One I like is The Perseverence, in Wraysbury. I have no photo of its sign, and its own web-site does not show it properly: a snail in the foreground, making his determined way across the desert to the distant Ark.
One thing I find sad, apart of course from the awful loss of pubs completely, is the spurious replacement names that look invented by "marketing executives" with no respect for history or tradition.
Such as the Cannards Grave Inn, just outside Shepton Mallet. The marketing-executive types changed it to something like "The Canard" (showing they can't even spell) and removed the original sign with its grim painting of, presumably, the original "Cannard" hanging from a gibbet. It is now the Cannards Well, I think, with no sign and the walls painted with that dreadful, depressing grey so trendy at the moment. The location itself is Cannard's Grave: I don't know the history but at one time hangings were carried out at sites like cross-roads.
In Weymouth, the Black Dog's sign is a painting of a black Labrador. Why? An early landlord of this very old inn was a merchant who brought the first specimen of the breed to England, from Labrador.
.....
Not a pub sign but an alcoholic drinks trade-mark...
About a mile from Cannard's Grave is a cider-factory whose brand I forget, but which was originally the Showerings home of "Babycham" - the fizzy pear wine heavily advertised as "The original champagne perry" until the French fizzy grape wine makers objected.
For many years a large fibreglass statue of the perry trademark's yellow and white fawn stood on a lawn next to the building. It had originally been on the roof, and quite a local landmark.
Some years ago it was removed "for cleaning" (it was under trees and becoming green with algae) and to allow some building work. It is still missing, leaving merely a small wire-frame version above the premises' reception door.
