Sign of Times Gone By

After the last war Guernsey had far more road signs than we have now. These were not named direction signs but complex and coded indicators to assist the German military, painted on walls and boards during the 1940 - 1945 occupation. They were colour and numbered coded, five red routes stretched out from St Peter Port to the west and another three red routes went west from the St Sampson's harbour and Bordeaux area. These all had specific numbers of 1 to 8. Crossing these red routes were eleven yellow routes that again used as many of the main roads as possible.

Remarkably, very few of these signs survive, having been painted over or demolished. A very complete sign was uncovered at the halfway tram/bus shelter - yellow route one: Paradis to Bordeaux, then St Sampson's Harbour to St Peter Port Harbour. It has been preserved and covered with Perspex.

While the wall was being cleaned and repainted at La Bellieuse Cottages, the painter noticed the outline of a number seven under many layers of paint and cement wash. Careful cleaning revealed two WW11 German direction signs: the larger sign had the number 7 which was painted in yellow on a square black frame, this was adjacent to a red arrow. This shows that this was on the red route seven (St Peter Port to Petit Bot via Haviland Vale) that joined to the yellow route seven (Jerbourg to Cobo via St Andrews).

This yellow route seven gave access to the main yellow six route that went west past the airport to Portelet. At Portelet the red route two started and travelled the whole of the west coast road to the Vale church and on to St Sampson's Harbour.

The second smaller sign has an 8 and an arrow pointing east. This indicates that this lane (Blanche Pierre Lane) leads to the red route eight (St Peter Port, Fort Road and ends at Icart).

The paint of the signs was very powdery, so it is not surprising that most of the Islands WW11 signs have just worn away. The two signs here at La Bellieuse only survived because they were sealed in by layers of cement wash and paint, they have now been sealed with a clear sealer to preserve them. There were many of these wall signs around the St Martins centre for years after the war.

My thanks to Paul Bourgaize of Festung Guernsey for details of the WW11 road routes.

Roger Berry