Ring in the new year!

 
Happy New Year all! 2018.

The caretaker or the bank?

On the whole, I think I'd rather see the caretaker. Great doorbells from the past, spotted in Liverpool's trendy Bold Street.

Ring out the old year, ring in the new!

Happy new year!

Give us a bell

I made a pilgrimage to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry earlier this year. It's a place I'd always wanted to visit, and I wasn't disappointed. We were given a warm welcome, and enjoyed the fading museum exhibits which tell of its impressive history. The shop was a delight - you're allowed to ring a selection of small bells, and I bought a tiny tourist bell as a memento of my visit. So I was sad to see the recent news that its future is uncertain. Activities will cease on the Whitechapel site, in the East End of London, by May 2017 and negotiations are underway to settle the future of the business. 

As the signs say, the business was established in 1570 and it has been on Whitechapel Road since 1738. Spanning the reigns of 27 English monarchs, it's Britain's oldest manufacturing company. The Liberty Bell and Big Ben were cast here. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

Ring a bell?

I love everything about this brilliantly pointless plea from the past: the sign's nearly-neat writing, the rich brick blackened with age, the arrow directing us to the ghost of the bell. It's in Henry Street, in the historically interesting Ropewalks area of Liverpool, which contains many 18th and 19th century buildings including warehouses and merchants' homes.

Tempting

Nice shiny night bell sign on Bush House, London. Tempting.

Ring my bell

Beautiful bell, just urging you to press that button. On the Ash Hotel in Stockport - the building dates from 1901 and is now a food shop and tea room.

Ring of despair

This sign is on the upper floor of the Southwell Workhouse in Nottinghamshire. The building is run by the National Trust, and is the most complete workhouse in the country.

Most of the building has been restored to how it would have looked to its inmates when it opened in 1824, but the upper floor has been left as it was found when the Trust took over in the late 1990s. The dismal sign caught my eye – there is something of a cry for help in it. It seems to scream despair, even though it probably dates from more recent times when the room was used as offices rather than a dormitory for paupers. 

The workhouse later became an infirmary and a home for the elderly. The building was in use until the 1980s, as a hostel for the homeless and a home for single mothers.

Go if you can - it's worth a visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/workhouse-southwell/