Sign for The Bird in Hand
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Sign for The Bird in Hand by Jonathan Kington 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
Sign for The Bird in Hand
Image: © Jonathan Kington Taken: 1 Feb 2011
This sign is attached to Image and depicts the sport of falconry. Falconry, also known as Hawking, is a sport involving using trained Raptors to hunt game. It is thought to date back to at least 2000BC, originating in the Middle and Far East and being introduced to Europe around 400AD. Since then falconry gained popularity as the sport of kings, with all the kings of England from Alfred the Great to George III participating. During the Middle Ages a social custom evolved, known as the Laws of Ownership, whereby each type of bird of prey was assigned a rank and no man could use a bird with a higher rank than him. This system of hierarchy seems to be related to the cost of the bird and it is unknown how strictly it was observed. Nowadays anybody can practice falconry in Britain without the need of a licence provided only captive bred birds are used, which must be ringed and government registered. It started to be used as a pub sign in the early 17th century.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
53.106059
Longitude
-2.025741