Fabulous Fingerposts

Fingerposts are often erroneously described as signposts.  Correctly speaking, a signpost is a post on which a sign hangs, such as is to be seen outside many old village inns.  A fingerpost proper is a post set up, generally where roads cross or divide, to show the direction of certain places.

Fingerpost near Oswestry

Some of the older fingerposts in the remote parts of the country have rings with which to tether horses, for it must be remembered that fingerposts were primarily intended for the guidance of horse-back travellers.  It was for this reason also that the height of a fingerpost arm was always fixed at eye-level to a mounted man.  In some parts of the country, where the district is liable to flooding, the fingerposts were marked with flood levels, but the improvement in land drainage in modern times accounts for the dis-continuance of these marks.

In reference to fingerposts, an amusing story is told in Yorkshire of a wayfarer who, on asking the way to a village, was informed that he would find a “parson” at the top of the hill which would tell him the way to go.  “Your clergy seem very obliging,” replied the inquirer.  He was then told that in that district fingerposts were called “parsons” because they always point the way but do not follow it themselves.