Why plan to reinstate Hearts' historic Gorgie Road end sign is causing such a rumpus

They are learning that tampering with heritage is fraught with danger even if their motivation is clearly well intentioned.

The mystery of the whereabouts of the distinctive Gorgie Road end sign has been a cause célèbre down Tynecastle way for as long as three decades. 

News of an attempt to recreate it ought to be greeted with hosannas therefore, with Hearts making an official announcement on their club website on Thursday that the "reinstatement of the historic Tynecastle Park sign at the Gorgie Road entrance" was imminent. 

Forget fretting about six defeats in a row, this quickly became the talk of the toon - and fans' forums.

Not all the reaction was favourable. In fact, a lot of it wasn't. Additional information did make it clear, to the evident disappointment of some, that the new version was only an approximation of the old sign. It was not the original – no surprise there - but neither was it a completely faithful replica made of wood.

The article explained that, over the next couple of weeks, a traditional sign writer will work on recreating the sign on the side of the current stand from archival material held in the Hearts museum. “The sign will be painted by Thomas Payne, a traditional sign writer and glass gilder from East Lothian, supported by a highly skilled team,” it detailed.

Work, indeed, has already started, with Payne estimating he will require 20 litres of maroon paint.

The replication is part of Hearts' admirable Maroon Mile project, which is marking the club’s 150th anniversary and has been financed with over £200,000 of National Lottery Heritage funding. The aim is to install street furniture and signage to highlight the role the club has played in the lives of several generations within the community since the 1800s. Few pieces of street furniture remain as iconic in the area as the Gorgie Road sign. Hence the move to “reinstate” it.

Still, some fans have accused the club of taking the cheap option. As one supporter noted beneath the club's announcement on X: “The word reinstatement is doing a lot of heavy lifting.” Another forum wit, noting complaints about it just being a paint job, commented: “Emulsions are running high!” 

So why is the news stirring such passion? It's only a sign after all. "Heart of Midlothian Football Club Ltd Tynecastle Park," it read in Western saloon bar-style flowery font, although the original, installed in 1928, and which the recreation seems to be leaning most heavily towards, has a more commonplace and less ornate style of lettering, capital letters rather than lowercase. 

“Ltd” was later changed to "Plc" to reflect a new corporate era under Wallace Mercer, who perhaps ought to have insisted on the sign's preservation when he sold the club to Chris Robinson and Leslie Deans in 1994. Sadly, with Mercer having already begun the redevelopment of Tynecastle, it disappeared amid further work on the stadium.  

“One of my daughters had just been born,” recalls club historian David Speed. “I used to walk past the redevelopment every day with the pram. One day it was there, the next day it was not, along with half the terracing at the Gorgie Road end. We just assumed it had been recovered. But we have no idea where it is. We are hoping this story might regenerate interest.”

One thing seems sure, whatever happens, the original is not coming back. Speed suspects that even if it was still lying intact, or partially intact, somewhere, the wood would be rotten by now. “It was showing signs of deterioration even then,” he says. “I am guessing it is in a bad state now even if it does exist.”

Given its size – according to Speed, the sign's dimensions were similar to that of an Edinburgh double decker bus – it’s hard to see how it could have been carted away or stored somewhere without detection. "It's never appeared on eBay or anything like that," says Speed.

Rumours have persisted about its possible whereabouts. Robinson’s garden shed? Deans’ garage? The fact the joint owners subsequently fell out made it harder to establish what happened to such a precious Gorgie relic and staple of life in the area. It's harder still now that both men have passed away in the past two years, and within six months of one another.

Familiarity never dulled regard for the sign from locals. As Speed recounts, he used to pass it each day on the No. 1 bus from Clermiston on his way to school at Boroughmuir School at Viewforth. “Every head would turn left when we went past the ‘Gorgie gates’,” he says. “And coming home was the same, every head would turn right. That sticks in my mind. It’s been a big miss, there’s no doubt about that. This will go some way to rectifying matters.”

Speed is glad Hearts are trying to fill the space with something that is doing more than simply nodding to the club's past. It’s a genuine attempt to recreate a regrettably recklessly discarded heirloom. The club did investigate making an exact replica but were informed that, due to its size, this was "structurally unfeasible". Fans were consulted, as is required when National Lottery funds are involved.

I did once ask Deans about the mystery of the sign. The former chairman had called about some other Hearts business but seeing as it was 30 years on from the Mercer merger attempt, nostalgia was to the fore. I broached the thorny, or should that be splintery, question of the sign's whereabouts.

Deans admitted that if anyone should know, then it should be him. But he didn’t. “I am afraid to say I have no knowledge,” he said.

“I know exactly the sign you mean because I have this lovely old painting in one of the rooms of my house. The artist was standing in the park across the road and looking directly up Tynecastle Terrace. You see on the left-hand side the church and you see the Tynecastle Terrace entrance with that lovely old Heart of Midlothian Football Club Ltd sign there. But what happened to it, I do not know...

“And before you ask,” he added. “I can assure you it’s not in my garden.”