There is a pub in the center of Edinburgh called ‘The Last Drop’ which refers not to the last drop of beer on the premises, nor the last wee dram of scotch ‘for the road’, but to the fact that the local gallows was located directly outside the front door.

‘The Strugglers’ is a reference to those meeting their end on the gallows. It is grim irony that Britain’s last hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, with some 450 executions to his name, was in fact the landlord of a pub called ‘Help the Poor Struggler’. On one occasion he was called on to hang one of his regular customers, convicted of murder. If this caused him any disquiet, he managed to hide it well.

We always have a good selection of antique Pub Signs. They are all original, usually painted on both sides, and generally in good, albeit weathered, condition. Whilst original pub signs need a fairly large area of wall space (if used indoors), they undeniably have great charm, real presence and a sense of history.

As well as serving as a focal point for the dramas of everyday life in England, the local pub has been the source of plots and uprisings, intrigue of every description, and chicanery without bounds! As a result, the subject matter of historic, antique pub signs range from the religious, through the heroic and the sentimental, to the profane!