Ring in the new year!

Lift up to open

Tempting sign on a lever in an old train carriage on display at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden.

Arty crafty

Lovely lettering on a sign on Mary Ward House in Bloomsbury, London.

Soap Street sign

Fine ghost sign in Soap Street in Manchester's Northern Quarter. If you're in the area, I recommend breakfast at Trof.

With thanks to Mrs J Pogson

Signs bearing the names of Mrs J Pogson, Mrs S Shore, Mrs Joseph Warburton and others decorate the Bethesda Primitive Methodist Chapel in Heaton Norris, Stockport. A handsome building, the Chapel was founded in 1890 and is now dedicated to commercial use. I'm not sure whether Mrs J Pogson would have approved. Apparently the primitive Methodists were successful in evangelising industrial communities in the late 19th century - and Stockport was famous for its textile mills and hatmaking.

Steam bakery

The perils of being a small blogger on a busy road - this was the only angle I could get on this sign, but there's a pleasing reflection of a crane as a bonus. This is, as the sign says, the Queensland Steam Bakery in St Mary's, Southampton. It's been trading for 120 years and the company is still going - now called Marybake.

Written in stone

This stern sign at the Royal Academy is as beautiful as many of the works of art on display there.