The cottage’s name came about due to a signal devised by the sons of Charles and Emma Haybittle who farmed the land and lived just behind the cottage. When young Ralph Haybittle wanted to let his brother know he should get off the train at Silverstream to help milk the cows, he would hoist a pumpkin onto the cottage’s chimney. ‘Nairn got a small [pumpkin], tied it to the end of a small stick which he stuck under the gable roof and painted on the wall beneath the legend “Ye signe of ye golden pumpkin”. Later the pumpkin fell away and he made a yellow drawing in place of it on the gable.’ Maurice Crompton-Smith to Stanley Edwards, 1939
Nairn’s painting of a pumpkin was refreshed by generations of artists until the 1950s. Also painted over the door was the legend ‘Ye Musketeers of the Brush 1901’ from Trilby, George du Maurier’s best-selling 1894 novel about bohemian artists in Paris.