Ghostsigns in Goldhawk Road, W12

Last week I wrote about a ghost sign in Uxbridge Road and said I'd find out more info about some of the others in that area.

Starting at Ravenscourt Park (western) end of Goldhawk Road, this Brymay matches sign on end of King's Parade, has seen better days. The pic to the right shows how it looked when I photographed it in 2008. There's only about half of it there now, thanks to the insertion of a multi-level extension, and what remains of the lettering is now rather faded. It makes a kind of top and tail with another Brymay sign on Shepherds Bush Green

But, not far away from there, I was extremely pleased to find that one of my favourite 'hidden' gems is still intact, albeit obscured by Melville Court and a large fir tree on the side of No.1 Cathnor Street. It is an ad for Herbert W. Dunphy, a local estate agent. It could be argued that this doesn't really qualify as a ghost sign being as his company is still trading today albeit with a slightly different name. 

The company1908 office was at 162 Goldhawk Road, and they later expanded into No.164 – see Google Streetview 2008. Today they're only at No 164 and if you look closely patches of paint there make it evident that the whole building was once covered with a painted advertisement. A modern banner affixed to the side shows the company today is 'Dunphy and Hayes'. I checked their website for more info... if you scroll down to the bottom here and read the small white text under the company logo, you'll see that they offer 'efficiant' and 'propfessional' services with 'qaulity' assurance. Oh dear! I wonder what Herbert would have made of that?!

Heading eastwards towards Shepherds Bush, there's another ghostsign, this time on the end of Goldolphin Road, on the side of No.152 Goldhawk Road. This, in the 1930s, was a colour merchant's shop, with Shaw Motors on the garden at the rear. Indeed, Dolphin Cars still trade out of that space. Try as I might, I really cannot fathom the lettering on the sign. There looks to have been at least two over-paintings, though I am sure I see 'THE' centred at the very top and 'LONDON' along the bottom edge. Ideas welcome. 

Note some gorgeous old shops on the opposite side of Godhawk Rd at 155-161, three of which retain curved window frames etc.   

And so back to Uxbridge Rd... 

Opposite the Player's cigarette ad, there is a tantalising glimpse of an ad under laters of white paint on an east-facing wall that has later been partly obscured by a building next door. With so little to go on, it's hard to ascertain whether this was a sign for a business at that location or a managed rental site. I haven't managed to decipher anything here as yet, except that there looks to be '...ES' about a third of the way down on the right edge. I wonder if this might have been an old Nestlé ad? 

As ever, any help or further info is always welcome. Please either use the comments facility or contact me at jane@janeslondon.com

Players Cigarettes Ghostsign near Shepherd's Bush Green

Isn't it strange how you can walk or drive up and down a road for decades, even go on many hunts for old signage and the like, yet never notice a something as big as this? Made worse when looking at retrospective Google streetview and finding out that this has always been visible. Doh! 

Perhaps it was always a dull day when I was sleuthing there in the past. I dunno. However, in this case, I do think the painted advertisement above Winkworths, has become a bit clearer of late, perhaps due to layers of grime having been gradually eroded by rain. Or, as I suspect by the evidence of recent repointing on this east-facing wall, perhaps it was given a clean before the application of new cement.

The advert is for packets of Player's Navy Cut Cigarettes 'Medium' created in 1945 and available until 1989. Local residents could have bought this brand of cigs at the tobacconist shop at the other end of this terrace where it meets Godolphin Road and then purchased throat lozenges from the chemist shop below the sign!

I've enhanced one of my images using Photoshop (above) and it helps us to understand how the sign might have looked when it was first painted, echoing the colours on the packets. Two sizes of packs are advertised: 10 for 6d (sixpence) and/or 20 for 11d, as shown top left and bottom right respectively. In the early days they also made packs of five!

This is the second time I have found something impressive, yet previously unnoticed, in Uxbridge Road recently (see here for a sign in Acton Vale). I've also found some others in the area which need some sleuthing so I will share those soon. 

Whitby's of Acton – a ghostsign for the garage

Aha! As I had suspected... the ghost sign facing East along The Vale in Acton, W3, that I alluded to a few weeks ago in my post about Christmas Day, is indeed advertising the services of a business further along the street. 

I messed about in Photoshop with one of my other images until I could make out the following:

STOP
FOR
WHITBYS
OF ACTON
THE
[3 letters] PEOPLE
[rely on or similar?]

A quick Googlywoogle and I found this 1935 ad showing that Whitby's was a motorcycle dealership specialising in BSA bikes. 

A second bit of printed ephemera here shows that the building was adapted to how we see it today in a more Streamline Moderne style, complete with long horizontal windows and hexagonal corner turret and this is how it appears today. I have often made many mental notes to find out more, but never applied myself to the task until now and I am really glad to have discovered that it was indeed part of motoring history. 

However, I hadn't considered motor bikes and had long assumed that the building was previously a petrol station or a car showroom. Aha again. This is backed up by the Post Office listing for 1939 which shows, Whitby's of Acton, Motor Car Agents. At that time the company is also listed at No.7 The Vale here at the junction of Askew Rd, which I am assuming was the office for admin etc. 

I do love an old pre-WWII garage, especially those that were adapted or newly constructed at that time in what was to later be called the Art Deco style, the best known of which is the Daimler Garage in Bloomsbury. 

Back to the ghostsign... as regards the two layers of yellow and black paint peeking out at top left, I am doubtful that these allude to Whitby's, even though the first letter we can see is indeed a W, albeit lower case.  I think, judging by the style, it was more likely for a completely different company or brand, possibly a newspaper.,

Another ghostsign – Benjamin, Shepherd Market, Mayfair

You probably think all I look for and write about about these days is ghost signs. Well, that's not true – I've got a folder fit to bursting with mosaics, ironwork, etched glass, architecture from all eras, parks, gardens, and lots more that I just haven't the time to collate. 

It's just that when I spot a faded sign on a wall I stand there scribbling notes that later are almost undecipherable (just like the sign!), hence I do the research for these asap, while it's all fresh in my mind. And this is what happened yesterday when I was walking around Shepherd Market in Mayfair, planning an idea for a guided walk in the area. 

I'm surprised I haven't written about this sign before, or indeed this enclave of delightful little streets which still has that village feel. It sits on the corner of what is is today No.34 Shepherd Market. However, back in the day this was No.8 Market Street, as is clearly shown by the hand-painted street sign.

The sign reads N. BENJAMIN / TRUNKS & BAGS for all CLIMATES. There is some over-painting here, most visible in the lower left part, so the name and the product could be from two different eras. 

In 1910 Edwin Alexander Atkins, trunkmaker, was at this address and this ties in perfectly with the products offered, but the name is wrong. He also had another shop opposite at No.10 selling boots (sort of where I took this photo from)

The sign is evidently for Nathaniel Benjamin, portmanteau dealer, who, in the same year, was next door to the boot shop at No.12. Tho why Atkins would want the name of his immediate competitor advertised on his own building is beyond me. Perhaps these men were related. Or perhaps Atkins offered smaller bags whist Benjamin offered larger ocean-going luggage for those Grand Tour experiences and the two companies bounced off each other? As ever, any further info welcome.

I'll leave it there for now. I've got the aforementioned bulging 'ToDo' folder to attend to, and I still need to design those walking tours and create some slides for my online talks...!

Blooms Pianos, Kingsland Road – two signs and at least four workshops

I was in Shoreditch recently, wandering about admiring things, planning walking routes and generally enjoying the Winter sunshine. I decided, as I was close by, to go and visit an old friend, the hand-painted sign for Bloom’s pianos on the north side of the block that overlooks the front garden of The Museum of The Home. 

BLOOM’S PIANOS
Illustration of upright piano within a semi-circle
FOR PERFECTION 

CALL OR WRITE: 134 KINGSLAND RD.

PHONE: BISHOPSGATE 9087 

When I got home, I tried to find out more info about its content, but available information was scant and I ended up with more questions than answers. I had read that this sign was created for/by Philip Blumher, a Russian immigrant and master cabinet maker who "spent most of the 1930s trading here" having anglicised his name to Bloom, yet there was no evidence to back up this information. And so began days, nay weeks, of bloomin' research (see what I did there?!)... 

Let's at first look at the design of this large hand-painted sign – it is clearly Edwardian/early 20th century in style as regards the letterform with those blobby serifs, undulating cross bars on the E and F, that lovely kick on the R, the curves, warps, arcs and stretches and, of course, there's that upright piano at the centre. 

Also, there are direct telephone numbers on it – exchanges of this kind did not become available until 1912, though I cannot, as yet, ascertain who the Bishopsgate 9087 number belonged to, and, despite the directional at bottom right (in the form of a manicule, a cuffed hand pointing to the front of the building), I can find no ref of any Blooms listed along this terrace in the 1910s. Though they make an appearance in the 1930s. Read on...

134 Kingsland Rd is the address of the whole block from the Museum of the Home to Cremer Street and comprises seven premises A-G. If this sign is from the 1910s then it's likely that this excellent advertising space, facing the traffic coming into London from the north, was simply used to advertise products made at nearby workshops, the sign being commissioned by an enterprising family of cabinet makers who made cases for pianofortes and had connections to someone in this block who could accept correspondence on their behalf. This might well have been William Richard Mitchell, shopfitter, who was at 134D&E in 1914, or Clarke & Greenfield, glass mould makers, at G. Indeed, in 1925 every one of these spaces is occupied by a company making or selling something to do with furniture. 

Bloom is a fairly common (adapted) Jewish name and there have been many cabinet makers by the name of Bloom living and working in the Bethnal Green and Shoreditch area. For instance, in 1899 there was Joseph Bloom at 54 Ravenscoft Street (1), a road that was mostly cabinet makers at that time, and Nathan Bloom a short walk away at 29 Redchurch Street (2). Then, by 1910 Marks Bloom is at No.64 Ravenscroft St (1) and Joseph has moved into new premises at 5 Sunbury Works, Hocker St (3). To muddy the waters further, in 1910 there was also Leckstein & Bloom in Cheshire Street (4) with other workshops in Tabernacle Street (5) and Christina Street (6), and by 1915 Jacob Bloom is working out of Dunbridge St (7), Israel Bloom is in Leonard Street (8) and Barnett Bloom can be found at New Inn Yard (9). I have no idea if they were all related, but it's very possible.

Phew! So I’m thinking this sign could be just pre-WW1 which is backed up by the signwriter’s name, written in small ‘one stoke’ at the bottom right corner: Howell Signs, Clerkenwell – 7275.
In 1910, John Thomas Howell, illuminated signs, was located at 2 Vineyard Mews, off Farringdon Road, but he’s gone from there by 1914 and I can find no evidence thus far of him being connected with that Clerkenwell phone number at that time. 

It is interesting that Howell was not local to Bethnal Green, E2, and I wonder if JTH might have been a friend or work associate of the Bloom family because I notice that Mozart & Co organ builders were at nearby 32 Vineyard Gardens from at least 1895-1910, so it's possible that the music maker connects them all, such that Mozart's mechanics might have been housed inside cabinets made by Bloom. 

The Clerkenwell 7275 phone number makes an appearance in the 1923-25 directories when Lionel Victor Howell (JT's brother or son?) is listed at 10 Penton Place, Islington (Angel area today, but classed then as part of Clerkenwell) and the phone number is carried to larger premises in the 1930s, just around the corner at what is now 91-99 Pentonville Road here.

Another idea (ooh, I am full of them!) I wonder if was J.T.Howell who painted another similar-looking sign that includes an early C20th illustration, for Daniel Leakin’s valet and car hire service at 19 Wellington Row which is on the corner of Ravenscroft Street, coincidentally a couple of minutes' walk  from a Bloom workshop in that street. It's very likely that, just like the Bloom's sign in Kingsland Road, this was initially an advertising site used to advertise services that were available close by. This is a small cottage-style terraced corner house so it's very doubtful a fleet of vehicles etc could be kept here. Until 1915 (just after I've lost track of any signwriters by the name of Howell) this corner location is shown as John Bates, coal dealer, who I think lived there and used it as his office. The vehicle depicted looks to be a 1920's Ford Model T light commercial in production 1908-27. As far as I am aware Leakin does not make an appearance here until the 1930s. But I've gone off on one of my tangents here, so let's park Daniel Leakin and his interwar motor haulage company for now and get back to the Blooms.

As I have hinted in the subject line, there is actually a second sign here which starts further down, sort of halfway through the big letters. If you look closely you'll notice that the lower two thirds are stronger in colour than the upper part.

I have here warped and stretched my original photo to better illustrate this. The tinted yellow box rule shows where the edges of this later sign are visible and in white I've added the letters I can ascertain thus far (though I have guessed the word 'please' at the centre).

At the bottom right there is a different telephone number from the earlier Bishopsgate one. This is confusing because, in 1939, this NORTH 1827 number belonged to George William Every & Sons, gear cutters of 49 Thornhill Road, N1, an address in Barnsbury, Islington, which is a short walk from the Blooms outlets in Caledonian Road. The Everys were in Barnsbury for at least 30 years – in 1910 they are listed as ‘clock wheel makers’ and were probably at that time supplying the Clerkenwell clock-making area. But the question here is, why on earth would Blooms be using Every's phone number? Hmm, ponder ponder... perhaps, again, this was merely for correspondence address rather than a place to buy... 

I then considered the number 181 at the bottom left corner and which road in the area might this apply to – my hunch being that it must be one of the shopping streets in the N1 area. I quickly found Blooms House Furnishers (Isaac Bloom) at 181 and 187 Caledonian Road in 1939 as well as opposite at No.198, which explains that hard to decipher part in the centre of the last line = ADDRESS 181 CALEDONIAN ROAD. (Update: I have since ascertained that  'ISLINGTON' is between the road and the phone number). 

Back to Kingsland Road and our Russian friend Mr Blumhert... 

I have been told that in 1930, Bloom Bros cabinet makers were at 134 C, D & E, but they'd left the site by 1940. I suspect this might coincide with the opening of the outlets in Caledonian Road, the Kings Cross area probably being better for transport and distribution, and also closer to the many piano and organ makers in north London, specifically in Islington and Camden, north of the canal.

There are no Blooms listed in the 1939 directory at the Kingsland Rd address. However, Nathan Bloom was, at this time, still busy at his workshop at 29 Redchurch Street (2 on the map above) and he had also taken on additional premises at 19-21. There’s also H&L Bloom at 3 Fountain Street, a premises that backs onto Sunbury Works (3) which must surely must be the same family seeing as this was where Joseph was listed two decades previously. 1939 also shows J. Bloom at 24A Calvin Street (10), within an attractive terrace of workshops which still looks good today. 

As regards the design of the ads, note that the smaller/later advertisement has no illustration. OK, so there was less space, and the inclusion of an illustration was probably expensive, but perhaps pianos, even the ones in beautifully-made wooden cabinets, were not as much of a selling point by the time this was painted, especially with domestic gramophone players becoming more affordable.

But I have an idea why the newer sign is less tall... if you study that end wall today, or look again at my pics above, notice how the bricks at the Kingsland Rd side have been replaced – the uppermost front section of the wall has been rebuilt. It occurs to me that this might possibly have been damaged during WWI Zeppelin raids – the red line on this map clearly shows that two airships passed quite close to 134 Kingsland Road in May 1915. Alternatively, if it's a1930's sign that was later repainted, this could hint at it being repainted during or shortly after damage during WW2. The date of the second hinges on when the Blooms opened those premises in Cally Rd.  I'd love to see how the wall above the thinner sign would have appeared at the time it was created – perhaps the visible elements of the earlier sign at the top were overpainted in black. 

I am still torn as regards the date/era of these advertisements. The available information is intriguingly inconclusive. The style is 1910s but the info within seems to be hinting at the 1930s which, to me, is at odds with the old fashioned letterform used. Perhaps they used a logotype in this fin-de-siecle style, hence why the letterform continued through the decades...?

I think I will stop now as I’m bloomin’ exhausted. 

Watch this space for more updates, as I will amend the info above as and when I find out more. If you can help, please use the comments box below or contact me @janeslondon via social media.

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..

Hendon ghostsigns

In my previous post I wrote about a drive about in London on Christmas Day which somehow included a jaunt up the A5 to Colindale. On the way back we stoppped along Hendon Broadway to check on a few ghostsigns. The street has a sense of Victorian-into-Edwardian faded glory. The last time I had a good wander about there was 2011 and I was keen to see how many of the signs I'd seen back then were still visible today.

The first old hand-painted sign that looms into view on the left as you head northwards, above what is now Aladin's Kebabs at No.147-9, is a sign for George Frederick Kruse. Left of the window it's easy to make out 'Estate Agent' in angled Coca-Cola-esque script complete with what I call an underswoosh. Above that, to the extreme right, immediately above the horizontal bar between the windows, there are remnants of some lettering that I think includes '[Local?] & Adjacent Districts' and 'APPLY' which could be followed with 'within' as has been suggested, but I am not so sure about that seeing as the much easier to decipher section below directs us to another address:
GEO. F. KRUSE (in an arc) / 50(?) YEARS IN HENDON / AUCTIONEER & ESTATE / –> AGENTS <– / Opposite Hendon Statn. N.W.4 / PHONE HENDON 1115. / Management of Property a Speciality

The estate agent shop at 32 Station Road would have been directly opposite the Hendon railway station here – there is no number 32 there today and the postcode written on the sign is given as NW4 which is the eastern side of the tracks.

I did a quick bit of googling and discovered in the National Archives that during WW1, George, then living at just round the corner at 89 Audley Road, NW4, appealed for exclusion from National Service, claiming that 'serious hardship would ensue' due to his 'exceptional finance or business obligations' – I haven't pursued this any further as yet to see if he was successful. 

Just up the road from here, at No.163 on the north-facing side overlooking Milton Road, is another faded sign advertising dairy products. It's fairly obvious that the who wall was once slatered in lettering and there have been many over-paintings throughout the decades which are hard to decipher today. However, eleven years ago I could clearly see that the centre section read: "BARRIES / FOR PURE / MILK" – I haven't been able to ascertain if thtis was alocal company name or a product.

If you spin round from the Barries sign and look north along the same side of the road, you'll see at the side of No.177 there is a nice surprise – a boxed sign used to cover a large proportion of this wall and it has in the last few months been removed to reveal elements of a Gillette safety razor ad. there are also hints of other layers of signage here – a palimpsest of advertising on this south-facing side wall.
I think the very large red lettering is for DAILY MAIL and there are other panels of faded blues and reds. Black block lettering at low level reads 'FOR SALE' with a more friendly script in white behined or over the top of it.
How jolly intriguing and this must look fab on a sunny day with better light.

Further up the road there has been a fair bit of demoliton, rebuild and renovation since I was last there and this has meant the loss of two Co-operative Society signs. One used to be on the north-facing side of No.197 with a second, south-facing sign on No.201. The second one, shown last here, was a sign I particularly meant to return to another day when the light was better and I was armed with a good zoom lens, because it had lots of white block lettering at the top and, in a sort of script at the bottom, it read: '...other members'.
It's interesting that a Co-op grocery store today occupies the site.

For more research on all of these signs, indeed the changing face of this street, more info would require access to the old Middlesex directories or a visit to the Hendon archives. Any feedback welcome.  

Hornsey Road – more ghostsigns, observations and recollections

When I first moved to the Holloway area back in 1988 I lived at the eastern end of Marborough Road, near its junction with Hornsey and Hanley Roads. My bus stop back from work in the West End was the one just south of Bavaria Road at a time when the bus was a 14A and went all the way to Chelsea (what a fab, long route!). I used to like looking at the hints of history in the area but didn't look into it until many years later.  I subsequently moved to another address near to Holloway's Nags Head shopping area but I still have cause to walk the same roads, often when I am headed up to or back from Crouch End, which used to be part of Hornsey, hence the road name. 

Last month I was coming back down the hill and I noticed that the Hanley Arms, which is now an Islamic place of worship, has been given a much-needed lick of paint. It had for years been looking rather sad and I had always worried that the lovely black metalwork over the doors showing the pub name and the saloon bar would get further damaged over time or, worse, be removed comletely. As these pics show, the owners have seen fit to enhance in gold paint that the building was once a pub, which seems at odds with its purpose these days.

Pics all 2020 exc bottom right showing when it was still a pub

I think the Hanley Arms entrance on the corner was for the more basic area of the pub to the Private or Public bar. The Saloon Bar at centre-front would have led to the swankiest part of the pub and there might have been a third entrance down the side that led to a smaller room at the rear. These defined bar areas for different kinds of people would have been sectioned off with wood and glass panels from a main bar area at the centre. I am vaguely aware of going in there once for a nose about when I moved to the area, or am I imagining this or getting my wires crossed with another similar pub?  Most of the interior fittings have since been removed to convert it into a prayer room but the Anaglypta ceiling and other hints of the bulding's previous life are still visible as shown here in The Hornsey Road blog.

The road has changed a lot since I arrived here. Today the eastern side is mainly fast food outlets, but I recall many more and varied shops in the late 80s. But it certainly wasn't as vibrant a street as it was 100 years before that, with shops all the way up to Hornsey Rise and down to Holloway and beyond, with pubs at almost every junction. For instance, on the opposite side of the road to the Hanley Arms was The Alexandra on the corner of Bavaria Road, then called Blenheim Road, as shown by the old painted road sign.

Bottom left 2020, bottom centre and right 2008

A panel on the side of the old pub building shows The Alexandra advertised itself as a 'COFFEE TAVERN'. I assume from this that this was a more genteel kind of place with tablecolths and attracted ladies. The pub was converted to commercial use. By the late 1980s, it was a locksmith's shop which continued to trade into the early 2000s, complete with a large advertisement for key cutting and 5-lever locks and whatnot on the north-facing side of the premises at ground level. By the time I photographed the sign in 2008 it was extremely faded. It's now completely gone having been over-painted, probably at the same time as another storey was added to the top of the building.

The coffee tavern sign reminded me that on a rainy day in 2011 I'd spotted a faded sign on at high level on No.418 that showed the feint letters LADIES SALOON. I could make out a name above ending "...ETTS" – I stupidly never returned to take better pics and it's now been over-painted. Damn.

Hornsey Road ghostsigns – NatWest Bank, Ladies Saloon, The Plough. All 2020 exc middle top.

This looks to be a late-Victorian-Edwardian establishment – a quick bit of delving shows me that Walter Betts had a coffee shop at No. 422 until 1905. By 1906 the same establishement is owned by Charles Watson. Note that the sign is not above the coffee shop but instead above what was then Emil Kober's hairdresser shop at No.418. It looks like a clever bit of inter-business was happeninging here – ladies could get their hair done and then retire to rooms on the upper floors for drinks, provided and served by the esatablishment two doors up the road. How lovely.

As you walk along the road today, you can clearly make out how this was once a busy high street with shops of every kind. As shown above, there's even the hint of a branch of NatWest and further along at the junction of Tollington Park there's what's left of The Plough public house. The entrance to the stables at the rear has been filled in for decades now and it's again one of those places I wish I'd photographed back in 1988 when the cobbled access was still viable leading to the rear of the pub.

I'll leave it there. Any extra info and memories most welcome.

 

Camden Ghostsigns – a walking tour – Saturday 17th November

This Saturday I will be leading a walk around Camden Town, its High Street and the area around Hampstead Lock, following a trail of ghostsigns that are still visible on the walls above the streets.

The title of the walk references the different kind of factories, shops and businesses that used to be in the Camden are before the markets made use of the empty spaces and turned the area into one of London's top tourist attractions. The walk title is still relevant today, but in a different way.

Many years ago I wrote a piece on here about these faded tradesmen signs that can still be seen along the main road. These will feature on the tour, plus many others that not so difficult to decipher..
I hope you an join me.

A Hallowe'en Spooktacular – FREE guided walks in N19

Here's one for your diary...
Hallowe'en usually finds me behind locked doors with the TV cranked up loud to cover the noise of the doorbell and the whining from disappointed little children who didn't get any 'treats'.
Trick or Treat? I say treat 'em mean and give em a slice of the real world !
Surely that makes me the best witch ever!
But this year I have been tempted out of my cave by something that's free. Yes free. And not branded. And not full of sugar either. I will actually be venturing outdoors and interacting with people and I might even dress the part. Stranger things have happened you know..
Yes people... it's shocking... I will be leading a ghost-themed tour around the Archway area. There'll be three chances to tag along but you'll need to register because places are limited.
Just click here for more info.
Now where did I leave my broomstick...

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

 
 

Bygone Brands and Businesses – a compact Jane's London in 90 minutes

As you know by the strapline under the header on this site shows that I am all about little historical details still visible on today's streets.
One of my guided walks, shown right, brings together all of these things and, as such, is a kind of potted version of this site. The walk covers old signage, ironmongery, hand-painted advertising on walls, carved reliefs, pubs, shops, name changes, logos and branding in the Upper Holloway, N19, area.
I also have a couple of other walks that are about ghostly signs of the past in Lower Holloway and around the southern half of Upper Street and these are mostly about the hand-painted ads on walls type known as ghostsigns.  

Some Holloway ghostsigns – faded painted advertisements on walls of N7 and N19

Lots more ghostsigns here.
If you'd like to join me on a walk sometime, all info is here on Jane's London Walks or for the detailed descriptions of the individual walks and how to book go directly to Eventbrite.

Clapham Junction Area – Observations in Wandsworth Rd, Northcote Rd, Battersea Rise etc

One Sunday a few weeks back I met up with a small group of London Historians for a tour of HMP Wandsworth. The pic shows us standing outside its small but jam-packed excellent museum which is open by appointment only.
The tour didn't start until noon. It was a clear, though chilly, day so I headed to Clapham Junction early to check up on a few things.
I exited the station via Old Brighton Yard which affords excellent views across London from the covered pedestrian bridge above the platforms. Note that you need a ticket to access this space; it's not a right of way.
I then turned right and walked westward along St John's Hill towards Wandsworth because I wanted to check up on a couple of old ghostsigns and shop fronts that I know from years ago when I used to work occasionally in the area.

Whoopee! The Peterkin Custard and the H.J. Golding hand-painted signs at the junction of Plough Road are still intact, as is the Frosts Stores doorway mosiac at No. 114 (now Denner Cashmere). Denner's shop also retains its lovely spindle window posts etc.

After the tour of the prison which, by the way, was excellent, a few of us went for a quick pint in a nearby pub full of children with colouring pens (go figure) and then, realising the light was fading fast, I marched across the common and over the railway bridge to get to the southern end of Northcote Road for a Battersea update.

Northcote Road was mostly built in 1896 as is evident by some date stamps at the top of buildings. The street also boasts a lot of blue enamel vitreous metal street signs. On the corner of Salcoat Road the A. H. Dunn / Hovis baker's sign still looks the same as it did when I last took a photo of it ten years ago – the same graffiti tags remain. Also shown here between Nos 88+90 is the best reminder of the lovely tiled dividers that would have been between all the shops along this stretch

And then I crossed over Battersea Rise into St John's Road and noticed a palpable change in environment. The Rise seems to split two kinds of shopping areas; the yummy mummies with their lattes and buggies on one side and a regular high street on the northern side with all the ubiquitous names.

The former Woolworths shop with its identifiable Art Deco 1930s frontage still stands but is now home to Woolworths. Waitrose seem to have moved into quite a few old Woolworth properties such as at Angel, Islington.

Marks and Spencer, opposite, retains its pillars and and cureved windows. Also late Deco I think. This shop front is very similar to my local one at Nags Head, Holloway, tho mine doesn't have the lovely mosaic floor.

The impressive Arding & Hobbs building sites diagonally opposite Clapham Junction Station and its distinctive cupola is visible for miles around.

This is the entrance to the building on the corner of Lavender Hill and Ilminster Gardens. As you can see the ribbed metal pillars ar very similar to those at M&S. I just love the curves and lines within this doorway.

I used to shop at A&H/Allders in the 90s and early 00s but it was clear to me then that the shop really needed to play catch-up with other stores of its kind. The company went into liquidation in 2005 and the building now is home to the Debenhams chain.
I really must go back in the Spring for a proper poke about.
More info on the SW11 area in this draft document written in 2013 by English Heritage.
If you are interested in becoming a member of London Historians please do mention that you heard about it here, from me. Thanks

Eversholt Street

This is a mixed bag abou the northern end of Eversholt Street, NW1, near Mornington Crescent Station.

Working along and down row by row of the pics:
A Google street view of the top section of the road shows Leverton & Sons sign on the right. A few years back it was re-painted. It's an appalling renovation. enough said.
Until approx 15 years ago the opposite side of the road was, just like Parkway a little further north, a parade of useful, independent shops which included a great tapas bar and the cafe shown here with the red sign.
Sandwiches etc belied its basic name and plastic sign because inside was marvellous. A friendly and hardworking Italian family ran this place for decades. It had fixed high back wood and padded seating which fitted in four groups of six people and they served up the most delicious fare including the best toasted ciabattas and focaccia I have ever tasted. Everyone I took inside loved it and requested to make a return visit. And the coffee was excellent, being as it was made my the grandfather who had been a barista for decades. They probably weren't even called baristas when he started out.
Sandwiches etc started to lose trade when Costas and Starbucks etc opened outlets along nearby Camden High Street. This was the same period as when the big supermarket chains began opening up mini/local versions everywhere which also helped  to change the face of this lower end of Camden Town completely. At that time I was an occasional freelance at a publishing company just around the corner within Greater London House/Carreras Building and rather than just nip around the corner to Sandwiches etc where a cappuccino was a mere 90p and would still be frothy after running back with it across the road and up two flights of stairs, work colleagues would instead march up the high street to one of the new places where they paid twice the price for lukewarm milky water. When I tried to tell them about the café they looked at me like I was the mad one.
The shop has since stood empty all this time. So sad on many levels.
The last pic on the middle row shows a faded old advertisement for George Clarke & Sons breakfast food above MC station which I expect many people have never noticed. It is, as they say, hiding in plain sight, though would have been very bright and visible to people on buses and trams heading southwards back in the day. Traffic today now flows only on the opposite direction.
The bottom pic shows a long tiled step in front of a shop near the café. I am wondering if this was the tapas bar, though in my mind that was further south. Any feedback welcome.
And finally the magnificent old post office at the junction opposite the station. No longer in use as such.
That'll do!

More Camden ghostsigns here including the Leverton one.

Ghostsign – Hinton and Gunner, two Wembley pork and beef butchers

In a narrow alley on the side of Paddy Power, Ealing Road, Wembley Central Central station there is a lovely multi-layered painted sign, see here.  

It's impossible to get a straight-on shot of this sign so I have transformed it using Photoshop to make it more legible

As you can clearly see, there have been at least two butchers trading at this location – it's evident that one has been painted over the other. However they offered mainly the same thing:The earlier blue/green lettering is for R. Gunner whose name is shown in italicised script that runs diagonally up and across the whole panel. Also in the same colour, at top left: DAIRY FED PORK, and at bottom right: ENGLISH & SCOTCH MEAT ONLY – the information imparted succinctly and clearly

The subsequent black lettering for HINTON is now fading fast. It is more descriptive of the products available (/ = line break and [xxx] indicates where I cannot decipher some words):
PURVEYORS / OF / SCOTCH BRITSH BEEF / GRASS FED [xxx] / DAIRY FED [xxx] / VARIETY OF COOKED MEATS / Families [xxx] / or [xxx].
Hints of a later third sign are also evident though no discernible letterforms remain.
I'd love to see pics of how this sign would have looked in the past. If anyone has any archive images of this location, please do contact me via email or add links in the comments section below.

A ghostsign above The Old Dairy

Here we go again... how come I have only recently been spotting ghostsigns that must have been there for decades?!
Considering I usually stop to admire the Old Dairy building, you think I would have noticed before last month that there is a faded sign above it to the right on Crouch Hill (originally part of Stroud Green Road).

The big name at the top looks to end in ROW and the word AGENTS is evident.
As usual, any ideas and information always welcome

Everybody reads the Daily Express

Last month I was in the Willesden area and so went to check on one of my favourite ghostsigns.

I was glad to see that apart from a bit of graffiti at the bottom nothing much has changed since I was there in 2009. Phew!
This old hand-painted sign for Express newspapers is rather impressive, though it's really difficult to get a better pic of it than the the one shown here because nearby buildings, walls and street furniture conspire to obscure the view.
I have attempted a bit of half-arsed research but cannot find any info about the company being at this location so I would assume this was just an advertising site. But, as you can see, it's quite a sight at this site because this sign is enormous – probably the largest one I know of – it covers the whole side of a house.
On close inspection it can be seen that there have been two ads here; one painted directly over the other.
'DAILY' can be just made out covering almost all of the upper third and there are remnants of blue and yellow paint visible at shoulder level, so I wonder if the latter sign was for Daily News who I have noticed implemented a bold heavy sans face on yellow backgrounds on their ads at other locations, such as on Seven Sisters Road near St Anne's Road in Tottenham.
The earlier sign shows the ad for Express newspapers with the titles rendered in the same style as their mast heads:
   EVERYBODY READS
   Daily Express
   Sunday Express
   THE PAPER FOR PEOPLE WHO THINK
(So that's not everybody is it? Ha ha!)

That same weekend I was delighted to find some new [to me] ghostsigns in north west London which I will post about next month.

Old Street observations

Opposite St Luke's on Old Street I noticed many of the terraces have accesses to the rear once used by carts and lorries.
That's it. Just an observation.

There are plenty of other pleasing and interesting things along the stretch between Old Street roundabout and Goswell Road:

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.