Golden Ball hotel - sign
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Golden Ball hotel - sign by Keith Edkins as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Golden Ball hotel - sign
Image: © Keith Edkins Taken: 7 Nov 2008
Careful comparison suggests that this is intended as a representation of the Sovereign's Orb made for Charles II. (although it is not particularly accurate), and not the somewhat similar Holy Hand-Grenade of Antioch featured in Monty Python & The Holy Grail. Thanks to Trish Steel for these comments: "The sign was used by many tradesman in the past, because it was a simple visual symbol rather than because of its heraldic or religious significance. The royal orb is linked with Constantine the Great, who adopted a golden ball/globe as a symbol and added a cross to it later when he was converted to Christianity."
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
52.258188
Longitude
-0.03112