Wooden painted signboard from ‘Hellfire Corner’ at Ypres, 1918
NAM 1996-08-303
Hellfire Corner
This sign was used to mark ‘Hellfire Corner’, a busy junction on the Menin Road, which ran from Ypres in Belgium to the frontline trenches. It was a very dangerous place, being within easy range of the German guns. As a result of constant heavy shelling it was given this nickname by British troops. This sign is believed to be the last used at this position and shows signs of shell and small-arms damage.
Trench signboards on the Western Front, c. 1916. NAM 1995-03-86-16
Lieutenant W. S. Storie of the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) brought this sign back to Britain after the First World War (1914-1918). He displayed it in his shop window on Prince’s Street, Edinburgh. The evocative name ‘Hellfire Corner’ was instantly recognizable to the generation who lived through the War, which is why Storie used it to attract crowds to his shop. Many of those who had survived would have passed the sign, or one of its predecessors, en route to and from the front line.
Soldiers have often placed signposts in their positions, naming them after famous streets and roads, and this practice was especially evident during the First World War. The need to maintain connections with home is still apparent in the British soldier’s mind today. In his book Rules of Engagement, Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins describes the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment’s desert encampment on the Kuwait-Iraq border in February 2003:
‘rows of Bedouin –style tents running away at right angles, each forming a street, which the boys soon marked out with familiar street names: ‘Shankill Road’, ‘Newtonards Road’, ‘O’Connell Street’
