Cambridgeshire pub sign comes back together after 100 years apart

When Jonathan Carey, an antiques dealer based at Earith Bridge, purchased two 6ft long sections of an enamel sign in early 2024, it set him wondering.

Jonathan, who runs Midfeather Antiques & Interiors near Haddenham, bought them from a scrap metal merchant who had collected them from the old Three Tuns pub in Willingham.

“People bring me things every now and again,” he explains. “They know that I’m a dealer so they’ll show me stuff, and I’ve got a few scrap metal dealers that pop by and say, ‘Are you interested in this?’

“And in January of last year, a bloke turned up with two signs; they were incomplete but they were nice, big signs. One said ‘Bailey &’ and the other one said ‘Ales &’.”

After buying the signs, Jonathan spent many hours on Google trying to find out more about them.

“I thought it might be ‘Bailey & Sons’, ‘Bailey & Co’ or something like that,” he recalls, “so it was really hard to come up with anything.

“I just priced them as they were and I’ve had them for over a year.”

He continues: “Then fast forward to a few weeks ago when we were at Newark Antiques Fair. I had a stand with a friend of mine.

“We’d got three pitches between us and he said, ‘Oh, the bloke opposite you has got similar signs to you’.

“So I walked over, looked at them, and then I went back over and I said, ‘I think they’re the rest of my sign’.

“Because he had three sections of it, I managed to piece together and Google it with the ones that I had, and yes, it came up that it’s Bailey & Tebbutt brewery, which was in Panton Street in Cambridge – and they were there from 1897 to 1925.

“They had 48 pubs, or something like that, in Cambridgeshire, mainly in the city centre. The signs that I bought originally, came from behind the Indian restaurant in Willingham.

“That used to be a pub called The Three Tuns, so I found out that Bailey & Tebbutt owned The Three Tuns over 100 years ago. These signs were in the garden.

“But the building was knocked down, for some reason – I don’t know why – and they’ve rebuilt it.

“I’ve managed to find a picture of my signs on a thatched building in Willingham, on Church Street.

“It’s not the one that’s there now, but I’ve now managed to locate it on some old street photos and yes, that building’s been replaced at some point…

“So I managed to find the rest of my sign in Newark, would you believe, and it was taken down over 100 years ago.”

It’s a remarkable coincidence.

“It’s a five-piece sign. Two of the original pieces were in the garden of the pub, which has been knocked down and rebuilt and has changed hands many times, and these other three sections have been going around the country being sold from dealer to dealer with no-one knowing where they’re from!”

The full signs reads ‘Bailey & Tebbutt’s celebrated Ales & Stout’ and is 30ft in length.

Jonathan, who notes that the ‘Bailey’ in ‘Bailey & Tebbutt’ was once mayor of Cambridge, has mounted the full sign on the side of his barn.

“That’s where the shop is,” he explains. “They’re not for sale because I’m quite proud of finding them and the history, and I used to live in Willingham.

“They’ve become part of my personal collection at the moment – although everything’s for sale at some stage!

“But for the moment, I’m going to enjoy them.”