It's in east Kent, three miles from Sandwich, but you knew that.
It's the famous Ham Sandwich signpost pointing to the hamlet of Ham and the town of Sandwich. It's been famous for decades, referencing as it does the archetypal British lunchtime snack. These days it'd have to reference Falafel Wrap or Spicy Burrito to attract a millennial's attention, but for those of us who remember unwrapping limp white bread from sweaty clingfilm it's Ham Sandwich that resonates.
I've wanted to visit the sign for ages, and yesterday found myself in the area so made a pilgrimage across a harvested field to the corner of a sleepy country lane. It was just as thrilling to see in person as it had been in print.
This is a really quiet spot, a three-way junction of single track lanes generally untroubled by traffic. Technically it's in the hamlet of West Street, if you think a road called West Street with half a dozen cottages and farmsteads counts as a settlement. None of these houses directly overlook the triangle of grass where the signpost is located so you can faff around with your camera to your heart's content, or even park a car briefly to grab your Insta snap. [map]
What I did next, obviously, was to follow the sign to see what the hamlet of Ham was like. The half mile climbed West Street and then forked off up a quintessential unhedged country lane with lopped wheat stalks to either side of the road. This is full-on arable Kent with rippling fields, the occasional line of trees and the shoreline just out of sight on the horizon.
Ham's not big. It has a row of five cottages called, imaginatively Ham Cottages. It has a 'big house' that looks post-agricultural, and a new detached pile with a massive central hallway and room to park five cars. It used to have a church, St George of Ham, but that got transformed into a private residence and then last month mostly burnt down. And it has a signpost, which because it's in Ham rather than pointing to Ham is not iconic.
The strangest name on the sign is Updown, an even hamlettier hamlet to the southwest along Updown Road. The arm that points back towards the Ham Sandwich sign is labelled Northbourne 2. As far as I'm aware there isn't a sign elsewhere that references Updown Ham, which would be marginally funny but not of iconic status.
A little further down the hill on a tiny triangular mound is a slightly more modern signpost. This one doesn't have mileages, only names, but one of the arms may be unique in that it displays three proper English words. Deal Sandwich Worth is two towns and a village but sounds like it should be a special lunchtime offer if only the order were slightly different.
Just to the right is a quaint cluster of thatched cottages, one of which sells Ham Fen honey from a converted hive out front. Because we're technically still in Ham the signpost doesn't mention it, and even if it did the relevant pairing would be Ham Finglesham, which isn't funny.
Finglesham is a lovely little village nearby with a 16th century pub, a main street called The Street and a totally unique village sign. Not only does it depict a Saxon belt buckle unearthed at a dig hereabouts, complete with naked god wearing a horned helmet, but the buckle is coated with genuine gold. The sign was erected to commemorate the Queen's Golden Jubilee and the gilding kindly paid for by Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company whose UK HQ used to be three and a half miles away.
Finglesham boasts this lovely signpost, the oldest we've seen so far, at the top of Marley Lane. By rights it ought to mention Ham which is one mile to the north but instead it references Eastry, a much larger village in the same direction, and so the opportunity for a second Ham Sandwich was lost.
I've shown you Ham so I'll end by showing you Sandwich.
This is a fake signpost opposite the Guildhall which is wheeled out every weekend to promote Sandwich Saturday Market. Not only does it point the way to various stalls, the Medieval Centre and the former parish church, it also includes a superfluous recreation of the Ham Sandwich sign. No matter that the geography's all wrong and the typeface off kilter, the sign's so iconic they couldn't miss it out.
But only a few of us have seen the original, three miles distant, half a mile past Ham. [7 photos]
