Signs of Brick Lane

A Sunday stroll down Brick Lane is always a pleasant way of spending an autumn morning and even more pleasant when you find a few photos on your camera a few months later. Which is very handy as I haven't had much opportunity recently for Faded London jaunts recently.


The three street signs

First up is this interesting group of street signs on the corner of .... as you can see...Sclater Street. Evolution in progress as we start of with the very ornate 19th century effort (or earlier?), the more functional and visible modern street sign and what I presume is a local translation of the street name for the benefit of the local population. Although I suppose it must be a transliteration rather than a translation as I'm not sure how you'd translate 'Sclater'.

I don't know what Page & Co were specialists in but their little factory unit is still there, tucked away in a sidestreet just off the main drag

This looks like it might have been owned by the Lewis family but although there are new owners there seems to have been a continuity in the use of the store. Still a newsagent and still selling cigarettes.

Talking of the street signs in other languages, here's a reminder of a previous influx of immigrants who also settled in the Brick Lane area. CH N. Katz was a twine and string merchant, a fairly specialised area of work I'd of thought, and it seems as thought the business only closed down a few years ago.

Middlesex ,Street EC1

And finally, just at the top of Petticoat Lane the removal of an advertising hoarding - last seen advertising the Monty Python musical Spamalot - reveals the remains of a car park sign lurking beneath. Not particularly old or exciting, but it couldn't pass it by without the courtesy of a mention, especially as it's probably been recovered by now.

Having stumbled accross these pictures I think it's about time I checked to see what other gems I have tucked away in obscure folders!

The Number One Lampost in Water Lane!

Here's an interesting little item I spotted in a Kingston back street the other day. It's just behind the Bentalls complex near the river and is on Water Lane, aptly enough. As you can see it's the trunk of an old lampost and it seems to be a bit of a born survivor as over the last decade or so the whole of this area had been cleared and a range of buildings, flats and car parks had sprung up. It would appear unrecognisable to someone who lived here fifty years ago but for some reason this non-functioning lampost seems to have been left alone and would probably be the only reminder of that particular period

The box at the top is made by a company called Mazdalux which was apparently one of the brand names used by a company called British Thomson-Houston and I've spotted an interesting advert from 1945 which mentions the brand and its associations with street lighting although they were also very much involved with aircraft and airfield lighting as well.  I'm no expert in on lamposts but if pushed I'd guess that this one might date to between 1940 to 1950. It doesn't look ornately Victorian and seems a bit of a stylistic half-way house between ornamentation and functionality. As you can see in the background there are new lights down the road so the question remains as to why this one wasn't removed?

About half-way up the post are a couple of paper stickers which also intrigued me. The big number 1 is pretty obvious but it's partner underneath seems to be instructions for reporting any lamps whose lights had failed and provided the council phone number and the request to provide the street name and the lamp number.

I had harboured some thoughts that this might prove to be Kingston's number One lampost, which would be quite an honour for such a venerable old post,  but I suspect now that it might just prove to be Water Lane's number One. Not quite so prestigious, especially as there are so few competitors for the honour...   

It's a pity the phone number is missing as I'd feel it my civic duty to report the fact it's no longer working.

Elizabeth Street, Belgravia

Elizabeth Street probably isn't a London thoroughfare that rings bells with most people. It certainly didn't ring any bells with me until I found myself taking my wife there for a birthday visit to a specialist perfumer with the promise  of a birthday scent not bought from the local Boots. Les Senteurs was the intended destination and, for someone with with a slight  background in the wine trade, I have to admit it was an interesting and less intimidating experience than it might have been. For one thing smelling perfumes is not all that different from smelling wines (and there's certainly a lot less spitting) and for another the assistant was very obliging and was more than happy to provide samples to take away and try. Which is a roundabout way of saying that not only did we get to try a load of perfumes, but I was also spared the pain of actually paying for any (for the time being at least). Result!

Not expecting anything like such an agreeable experience, I'd also taken the camera along, just in case anything interesting took my eye.  Elizabeth Street is a few minutes walk from Sloane Square and the Royal Court Theatre, just off the northern branch of the Kings Road , so one of the last things I'd of expected to stumble across would be a ghost sign. Yet there it was. Almost as soon as we entered the street we could see a small mews off to the right with a still visible "Horse Infirmary and Shoeing Forge"

The view from inside the Mews - not the best of angles

It looked as though there had originally been more advertising on the top section as well as at ground level, but these had long since ceased to be visible. Still, it's a nice reminder of the original status of these small urban spaces.

     From Elizabeth Street the sign is much clearer

So, looking up was a treat, but looking down was quite interesting too. There were a couple of interesting coal-holes still in place, including one from "A. Smellie - Westminster"

Notes & Queries - Oxford Journals 1906

It's a fairly ordinary design, but I did find mention of the construction of a new building for Mr Smellie so I assume he must have been a well established local producer, and in fact Rochester Row is not all that far from Elizabeth Street, so he probably was the local supplier.

 The other designer coalhole is made by  'Luxfer Prisms 13 Hill Street London EC'.

The interesting thing about this coal-hole is that the glass prisms that would have originally helped illuminate the gloomy coal cellar have long since been replaced by concrete infills. Glassian has some more information about the Luxfer company which was producing fairly late versions of coalholes.

Luxfer Prisms - minus the prisms...

 The last items to catch my eye were a couple of plaques flanking a narrow jewellers window.

"Ornaments in Hair Plait and Mounted on the Premises - Gold & Silver Bought"

"English & Foreign Clocks & Watches Cleaned & Repaired By Experienced Workmen

 Although now under new ownership the original plaques have been left in place and make a very attractive setting either side of the main window. The company seems to be called J. Desforges but I haven't been able to find out much about them to date. The fact that working items in hair seems to be a big part of their business would suggest a late Victorian date for the company. It's an interesting use of a garter or belt motif as well although it may just be a decorative notif rather than signifying something like a Royal Warrant. Very intriguing ornaments though and credit where it's due to the new owners who must have been tempted to take them down in order to widen their window space.

I may have to go back to buy some perfume at some point but I have to say that Elizabeth Street provided me with more than a couple of unexpected pleasures!

A Balham mosaic

I suppose this is an entry to file more under 'cute' than 'intriguing' as I'm not sure there's much more to it than its aesthetic quality. It's a long thin strip of mosaic with little more than a recurring flower motif that I came across in Balham the other week. It was obviously the threshold of a decent sized premises in its heyday but now it's spread between two different shops and in places it's starting to look a little worn.

Still, despite its simplicity I was quite attracted to it and thought it was worth a brief mention. Although the flowers are simple they're quite effective and it would be interesting to know what the original store was...

The Ghost Signs of Bath - Part 2 (Faded London on Tour 2010)

Part two of the ghost signs of Bath takes us around the Pultney Bridge area, starting off with a couple of choice ghost signs in Argyle Street. This first is a building that was once a veritable billboard, with practically all of its surfaces covered in text. Although almost illegible the odd word still peeps through. It's noticeably grubbier than its neighbours as well which shows that the owners are probably conscious of their heritage potential and not keen to lose it!

Very tantalizing - your very own deciphering puzzle!

I thought this building was worthy of a couple of close ups to help with the reading process so good luck with these ones...

  

Also on Argyle Street was this brilliant effort at integrating ghost signs, ghost windows, modern art and a sense of humour! As you can see what was a lending library now has an 'interior view' painted on its ghost window. This is either a nice example of whimsy or ironic post-modernism, you pays your money and takes yer pick...

This was actually taken from the embankment of the river over to the other side. An example of extreme range ghost sign hunting and a slightly out of focus picture! A. Wills & Sons Ltd are now lurking just behind what looks like a bar or riverside pub.

A. Wills & Sons Ltd

Here are a couple more examples of faded yet preserved signage from the Pultney Bridge area. After a while ghost sign hunting in Bath becomes a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. You can't turn a corner without bumping into one!

SIGN 1...

...and SIGN 2

Back in the centre of Bath, right next to the Roman baths themselves, there's an unashamed ghost sign proudly declaring its pre-cholesterol love of cream!  (established in 1850 apparently. No idea when the cream business bit the dust though)

Just off of Beau Street there's a very nice modern spa complex called Thermae and if you look opposite there's an old pump room, again with the browned and stained painted signage carefully preserved

 

And finally for this post, just in case you're starting to find all these West Country ghost sign just too much of a good thing, here's some interesting vents, oxidised glass and wooden infills of a fine old London cellar light from Hayward and Sons!

 

Hanging on with a Southfield's ghost sign

There is a neat and orderly grid of streets in the vicinity of Southfields, South London known to local estate agents as 'The Apostles', on account of their number I'm told, as none of the streets are actually named after saints. When built it seems that every corner house on the grid was constructed as a shop, and although many have been converted to houses, you can still tell what they originally were by their shape, lack of front garden and (in the case of the one featured below) by the faintest of ghost signs!

I spotted this one on the way into Wimbledon Park down Revelstoke Road on the corner with Normanton Avenue and it didn't look too promising at first

Ex-shop now highly desirable residence!

OK, one look at the picture above and you know this ones not going to be the most visible or easy to decipher of ghost signs, but then sometimes there's a strange satisfaction to be gained by being able to pick out the odd phrase or name from a sign very much on its last legs.

I thought this was going to be an old Hovis sign at first

The spalling brickwork doesn't help here either but when you zoom in as close as you can you can just make out the old two-colour lettering at the top for and then pick out the proud boast

GEO. BROWN - HIGHEST QUALITY LOWEST PRICES

Just what it was George Brown was selling isn't clear, although I suppose a trip to the library and a search through some old Kelly's Directories might provide an answer. Good to know the locals were getting a good deal off of him though

Well it may not be the clearest ghost sign in Southfields - that honour must go to the Tote one near the High Street - but it does still have a bit of charm about it that i hope might last for another couple of years at least.

One more view for luck

Ghost Signs of Bath - Part 1 (Faded London on Tour 2010)

As promised some time back, I've finally found some time to post up some of the ghost signs I spotted whilst spending a couple of days in Bath in mid August.  And I have to emphasise 'some' here, because it seems to me that Bath is a city bursting with ghost signs of varied types and for a city whose prosperity relies on its history and it's architecture, I suspect there might be a reluctance to remove them, just in case in another 50 years they might be tourist attractions in their own right!

Everyone else in the parade has had a bit of a spruce up, so could that explain the survival of this old store sign?

As though to emphasise the abundance of ghost signs, this particular clutch were all spotted as we were actually leaving Bath on the London Road and heading out toward the motorway. A quick detour to find a parking bay on a housing estate and I was off with the camera for a happy ten minutes.

The current owners not only seem happy with the old signage but have actually named their shop 'The Old Pet Shop'. They're all designers though so I expect it fits in quite nicely with their ethos...

This one's on the corner of Cleveland Place Way, approaching the river

I realise this doesn't look particularly exciting but if you click on the picture and zoom in on the brickwork you can still make out tantalising glimpses of some quite elaborate lettering.

Maybe a bit of a close up might help a little

On the London Road, Just by Cleveland Cottages

This is quite a prominent building on a very visible stretch of road. I believe it was originally a dairy which accounts for the very nice Nestle sign which is still quite visible.

Definitely worth a bit of a close up to savour its nuances, I believe it reads Nestles (Swiss)Milk Richest in Cream Sold [by] H.J.Archard You can still make out some of the blue but sadly the red Swiss flag looks a bit washed out.

Several layers of lettering make the front of the building difficult to decipher but you can still make out the word Dairy at the bottom, which is a bit of a clue!

Best of luck with this one. Lots of very intriguing traces though.

Just off the A4 London Road - looks as though it might have been painted over at some point

I had to stop the car for a second time to photograph  this one. Looks as though the local reverence for the ghost sign includes old garages as well and they certainly carried out a decent range of services.

That's all for the leaving of Bath. Part 2 of this look at  Bath ghost signs will concentrate on the historic and tourist heart of the city and, I'm sure, only scratch the surface of what's out there!

A Brick Lane Coalhole... OR IS IT???

Or is it indeed....! I was visiting the Brick Lane area a couple of weeks ago and of course had half an eye out for anything of interest that might take its fancy. As it happened, just by the mosque, something did - a very unusual coal-hole which when viewed from one side didn't seem to make much sense, but if you took the trouble to walk around it - voila! a perfect little planet Earth in miniature

 All the World's a Coalhole! - Brick Lane

I couldn't help but be more than a little suspicious though. It was the right size for a coal-hole, it was the right shape for a coal-hole, it was even in the right place for a coal-hole but to be honest it looked a bit too arty to be a coal-hole. Certainly none of that symmetrical 'design made on a wheel' look about it that's typical of the true ironmongers coal-hole.

There was nothing else around to give any clues as to what else it might be though, so I had to wait until I was home to find out what it was I'd actually stumbled over.

What I found after a bit of searching was that it wasn't a coal-hole but something called a 'Spitalfields Roundel', one of a series of 25 individual images by local artist Keith Bowler that were created and placed as the result of the Bethnal Green City Challenge in 1995. This was a five year regeneration project for the Bethnal Green area and the roundels were one aspect of much of the work that took place in the area. The roundels were cast in iron locally and depicted scenes and images of importance locally. The globe outside the mosque was there to signify the historic  importance of immigration to the area

The 'Know Your London' website has lots more information on them including some nice sepia photographs. One thing that I did wonder and which wasn't clear on the website, was whether these roundels were sited in existing coal-holes or were they in effect plaques embedded in concrete? What I also find quite surprising and a little sad is that of the 25 roundels put in place in 1995, only 12 are still known to be in existence. Presumably the others have fallen victim to pavement repairs or rebuilding and their fate is not known. With 13 gone within 15 years you'd better get looking quick if you want to see any of the rest!

Shop Mosaics of Bath (Faded London on Tour 2010)

Faded London has taken the opportunity of a few days in the fair city of Bath to have a look around to see what there is to tantalise and tickle the taste-buds of a capital city snapper. As it turns out there was quite a bit. In fact I'd go so far as to say that the whole city revolves around the notion of the 'fade' to the extent that ghost signs especially seem to be treasured items, especially in the city centre, as you'll see in a later post. 

One area that might have a hint of the more 'accidental survivor' about it than most is the shop mosaic, of which there seem to be a fair few around. I didn't particularly take note of the locations of these items, although if I can vaguely remember the area I'll indicate its whereabouts, but  really I was just interested in recording the items themselves and I'm sure some local preservation society has them all mapped out and recorded for the local connoisseur!

Now a beauty salon, I was lucky enough to spot this one having stopped to photo a ghost sign whilst heading home toward the A4. Usually it's the name of the company that's recorded, not the business itself.

I think this one was in the vicinity of Poultney Bridge, near the weir. One of those examples where subsequent owners took the time and the money to remove the original owners name, without putting their own in its place!

If I recall correctly, this was the entrance to a bank on the High Street

Duck, Son & Pinker - a bit of an unwieldy name but still a music shop just beside Poultney Bridge. One of the more colourful of the Bath shop mosaics.

I thought this one had a thirties feel to it. It's still owned by the same company so whatever they've been doing it's obviously been ok.

One of a pair of fine mosaics in the shopfront of a now empty building. Most recently a beautician's, I'd love to know what they originally sold.

At the top of Union Street I believe. Payne is long gone but the mosaic lingers on

The same goes for L. T. Pound. No suggestion as to what he might have been involved with.

Why do I immediately think of yellow rubber gloves?

It's still the Bath YMCA with a grand mosaic to match!

My favourite Bath mosaic. A complete list of all branches in the town, even though the name of the business is missing! It's just around the corner from the Royal Crescent and next door to an Austrian shop selling cuckoo-clocks, strudel and a superb cherry flavoured hot chocolate!