Finer once than now?

Or were the bottled stouts more so?  These are ghost signs, as they're now called.  And here's a dusting of light snow to give this part of England the impression of winter of times gone by.

This house used to be a pub, but then there were over 100 pubs in this village not many decades ago, when the men worked in the fields and had a bit of refreshment either in the fields, brought by their women, or on the way home.  Many pubs were merely front rooms with a store of beer for sale, I understand.

The house is on a north-south arterial route, even if it's only a B-road; it's difficult to imagine how the traffic will be absorbed when there are increases because of the development not far away – of housing road and rail . . .