J. Troake, Straw Chip & Leghorn Presser – is this London's oldest ghostsign?

Ah Spitalfields... it's ever-changing and there's always more to discover...  

Heading towards the market from Shoreditch High Street last Sunday, I turned into Commercial Street and pondered whether this pillared gateway used to offer access to Nichols and Clarke's sidings and their warehouse buildings in Blossom Street. Very much likely I think. 

On the other side of the road, the view was epic, looking like a painting of a castle on a hill above a rocky landscape and lush pine trees: 

I turned left into Elder Street. A cat in a Fleur-de-Lis Street window stared at me but barely moved. People stopped to coo coo at it. I wondered what the cat thought of them but I was more intrigued by a visibly distressed vintage Bentley plugged into a charger outside a Georgian house. Doi-oi-oing! 

Moving along this street early C18th street, built in the 1720s, I stopped to consider how this street has become so expensive to live here since Dan Cruikshank and his friends saved it back in the 1970s. It went from dilapidation and degradation through regeneration and gentrification to become properties that most of us can't afford to rent a cupboard in. I doubt that was Dan's intention.

On the plus side, the people who snapped up these properties spent a lot of time and effort reinstating many lost features such as door knockers and window shutters that would have been in place when these were the homes and working premises of Huguenot silk weavers. Indeed this next snippet from the 1841 Kelly's street directory shows that most businesses at that time were still associated with silk:

The next excerpt from 1882 shows how the street evolved to be rather more utilitarian. Elder Street and other neighbouring streets were no longer the homes of silk merchants, but of basic trades:

The numbering shown in the clippings does not tally with what we see today, and this is made evident at No.19 Elder St, where, if you look closely, you'll see that it used to be No.20. This was when the street was numbered up one side and down the other, rather than odds facing evens which later became more common. On either side of the door below '20' there are hand-painted signs for J. Troake, Straw Chip & Leghorn Presser, and some other words I have yet to decipher.

I love the way that only the word Presser is in italics, possibly to highlight a trade rather than a product. Also, theres that lovely use of the Georgian f where a double-s occurs, as in Prefser. It looks like the signs have been repainted at some time, and not just retouched. 

On the left street-facing side of the door there is another name in upper case italics which looks like 'L....ES" (see below, left). This is likely the name of another man/business using this address at the same time as John Troake. 

John Troake would likely have been the one of the first inhabitants of this street, selling a fine quality smooth straw used for making hats and offering a pressing service for leghorn style wide-brimmed hats which were popularised by wealthy Georgian ladies who wore them at an angle balanced on the the top of their overly-large wigs, often enhanced by other accessories and concoctions.

I wonder if this is the oldest London ghostsign..? Other similar examples of hand-painted Georgian signage come to mind, such as the lists of lawyers in Middle Temple and Gray's Inn, and those amusing polite notices, but they show names or instructions, not trades. 

Crossing the road to take a wide view of the house, I noticed that there is another faded sign aabove the fanlight, here cropped and enhanced:

I can make out what could be ELT at the top and Stanstead or Wanstead on the curve.  This could be another business within the building at that time. Let's leave it there for now. 

On the other side of the street, practically opposite No 19 there is one of the commissioned set of Spitalfields coal hole covers echoing the blue plaque above that commemorates Mark Gertler.  

Around the corner, Denis Severs House, in Folgate Street has a fine example of Egyptian decoration and a gas lamp, both subjects that I cover on my walking tours.

Sad to see that the old Water Poet pub building isstill empty. I stopped to took photos over two years ago and I'm pretty sure those lamps and boxes were there, exactly in the same place as today. 

Outside and inside

The developers revamped this whole block and built pastiche Victorian terraces along Norton Folgate (today), yet this once vibrant pub has been standing empty for too long. This is a big shame. Empty spaces, yet more tall buildings going up in adjacent streets. Go figure. 

Further info on any of the above, will be most gratefully received.