The Reid Residents’ Association has received nearly $16,000 from the ACT Heritage Grants Program to conserve pillar street signposts in Canberra’s Inner North.

The ‘Rockite’ pebble posts have stood in Reid, Braddon and Ainslie, some of Canberra’s oldest suburbs, for nearly a century.

“Once conserved, and the nameplates are more visible and legible, they’ll serve again for at least another 100 years, provided we can keep an eye on them,” says Marianne Albury-Colless, the Association’s president.

Three of the signposts are in Reid: on the corners of Allambee Street and Pialligo (or, as we moderns know it, ‘Limestone’) Avenue, Coranderrk Street and Elimatta Street, and Doonkuna Street and Coranderrk Street. Two are in Braddon: on the corners of Pialligo (Limestone) Avenue with Donaldson Street and Elder Street. One is in Ainslie: on the corner of Limestone Avenue and Alt Crescent.

Reid, Ainslie and Braddon date back to the 1920s. Built in the ‘garden city’ style, several blocks have been declared heritage precincts. Under the Heritage Act 2004, the remaining examples of street furniture – including street signs – must be retained and conserved in situ.

“They’re a component of these original heritage-listed suburbs,” Ms Albury-Colless says. “This represents the way early Canberra looked.”

She says the Association is “delighted” to receive the grant for “a worthy purpose”.

Roads ACT will match the Heritage Grant funding for the signposts. They will also conserve two other signposts in Ainslie.

Last year, the Association received another ACT Government Heritage Grant to conserve six posts in Reid and one in Braddon.

The first signposts were erected in 1927; waist-high, they were designed for pedestrians, at a time when most people walked around these early suburbs, Ms Albury-Colless explains.

But once the motorcar became popular in the 1930s, taller signposts appeared; car drivers could not see the little ones.

They are utilitarian but elegant, she thinks, made from stone, and with “lovely, elongated panels”.

“It is all these little things that add up – the small elements in the whole of the suburbs,” the Association’s treasurer, Robyn Bergen, says. “No one house or no one thing is necessarily exiting in itself; it’s the totality of it all coming together that creates this heritage precinct.

“We get lots of people who walk from Civic and walk through here in their lunch hour. It’s a good mental space – it takes you back in time, it’s quiet, it’s calm, you can imagine a time when people had a simpler life.”

Conservator Gillian Mitchell paints the signposts with a quaternary ammonia solution to kill lichen and moss that infest the post and damage the surface. She repairs the post, filling in the gaps with mortar. Once repaired, to improve its appearance and protect its surface, she puts over the signpost a sacrificial lime mortar which will gently weather away again.

The short signposts have white letters on a black background; the tall ones, black letters on a white background. Ms Mitchell will replace the wooden backing boards of the street name plates, and replace bolts with new ones selected to reduce corrosion. All the original paint on the street name panels is removed using a lead-safe removal system.

The community volunteers then have the tricky job of repainting the street names. It takes a steady hand and a steady eye, Ms Albury-Colless says.

“You’re lying on your tummy, on the corner of the street, in your fluoro vest, having put out the road signs – there are eight of them – on every intersection,” Ms Bergen says. “Then we go: ‘Oh, drat! I’ve got a bit [of black] on the white bit.’”

“So you scramble furiously for the turps,” Ms Albury-Colless smiles.

But, they agree, it is good fun.

The signposts are one of 20 local community projects to receive an ACT Heritage Grant, totalling more than $350,000.

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