As time ticks by more and more villages within the West Midlands conurbation get completed. This time its Pelsall, a 1000 year old settlement that is now part of Walsall Metropolitan Borough. It’s another old mining village though there is little sign of its earlier industrial past other than the canal that meanders peacefully around its western and northern fringes.
Pelsall is the home of one of the oldest Finger Posts in the country. Recently restored to its former glory it stands at the main principal road junction to the north-east of the village. Naturally such a fine monument has a road named after it; Finger post Drive.
David Gosling
I am told that there have been many finger posts at this position in Pelsall with the original in a museum nearby. The current occupant, which I restored a few years ago, is a bit of a hybrid as it comprises a post from the old Birmingham tramways onto which a lamp was fitted together with the four large cast resin hands to point out the directions. Whilst undertaking the restoration a local lady told me that her father’s hand had been used as the model for the castings. The pattern must have been scaled up however as these hands are twice the size if my own.