 Part of the charm of ghost signs is the slow, ethereal fading away - if the inscription wasn't visibly ageing it wouldn't have that magic about it. But it's still frustrating when you come across a ghost sign that's no longer fully legible. Take this one, for 'John Hirst, Builder, on the gable end of the house he lived in, in Dartmouth Park. What does it say? Even the most assiduous of ghost signers has failed to make it out in full. But here's my best attempt: JOHN HIRST BUILDER ?????? Painter & GLAZIER General Repairs ????? Sanitary Work ????? ????? If anyone can fill-in the blanks, do let me know. The sign is at the junction of Twisden Road and Chetwynd Road, NW5. The admirable Kentish Towner has had a good look at the ghost signs at the heart of Dartmouth Park. There's a more detailed, and illustrated, account by M.H. Port, 'Living and Building in Victorian Dartmouth Park', published by the Dartmouth Park Conservation Area Advisory Committee. Many of the streets in Dartmouth Park, especially those on the southern side, bear all the hallmarks of speculative builders. They would buy a small lot of land, cram in a few houses, and the telltale sign is the variegated design - walk down a street such as Spencer Rise, and you get small clumps of houses all with the same design, then a jarring change not just to design detail, but often the number of floors as well.
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 A wonderful ghost sign off St Mary's Road in E17 which I stumbled across this morning ... as you can see from the scaffolding, there's building work underway. I hope the sign survives!
A more assiduous researcher than me has discovered that this enterprise appears to have opened in 1895, was renamed as Walthamstow Business College between the wars and closed in 1957. 
It's one of the commanding landmarks of N19 (Upper Holloway to the untutored) - and has a fair claim to be one of north London's most enduring murals. This 'smiley sun' - and doesn't the reference to "Atomic Power" date it - is painted on a gable wall at the junction of Dartmouth Park Hill and Hargrave Park. I've lived nearby for the last sixteen years, and have driven past this mural and seen it as part of my London since I moved to the city more than thirty years ago. Various attempts to find out how this smiley sun came into existence - and more details here - have thrown up two facts: it was all about the squatters' movement so evident in north London in the late '70s, and this particular piece of public art was the handiwork of Kelvin 'the mushroom maniac'. Well, I have now heard directly from Kelvin - it's only taken three years or so to track him down - and here's his account of how this landmark was born: Thanks for your interest ... in that 'smiley'! Well, can't imagine how you ever found out, but you were right, twaz me that scrolled it! How? Well, a lucky combination of circumstance I guess - A copy of that book [John W. Gofman and Arthur R. Tamplin, Poisoned Power: the case against nuclear power plants before and after Three Mile Island, 1971], a flourishing anti-nuclear movement, and me, a young headstrong hothead in thosde days, in love with life and convinced the world could be saved, (and magic mushrooms). When? Well, I can pin that down for you too - It must have been (incredibly) - 1976. How am I so certain? Well, the man who told me of your website (born at the end of '75) was a babe in our arms at the time. Homeless and living on £5 a week we heard of the incredible squatting community that thrived in that area at that time - and with a massive sign of relief we moved into that house! Why'd I graffiti my own house? Hard to say, perhaps having just got back from a nightmare demo at Aldermaston - where I'd experienced the most hideous mushroom induced vision I'd ever had in my life - (before or since) - may have had a little something to do with it! - ... Where? how? Having come across a few tins of old paint while on another blindingly enlightening anti-nuclear trip I was suddenly seized with the absolute necessity to do something about it then and there - so, in the middle of the night, much to the misgivings of my long suffering wife and convinced I'd be getting busted for it in the morning (if not while doing it) I grabbed a ladder from a building site opposite and dashed it off. (If I'd have known it was to last half a lifetime I may just have taken a little more care over it! I was in such as hurry I remember I nearly fell to my probable death in the process! - anyway, There's your story. And it's a great story, Kevin. Thank you!
Spotted yesterday evening just off Great Ormond Street - about as evocative a ghost sign as you could ever wish to find.
 Another old shop sign uncovered by renovation work - this is on Fortess Road in Kentish Town, about a hundred yards or so from the tube station. There is something bitter sweet about signs re-emerging after decades submerged, and then being covered again by the waters of time. I've been able to find out nothing about the business - can anyone help? LATER: Bill Ellson has been in touch to say: 'Evan J Evans married Jane T Laird in London in 1932. The newsagents in Fortress Road appears in the Telephone Directory from 1933 until 1964. They had two sons. The family lived above the shop.' LATER STILL: Really good news - it looks like E.J. Evans is going to have an afterlife. The new shop sign doesn't cover the old sign but nicely complements the original. AND DO READ THE COMMENTS (BY HITTING THE COMMENTS TAB AT THE TOP) - SEVERAL ARE FROM DESCENDANTS OF E.J. EVANS!  
An old shop sign - a ghost sign or shadow sign, as they are known - which adds a touch of class to a new business in Great Titchfield Street. I've been able to find out precisely nothing about J.H. Pepperell and his greengrocer business, even though it's the sort of unusual surname which usually makes online searches easier. The shop seems to have left no digital imprint at all - which is unusual. Perhaps it didn't stay in business all that long. Anyone remember it?
 Mr Patel and his family have been delivering our morning newspapers for fifteen years or more. They have an old style corner shop on Dartmouth Park Hill - at the junction of Bickerton Road, in what oldtimers would probably call Upper Holloway. It's got papers, ciggies, sweets, a bare smattering of groceries and, that signifier of the struggling local store, top shelf porn. Mr Patel has handed over his paper deliveries to another provider. He tells me that in a few weeks the shop will undergo renovation. I am not clear how extensive that will be, or indeed whether the Patels will remain in charge. But clearly it's a landmark in the history of a local landmark.  The shop has been stubbornly resistant to change - it hasn't altered in any appreciable degree since I first came to know the place in the nineties. Mr Patel and his family are often watching the TV or chatting in Gujarati in a small room just beyond the shop counter, and come out to serve as they hear the door open. It's that sort of business. A few years ago, as I recall, a modern signboard or hoarding was removed to reveal a much older sign. 'Crick's Corner'. It's still there. I've no idea whether it will outlast the renovation, but I guess it's odds against.  I took a photo of the old sign today - graced, in the bright morning sun, by the slightly menacing shadow of a street lamp. There are much better shots of the sign to be found online. I have often wondered about how Crick's Corner - not that I have heard anyone use the term in conversation - came by its name. Thanks to Sebastien Ardouin and his excellent website, I now know. Albert Crick ran a bookshop and lending library, flourishing in the 1920s and probably stretching back quite a bit earlier. He seems to have had two sites - here on Dartmouth Park Hill, and a short distance away on Swains Lane. By 1937, he was selling off his ex-library stock. The corner lending library, such a huge part of popular access to literature, couldn't compete with the rise of the cheap paperback. It seems that Crick's Corner came to an end - in its original manifestation - one side or other of the Second World War. Just the old painted sign survives. And if you want to see and savour this lingering vestige of an older London, don't hang around!  LATER: my old friend and collegue Bob Trevor, who grew up in these parts, got in touch to say: Another landmark of my life gone. Mr Crick used to cash cheques for my father, deliver newspapers and the "Boy's Own Paper" for me. His son and daughter-in-law lived next door to us in No 79. My mother and Mrs Crick jnr were great pals. In those days there was a parade of shops stretching from Chester Road to Raydon St. Happy memories.
 There is something quite bewitching when a shop renovation disinters a decades old signboard. This one has just come to light on Junction Road - and by the time you read this, it will probably be covered up again, for many decades to come.
'S.E. Devenish - Tobacconist, Confectioner'. Neatly done - perhaps a store with some style. It seems - from this website reference - that the business survived into the 1960s, and among other things printed historic postcards. It may have moved at about this time to nearby Tavistock Terrace, off Holloway Road. I would hazard a guess that this signboard dates back a fair bit earlier. There's more about this and the Kentish Town 'E. Mono' shop signboard here, on History Workshop Online.  It's the best piece of High Street conservation I've seen in a long time. I've blogged before about the wonderful shop signage which came to light during renovation on Kentish Town High Street recently. I feared and expected that the last trace of 'E. Mono - For Value' would quickly be obliterated. I was wrong. The kebab shop which has now opened at 287 Kentish Town Road has not only kept the signage. It's adopted the name. 'E. Mono' lives again!  I put my head in the door this morning as I was taking these photographs. And the man gently prising a shish kebab into a piece of pitta confirmed that the name was taken from the old signage - there was no one by the name of Mono involved in the new business. But they have certainly adopted the old name with enthusiasm. There's a pub style signboard with the name - it's on the engraved glass in the shop front, and in the tiling of the counter.  What an admirable piece of historical continuity amid the ephemeral businesses of a fairly anonymous high street. I for one will be buying a few 'freshly prepared kebab wraps' from the place simply to support this initiative.  It still begs the question: in what sort of business did E. Mono provide such value? My earlier blog prompted a response from Angela, who is keen to find out more because one of her forbears ran an adjoining shop. She's found the accompanying entry in a phone book from the late 1920s, which I post here with her permission.
Now, over to you. Commercial directories and other sources should provide an answer. My guess - given that among the other "Mono" entries in the phone book was a tailor and a costumier - is that this was either a tailoring business or a garment shop. But it is simply a guess. I am hoping that a reader of this blog will be able to tell us more.  'E. Mono, For Value'. This wonderfully evocative shop sign on Kentish Town High Street has just resurfaced for one last gasp of air. The site has recently been a cafe. Now it's being spruced up, and the renovation work has uncovered this old sign from half-a-century or more ago.  It is marvellous that such mementoes of the past can be retrieved. And immensely sad that, in all likelihood, the last trace of this old high street business will soon disappear for ever. A web search has revealed no information at all about this shop. 'Mono' is a very unusual surname. But what business did E. Mono conduct here? In what trade did he provide 'value'? And when did the shop close down? If anyone has an old trade directory to hand - or perhaps a half-hour to spare in the local library - then do share what you discover. UPDATE - 8th October 2011: I walked past this site today - the old sign is still there and spruced up. One of the developers told me that they plan to incorporate it in the new shop facade. Good one!  |
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