Hackney metal – another vitreous enamel sign is missing in Hoxton

Yesterday, wandering down Hoxton Street and, as I approached its southern end, I stopped to sigh at the old timber merchant's shop where, approx two years ago an enamel sign was still in place. Here is my pic from 2008 when it looked bright and shiny:

Sad to see it gone but the this allows us to see a hand-painted sign for the same company that had been covered for many decades. I took a quick snap and turned to look at the pair of signs high up on the other side of the street – oh gawd – the top one's gone:

The view used to look like this (Google streetview 2022):

I wondered why someone would remove the top panel that said CABINET but leave the lower one BENCHES. Surely the top one was harder to access? Was this stolen to order for someone called Cabinet?! Perhaps it had something to do with the House of Commons?!

Concerned about this, it brought to mind the missing telephone signs and I remembered that there is another enamel sign in Hackney, so I hopped on a bus and headed to Homerton to check a corker that sits almost at eye-level. Well, I am glad to report that it's still there:

It's actually looking better than ever, the Odgen's Guinea-Gold tobacco ad now more visible, the layers of paints having further eroded. It's also easier to see how the sign was repurposed – the word FURNITURE can be seen through the middle and AMH 2868 (Amhurst phone code for part Hackney – more about these codes here)

Here's how it looked in 2008:

Thinking about the missing CABINETS sign, having now checked my old photos and this pic by Maggie Jones, it's clear that there was a nasty and very rusty crack across it. I therefore deduce that due to its poor condition, this section has been removed for H&S reasons. That, or the erosion was so bad that it fell apart? I've also discovered that it's been missing since at least January 2025.

Any further info welcome, whether in the comments or via email: jane@janeslondon.com

TCSU and LBH-EP – bold and brassy additions, but what do they mean

Last Thursday, whilst leading my Notting Hill Ghostsigns walking tour, we happened upon a utility access plate near Portobello Road market, within the pavement outside 294 Westbourne Grove, which has an additional small brass plate screwed to it bearing the letters TSCU. One of the group proclaimed it as a trip hazard, which it surely is, being as it sticks up higher than the main plate and the screws that hold it in place protrude even more so. 

Convinced I'd very recently seen similar elsewhere, perhaps in this vicinity, I took a quick snap for reference and made a mental note to find out more some time in the near future*. 

Well, the future was only two days ahead because, as I exited Hoxton station and turned into Cremer Street, heading south towards, I saw a similar example within the pavement near the gate just beyond the railway line, and another a little further along abutting the wall. I realised I must have spotted one of these the previous Sunday when I rushing to meet friends in Columbia Road market. The pic below is the view looking North along Cremer Street:

The little brass additions here are the same design as the Portobello ones but these bear the letters LBH-EP which is surely must be London Borough of Hackney – Electricity Power, or similar(?). 

Further along Cremer Street, near the southern end, there is another plate bearing the same letters but in a different punched-out stencil design, the rivet fixings on this one being even more sticky-uppy than the others. 

I wonder how many people have actually tripped up on these things? Surely, to avoid this potential hazard, they (thever 'they' are) could have devised something flatter/thinner and instructed the contractors to weld them into the recessed areas of the original cover plates...?  

*I just googled, and I discover that TCSU = Traffic Control Systems Unit. Hmm... strange, seeing as this is about 50metres from the junction where the traffic lights are located.

Ghostsign for Hackney Empire in Dalston

Out for a wander up Kingsland Road and Dalston High Street this past weekend and I checked up on a few old friends. Specifically, a couple of ghostsigns that face each other near the junction with Englefield Rd.   

The palimpsest on the side of No.474 is well known, shown here as screen grab from Google Streetview. It shows ads for Gillette safety razors, the Sunday Illustrated newspaper, a cafe, and more as yet undeciphered.

But there's another sign on the other side of the road that has intrigued me since I first started taking photos of these things. It's on the north side of the KTS's corner shop at No.415-417, a joy in itself! The hand-painted sign here often goes unnoticed being as a marvellous tree obscures it for most of the year (Google snapshot below is from here).

Being north-facing, only the very top of the sign has been affected by the weather, leaving blue letters at the middle and bottom that were always to me intriguing but difficult to decipher. I'd often assumed that the sign was simply an ad for a bygone business at that corner. I'd take some snaps and say to myself, "I must get the old directories out and look into this one when I get home"... but then I'd get distracted by something else. 

Well, ta-da! – I've finally had a better look at it. The first pic shows a fair representation of the light available from the street on Saturday at approx 3pm 25th Nov 2023, and the pic on the right, taken by standing on the front path of one of the houses adjacent to the sign gives a straight-on view. My original pic was dark and gloomy, but with a simple but of photo enhancement, beefing up the contrast and colour balance (whilst on the bus home, no less! duh! why had this taken me song long?!) it's now clear that the signs reads:

EMPIRE
TWICE
NIGHTLY

I am pretty sure that the top faded part alluded to the Hackney Empire, about a mile away due east in Mare Street quickly accessible via Richmond Rd. Indeed, the Our History part of the theatre's website shows this old pic of the building with a similar sign on the side.

If only all ghostsign sleuthing was this easy!

Other signs for 

Owen & Thomas, linen drapers, 376-378 Bethnal Green Road, E2

 

I took a quick snap of this when I spotted this last year, but being as that was a very dull day and there was some scaffolding covering half of the wall, I am here showing a screengrab from Google Streetview.

It's a simple sign for Edward Owen and William Thomas who were trading here 100 years ago. Thus far I can only confirm the two Welsh linen drapers here in the period 1910-15, and I understand that they also had another shop in Battersea. I am also informed that a younger Williams brother was running this shop in 1926. 

You can bet that this shop was much more attractive than those that front the businesses along this busy market street today. Oh to be able to time travel to get glimple of the gilded shop fronts and window dislpays of old. Sigh.

Clapton ghostsigns – hints of upwardly-mobile Victorians and a multi-layered engma

I've been wandering the streets a lot these past few weeks. Either just following my nose, investigating places I don't know so well, or planning walking routes for the future.

I was recently near the River Lea in the in Clapton area and thought I'd best go and check on a couple of old bits of signage near the main drag to see if they were still there. And indeed there were/are.

Just east of the roundabout on the north-facing wall of 203 Lower Clapton Road, today a Ladbrokes betting shop, there is this a hand-painted sign for S. B. LUSH & Co. Ltd, dyers & cleaners, rendered in white 3-D effect block letters on a red panel. If we look back to 2008 we can see that it's in reasonable condition because it was, up until then, covered/protected by a boxed sign.

A bit of sleuthing shows that 'Lush & Cook, dyers' were here from at least 1896 until the first few years of the 1900s and by 1901 the name had changed to become 'S. B. Lush & Co' – I wonder what happened to Mr Cook? So far I have not managed to ascertain if Messrs Lush and Cook were here pre-1896 but I have found evidence of S.B Lush & Co at some very well-to-do locations in central and NW London. For instance, in 1891 the man/company was at 6 Wigmore Street, W1, and also at 1 Motcomb Street, W1, 38 Ladbroke Grove and 105 St John's Wood Terrace – so this really gives us a sense of how upwardly moblie this area of Hackney was at the end of the 19th century. The company had gone form here by 1904 when this became the premises of a milliner, followed the following year by a piano maker. For the period 1908-14, it was a confectioners, owned by a Mr. Thomas Taylor. So now I'm asking, what happed to Mr. Lush?

I continued my walk southwards to the corner of Downs Road where I was surprised and rather pleased to see that the filthy broken 'Art Deco' era clock for Strange Chemist is still hanging in there above today's pharmacy which still bears the same name as it did in 1939. They really ought to, at least, give this old timepiece a clean-up. 

Then round into Downs Road, and immediately left into Clarence Road. On the right hand side, a little way along, on the side of No.163, there is a double-layered sign. I stood looking at it, amazed that it was still intact, albeit faded. It appears that over a century ago, a hand-painted sign on the wall was covered with wooden planks that were used as the basis for a secondary sign. The wood is held in place by an angled arm of metal. It's hard to believe how this structure is still there!

The wooden sign is very bleached and faded today and there is barely any paint left, but my pic here from July 2008 shows how the letters on the boards were almost discernible and would have been even clearer had I vistied it a decade previously. I think I can make out the word 'dealer' two-thirds of the way down here. As for the sign underneath, the tantalising letters peeking out at the left hand side of the boards, give little away but there's a letter R at the top, so my guess is that the sign could be for Miss Ann Reynolds, haberdasher, who was there in 1901, and/or William Richardson, builder who was listed as being next door at No.165 in 1914.  

This is so bizarre enigma, don't you think? Just what was the though process here? Was the second sign menats to be temporary? Because, surely it would have been easier to whitewash the first sign and then over-paint it. Does anyone have any other ideas?

Please do let me know if you have any further info on any of these..

Norway Wharf

Wandering around Dalston a few weeks ago I ambled down onto the canal towpath and had a peek around Kingsland Basin that used to serve Norway, Benyon and Quebec Wharves etc. There's not much going on there these days – it's all waterside apartments, pushchairs and pilates.

On the northwest side there is an information board which I assume was put there to enlighten visitors who might wonder what went on in these marvellous brick-built warehouses 200 years ago.
Well, if you'd like to read the board, you'll need to be 6ft tall or sitting on someone's shoulders as it's set too high for the average able-bodied mortal and there is no platform to stand on. Add to that, it's protected by 'clear' plexiglass that has over time become frosted; effectively a blurring of the past.
Near to the sign and the stable block there is a rather nice linear depiction of the Regents Canal carved into the paving. It sort of makes up for the info board, but not really.

Spring into Spring

This is part of a large mosaic wall panel which features on one of my guided walks.
But the walk does not take us to any of the places shown here.
Intrigued?
See here for more.

North East London NE street signs

Many moons ago, back in 2008, I wrote a post about old metal street names which also included some of the now defunct mid-19th century N.E. signs that I had spotted on the streets of North East London in Clapton, Hackney and Stoke Newington, today categorised as East London (E). Since the 1860s the NE code has applied to Newcastle.
I am not the only one 'collecting' these glimpses of the past – Sam, Mr Ghostsigns, has organised a free scavenger hunt to on the afternoon of Saturday 21st April with the aim to make a database. If you are going to join in I'd suggest a bit of pre-event sleuthing via google streetview which will save time and shoe leather.
I won't be able to join in that day as I will be leading events of my own so, to help anyone who is going to join in on the days I thought I'd give you a heads-up and pull together all the NE signs I have collected myself. Well, I say 'all' but I mean the ones I have labelled and filed correctly – I am pretty sure I have other photos in a folder on my desktop titled "to name and file"!

My photos of Clapton's N.E. signs shown A-Z.
Other signs I am aware of but are not shown above are: Brett Passage, Colne Rd, Dunlace Rd, Malvern Rd, Mayola Rd, Mentmore Terrace, Mildenhall Rd, Navarino Rd, Roding Rd, Rushmore Rd and St Philips Rd.

This makes minimum of 31 roads with signs showing the N.E. district. Note that some roads have two or three N.E. signs and I have only shown one of them.
As regards the design of these enamel signs, I notice that there is no fixed punctuation style – colons, commas, full points and semi-colons appear to be interchangeable.
Along my travels I have also found some North (N.) and South East (S.E.) signs from the same era :

These signs from Hackney and Southwark are the same style as the N.E. signs including the typefaces, casing and fixings.

London also has no S postcode – that one was allocated to Sheffield.
More types of street name signs in the Clapton area can be found here.
And this post, also from 10 years ago, shows a variety of road name changes.

Cally Festival – Sunday 18th June

A section of Caledonian Road will be closed to traffic this Sunday for the yearly street festival which takes place between noon and 6pm.
It's basically a vibrant community-led street party – there will be all sorts of stalls lining the road plus live music, arts projects, dancing and creative workshops.
Find me at my stall selling my cards and prints of photos I have taken in the area including some new ones.

A selection of new cards (prints to order)

  

Designer Makers Market in Hackney

Yesterday saw the start of a new Saturday market. It's specifically set up for designer/makers and I was interested to go and check it out because I will be doing a stall there myself on 23rd April. It's hidden behind The London Fields pub, on the corner of Mare Street and Warburton Street, E8.

So, if your idea of good Saturday includes hanging around Broadway Market, why not take a three-miniute stroll around the corner and check out this new venue. Pretty please.

Here are some pics of bits of Hackney:

See more here.