The double-sided sign is mounted on a brick plinth which has a further four pictures depicting local trades. St Peter's church is shown with a coat-of-arms, wheat to represent the farmland and fruit from the rural landscape.
The sign was made for the millennium and shows the following trades: brick-making, car manufacturer, cobbling and the delivering of goods on a donkey. There are several plaques which read as follows:
'This village sign was erected by
Cogenhoe & Whiston Parish Council
with aid from
South Northamptonshire Council
in commemoration of
the millennium
July 2000.'
'In memory of
Frank Pinny
A valued Cogenhoe & Whiston
Parish & District Councillor
1979 to 2005
From a grateful parish.'
'In the base of this sign
there is buried
a time capsule
compiled by the children of
Cogenhoe School
& Cogenhoe Playgroup.'
All of the pictures are brilliantly coloured and detailed. The website below describes the reasons behind the imagery on the sign:
'People have lived at Cogenhoe for at least 4,000 years with one of the early settlements lying to the east of the present village. Much later, the Celts lived here and probably had a shrine or temple on the Brafield side of the present village.
During the Roman period, a corn-drying kiln was built in the centre of the village and a villa estate developed out of an Iron Age settlement on the Whiston side. The Saxons lived to the west of St Peters church and it was they who would have built its predecessor, probably from timber and first gave the village its name. After the Norman Conquest, the village was moved on to the steep slope on the north of the church where it remained until ribbon development took place in the 16th or 17th centuries along Church Street. Not until the 19th century did Station Road begin to evolve with the construction of houses built from bricks made in the Cogenhoe brickyard.
In the 20th century, acres of orchards and open fields were replaced by new housing in Orchard Way, Glebe Road and St Peters Way.
From the mid-19th to the mid 20th centuries the village, which had once been home to the agricultural and textile industries, became dominated by the manufacture of boots and shoes. By the 1950s, the major employer was local coach firm, York brothers and by the 1960s, an electronic component manufacturer – Midland Capacitors. Cogenhoe is now largely a commuter village with most people working in Northampton or further a field.'