time next year, we could be standing in St John Street gazing up at a beautiful, freshly-painted sign, which the town can finally take pride in again.
The Green Man might be missing, thanks to the size of modern traffic, the Black’s Head might be missing, thanks to modern opinions, but the spirit of the Green Man and Black’s Head Royal Hotel will live on. And the landmark will survive for many more generations.