Card of the Day - 2025-04-01

Whitbread Inn Signs 2nd
Whitbread & Co. Ltd. [trade : brewing : UK] "Inn Signs" - second series (1950) 42/50 - WH1-1.2

Here we have another interesting branch of thematic collecting, showing representations of animals not as living creatures, but on signs.

There are several sets which show such things - Churchman`s "Curious Signs", a set of twenty-five, from 1925, which includes an ape, a boar, a bull, a cockerel, a dog, a duck, a dolphin, an eagle, a goose, a grasshopper, a lamb, an ostrich, Pegasus, and three squirrels - and Wills "Heraldic Signs & Their Origin",  which brings us two eagles, an elephant, a martlet, a pelican, and a talbot hound, though we featured the sign of the anchor as our Card of the Day for the 27th of November 2022

However today`s card is probably one of the sets that springs to mind most readily, for there were so many of them. And we have several home pages. 

Series two, (and series one) were made of metal, more correctly of aluminium, and only available in that form - whilst series three was available in two forms, metal, as here, but also on card. And after that, the metal was completely dropped, series four and five being only cards. 

This second set was issued in 1950, and is a mixture of inns in these Kent and Sussex. The inns are : 

  1. THE ANGEL Strood
  2. BELISHA BEACON Rainham Mark
  3. BRIDGE HOUSE Gillingham
  4. THE CANOPUS Borstal
  5. GENERAL-AT-SEA Chatham
  6. HOOK & HATCHET Walderslade
  7. MR. SAMUEL PEPYS Gillingham
  8. ROSE & CROWN Chatham
  9. THE SPORTSMAN Strood
  10. SPY-GLASS & KETTLE Wigmore
  11. TWO SAWYERS Gillingham
  12. WORLD`S END Chatham
  13. THE BELL INN Southborough
  14. CAMDEN HOTEL Pembury
  15. CARDINAL`S ERROR Tonbridge
  16. HALF MOON Hildenborough
  17. GROVE TAVERN Tunbridge Wells
  18. HOP POLE East Peckham
  19. THE OAK Rusthall
  20. THE CYPRESS Tunbridge Wells
  21. PAPERMAKERS ARMS Plaxtol
  22. STAR & GARTER Tonbridge
  23. WALNUT TREE Brenchley
  24. WE THREE LOGGERHEADS Tonbridge
  25. BLACKSMITH`S ARMS Harrietsham
  26. THE CHEQUERS West Farleigh
  27. CLOTHWORKERS ARMS Sutton Valence
  28. DUKE OF WELLINGTON Ryersh
  29. FLEUR-DE-LIS Burham
  30. GOOD INTENT West Farleigh
  31. KING`S ARMS Headcorn
  32. RED ROVER East Malling
  33. SOUTH EASTERN Staplehurst
  34. THE SPOTTED COW Larkhurst
  35. THE VIGO INN Fairseat
  36. THE WINDMILL Hollingbourne
  37. CHALK TAVERN Sittingbourne
  38. FORESTER`S ARMS Sittingbourne
  39. WIFE OF BATH Sittingbourne
  40. THE BULL Sissinghurst
  41. CROWN INN Cranbrook
  42. THE SWAN Wittersham
  43. THE WOOLPACK Goudhurst
  44. COACH & HORSES Sedlescombe
  45. THE HOPE INN Guestling Green
  46. PEACE & PLENTY Playden
  47. ROBERT DE MORTAIN near Hastings
  48. ROBERT DE MORTAIN near Hastings (a different sign)
  49. PLOUGH INN Eynsford
  50. ROYAL OAK Shoreham

The fourth series, issued in 1953, actually contains an almost identical swan to the one on our card, as no.41, but if you look it has a larger eye - and the back tells us that sign hangs at the Swan Inn at Wickhambreaux near Canterbury, Kent, not our Wittersham near Tenterden in Kent. 

In our original British Trade Index part II, all these seven sets are catalogued together. You can see that in its entirety at the home page for the first five series, which is with our Card of the Day for the 22nd of January 2026 

  • INN SIGNS. Md. 76 x 51 ... WHI-1

    2. Second Series. Nd. (50). On aluminium

And by the time of our updated British Trade Index it appears as : 

                                                             WHITBREAD & CO. Ltd.
Brewers. Issued 1950-1974. All 76 x 50. All issues are covered in this volume. The History and listing of numbered series is covered in full in the book "Collecting Whitbread Inn-Signs" by Cockell and Laming, 1996. 

  • WHITBREAD`S INN SIGNS. Second Series. 1950. Nd.  (50) On metal. ... WHI-160