EPW018557 ENGLAND (1927). St Botulph's Church and Plough Corner, Colchester, 1927

In the U.K. The first "white line" road markings appeared on a number of dangerous bends on the London-Folkestone road at Ashford, Kent, in 1914, and during the 1920s the rise of painted lines on UK roads grew dramatically. In 1926, the Ministry of Transport issued official guidelines defining where and how white lines should be used. A broken white line in the direction of travel, where the gaps are longer than the painted lines, indicates the centre of the road and that there are no hazards specific to the design and layout of the road, i.e. no turnings, sharp bends ahead etc. A broken white line in which the gaps are shorter than the painted lines indicates an upcoming hazard, the proportion of white to black indicates the degree of hazard i.e. more white means more hazard.



See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_surface_marking



While the picture is 1927 and so post the 1926 official guidelines, the rather sketchy nature of these lines suggest they might have been some local initiative/interpretation. There is no stop line and the ‘S’ shaped ‘centre’ line is very much off centre.