Pub Sign Study - The Frigate – Whitefield Manchester

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Some pubs have multiple pub signs or different designs on both sides of the same sign board so I always walk right round the outside of a pub to check them out. Even when the design is the same one in all presentations, lighting and quality of sign can vary on different sides. The Frigate in Whitefield depicts two very different British navy warships of distinction, and fortunately adds dates that helped me find out which ships they were. 1796 – HMS Seahorse – A ship that served in Nelson’s fleet during the Napoleonic Wars. She fought at Santa Cruz in 1797, and helped to sink the French ship Anemone in 1798. In 1812 she took down a French Lugger called the Subtile and then tried to rescue the crew thrown into the water as she went down, but she saved only 28 men. She was too late for the remaining 42. The Seahorse later served the British in the struggles against America, distinguishing herself in the Battle Of Baltimore in 1814. She was broken up in 1819. HMS Hedingham Castle dated on the sign to 1943 was the second of two frigates named after the castle in Kent and the dating is out by a year. The first was built in 1943 but immediately given to the Canadian Navy for service in the Atlantic convoys, protecting allied ships from U-Boats. The Canadians quickly renamed her as the Orangeville, and after the war they sold her to China where she was renamed The Ta Tung, and sailed until 1967. The second HMS Hedingham Castle was not launched until 1944, and also served in convoy escort duties, this time for the British. Post war, she had pride of place in the Fleet Review regatta staged for Queen Elizabeth the Second’s Coronation celebrations in 1953. She was then used in a navy comedy movie called Crest Of The Wave in 1954, starring Gene Kelly and Bernard Lee and she was scrapped in 1958. Arthur Chappell