Showing posts with label faded. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faded. Show all posts

23 March 2018

Please help to decipher this old hand-painted sign in Bride Street – could be a butcher or an ad for washing powder?

From Google Streetview
Out doing a recce for a new walk idea earlier this month  I happened upon the remnants of a hand-painted sign across 83-87 Bride Street, N7. I attempted to take a few photos with my phone but it was late in the day and the light was poor and so the resultant pics were too.
Earlier this week, I ventured out in the biting cold armed with my camera. The enhanced images below give an idea of what's there.
It looks to me to be a company called Wa(...)s(...) and S(omebody/thing) as written in undulating U+lcase script at the top. There are also remnants of three large blue serif letters, HM(?), at the middle in bold caps and, along the bottom in a fine bold italic caps, I can make out (possibly WASH...(?) and BUTCHER. But there's lots more I can't decipher.
The directories for both 1895 and 1905 do not have anything listed against these properties except Percy Tyre & Rubber Co. Ltd. shown at 83a, which I assume to be at the rear with access at the side.
So, have you got any ideas; can you help?
The full sign, left and middle sections. Following on from "Washing" shown as close-up in the centre pic, I think I can also make out "powder" following on from that, seen bottom left of the third pic, which would make sense.
The right section continues the script; for (....) advertising what this company offers/does – I believe the last word ends  ...rtation(?). Underneath, in caps, I am sure it says BUTCHER
 
 

3 May 2016

Brymay Safety Matches – hints of another ghostsign spotted

A few weeks ago I spotted part of an old hand-painted advertisement for Brymay Matches seeping through the paint on the North-facing corner of Archway Road.
SAFETY MATCHES
The name Brymay is a conjunction of the names of the founders William Bryant and Frances May who opened their first factory in Bow and sold a phenomenal eight million boxes of matches every year!!
There are now only a few hand-painted Brymay ads visible in London, most of having been covered over by subsequent ads (as in the Haringey example below), whitewashed completely, or obliterated by modern advertising systems or graffiti.
Here are some of them:
Haringey (over/under-painted with a John Bull ad) and Fulham
Shepherd's Bush Green and Goldhawk Road
The simple yet distinctive black Brymay logotype within a bright yellow ellipse on a plain blue background peeking out from behind modern signs in Holloway and Lambeth
Criterion Matches, however, implemented a different kind of labour-intensive pictoral advertising; a style also sometimes used by other companies such as Gillette:
Kilburn and Stoke Newington
Here's my last post about Brymay signs.
If you know of any others like these, please do let me know.