By the year 2000, it  was time for this poor old lion to come in from his seat above the Golden Lion pub in Sessions Yard, Pontefract. Wherever possible street furniture and furnishings should stay in their original setting as they have greater meaning there and brighten up our daily lives.  This lion however had split, lost all its teeth and the small of his back was just soggy wood pulp.

 Available records show a Golden Lion pub in Sessions Yard, in 1842 with Elizabeth Scholey in charge.  The present building, however, is only from the 1920s.  By its style, the lion may even pre-date the records and go back to 1790-1820.

The overly large head adds charm to this wood carving made in three parts.  The artist had certainly looked at a domestic cat if not a lion in a zoo to achieve the naturalistic detail of the tendons along the front limbs of the beast.  When he was sent to a laboratory in Sheffield for conservation the sign had lost nearly a sixth of its wood. 

Generally it is preferable to do as little as possible to an object to stabilise it and make it displayable.  In this case the lion was too far gone for just cosmetic surgery.  A large implant was necessary for his back and while he was on the operating table new pegs were made for his teeth.  As a result his gummy smile once again became a fierce roar.  The conservator also noticed tiny flakes of the original paint colours and made his tongue a brilliant red.  The final touch was the mascara, like lines around the eyes!... 

Richard II (1377-1400), who happened to die at Pontefract Castle, made the prominent display of pub signs compulsory to help the tax collectors to demand income from alcohol sales.

Today these signs, most often projecting out from the pub building, are getting rarer and the whole naïve art form is in decline, in favour of a younger, shinier look.

The most common British pub name is the Red Lion with its heraldic origins linked to John of Gaunt or James I’s association with Scotland.

The Golden Lion is also heraldic.  Many pub names got nicknames and  Golden Lion pubs often became known as “Brass Cats”. In Pontefract, the old White Swan on Horsefair was known locally as the “Mucky Duck”!...