English Heritage Pocket Books encourage us to look beyond the obvious. Writer and photographer Peter Ashley champions the sometimes neglected and unsung architecture and related artefacts of everyday life, looking at everything from signal boxes to pre-war road signs, from lighthouses to canal tunnels. The series is beautifully produced with original colour photography throughout, accompanied by a witty and often idiosyncratic text. Lettering on signs and buildings were once the preserve of the signmaker, lettercutter or commercial artist. In this commuter-generated age we are rapidly losing the skills that gave us such a variety of traditional signing: the wooden letters of railway station signs, the everlasting bright colours of vitreous enamel advertising, the comforting livery of a local bus company, a quality of craftsmanship that enriched our lives for so long.