Ogden's 'By the Roadside' cigarette card set, 1932

The link here with Frank Patterson's drawing of Ribchester in the previous post is that No.35 in Ogden's 'By the Roadside' set of cigarette cards is of the Norman chapel at Stidd, just outside Ribchester. The other forty nine cards in the series depict features of historical or natural interest in the countryside and ancient market towns - primarily of England, with just two of the subjects being from Scotland. On the reverse of each card is a brief description of the site and its history.


Every card incorporates a little circular map above the primary image showing its location and the main routes for getting there from principal centres up to ten miles away. The implication is that this was a suitable destination for a trip out by bike or by car.


UK tobacco companies began including illustrated cards in packs of cigarettes, initially as stiffeners, in the 1880s. By the 1930s the practice was at its peak and had developed its full marketing potential. Ogden's, part of the Imperial Tobacco Company, had joined in by the 1890s. Thousands of sets on popular subjects of the day were issued and avidly collected, and not only by small boys.

The sites chosen for this series give a glimpse into the manner in which heritage, the countryside, and leisure were being bracketed together in mainstream culture at the time. The full list of subjects is:
1. Shodfriars Hall, Boston, Lincs
2. Market Cross & stocks, Bottesford, Leics
3. The Bowder Stone, Borrowdale, Cumberland
4. Old Bridge and Chapel, Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts
5. Bronze Tables, Corn Street, Bristol
6. Market Cross, Castle Combe, Wilts
7. The Cross, Chester
8. All Saints, Chesterfield, Derbyshire
9. Wool Market, Chipping Campden, Gloucs
10. Triangular Bridge, Crowland, Lincolnshire
11. The Butter Market, Dartmouth, Devonshire
12. Yarn Market, Dunster, Somersetshire
13. Buttress, All Saints’ Church, Dunwich, Suffolk
14. Old Canongate Tollbooth, Edinburgh
15. Queen Eleanor Cross, Geddington, Northants
16. The Abbot’s Kitchen, Glastonbury, Som
17. Saxon Church, Greensted, nr Chipping Ongar, Essex
18. Hadrian’s Wall, near Hexham, Northumberland
19. Old Windmill, Hemingford grey, Huntingdonshire
20. The ‘Old House’, Hereford
21. The Guildhall, King’s Lynn, Norfolk
22. Saxon ‘King’s Stone’, Kingston-Upon-Thames
23. Lamarsh Church, Essex
24. Market Hall, Ledbury, Herefordshire
25. Market Cross, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire
26. The ‘Jews House’, Lincoln
27. Maiden Castle, near Dorchester
28. Old Grammar School, Market Harborough, Leics
29. The Old Cross, Meriden, Warwicks
30. Iron Cresset, Monken Hadley Church, near Barnet
31. Monkwearmouth Church, Sunderland
32. Butter Cross and Stocks, Oakham, Rutland
33. Old Cottages, pembridge, Herefordshire
34. Smithy, Penshurst, Kent
35. Stidd Chapel, Ribchester, Lancashire
36. Nuns’ House, Rochester, Kent
37. Rufus Stone, near Lyndhurst, Hampshire
38. A quaint street, St Ives, Cornwall
39. Old Bridge, St Ives, Huntingdonshire
40. 9th century crosses, Sandbach, Cheshire
41. Sompting Church, Sussex
42. Sundial and Lock-up, Steeple Ashton, Wiltshire
43. Beheading Stone, Stirling
44. Stokesay Castle, Shropshire
45. Harvard House, Stratford-upon-Avon
46. Turton Tower, Turton, Lancs
47. Waltham Abbey, Essex
48. Butter Cross, Witney, Oxfordshire
49. Market Cross, Wymondham, Norfolk
50. Clifford’s Tower, York