Victorian era sign displayed at TK&S

A hand painted sign believed to date from 1890 to 1910 has been displayed at a Northampton independent after being donated by a collector of vintage items.

The sign was from Knight & Son consulting opticians, goldsmiths and jewellers, and was found in the ground by an abandoned fisherman’s hut at Dunston Mill in 1979 by Andrew Cosens.

Cosens and a schoolfriend dug the sign up and took it home where it remained in a garden shed for 40 years. He took the sign with him whenever he moved house and eventually decided to research its origins.

‘I traced Tompkins Knight & Son (TK&S) and I’m delighted to have donated it to them to reunite the owners with an iconic piece of the town’s history,’ Cosens said.