Somerset County Council is three years in to the project to restore the county's collection of picturesque signposts to their original glory, preserving them for generations to come.

The signage system used today derives from 1964's Worboys report, which aimed to update and modernise the old and patchy system that had developed piecemeal in the years since the turn of the century. Before then, rural counties such as Lincolnshire and Somerset erected fingerposts at almost every major junction between roads in order to tell motorists which roads led where and how far the distances were to major landmarks such as towns or villages.

Following the 1964 standardisation, most old-style signs of all shapes and sizes were ripped up and replaced. In major cities, almost none of the old signs remain. But out in the countryside, a lack of development over large areas meant that these signs might survive, unloved and uncared for. And with all old things, there comes a point where they become old enough that people start to see them not as redundant but instead as a heritage feature. This happened in Somerset: the old signposts, probably set up in the 1930s, survived to the point where people began to acknowledge them as a link to the past.

Somerset County Council started a programme in 2017 which aims to try and restore as many of these historic signposts as possible. They are being lovingly repainted and repaired by dedicated volunteers.

You can find out where the current posts are being restored across the county by clicking HERE : the Somerset fingerpost map

And you can see photos of the posts and learn more by clicking HERE: the Roads Dot Org site