Street Sign on Glastonbury Avenue on corner with Antrim Road, Belfast

Street Sign on Glastonbury Avenue at the junction with Antrim Road, Belfast

This is a tiled street sign supported on a fluted cast iron post, installed early in the twentieth century. The sign comprises individual glazed tiles, each 5 inches tall, displaying white letters on a black background spelling GLASTONBURY AVENUE against a cast iron back plate. Blank tiles fill the lower row, and moulded black tiles form the sign's perimeter, restrained with a wrought iron strap. The sign itself measures 14 inches high, with width determined by the number of letters. The back plate is bolted to the post in four places. The overall height is 64 inches. The fluted circular cast iron post tapers from 3 inches wide at the top to 3.25 inches at the octagonal base, with a projecting ring at top and bottom and a ball finial above the tiled sign.

Belfast Corporation established standards for street signage beginning in late 1904, when the Police Committee set up a sub-committee to examine the matter. Initially favouring enamel signage, the Corporation reversed this decision in July 1907, adopting tile signs for leading thoroughfares and iron signs for other streets. This standardisation coincided with the Corporation's takeover and electrification of the city's tram system in 1905. The introduction of the distinctive white-on-black ceramic signs with fluted cast iron columns and ball finials is dated to around 1907 or later. The regularity of surviving examples with their characteristic sans serif lettering and cast iron supports indicates they are all Corporation installations from this period onwards. Cast iron columns began to be replaced by concrete posts of square section around the early 1930s. Tenders for glazed tile sign letters were still being advertised by the Corporation as late as 1955.

Glastonbury Avenue itself was laid out in the later 1890s. The signs at the western end of the road, which lay along a pre-1907 tram route, were probably installed between 1907 and circa 1930. A matching sign is positioned on the opposite side of Glastonbury Avenue. This street sign has group value with other listed tiled signs at Donegal Park Avenue, Parkmount Road, Fortwilliam Park, and the matching sign on the opposite side of Glastonbury Avenue. It represents part of Belfast's notable legacy of cast iron street furniture, including Parliamentary Boundary Posts, post boxes, and telephone kiosks.