Sam Roberts

RIP: London Co-Op, Frederic Street

This ghost sign for the London Co-Operative Society on Frederic Street, London E17, has now been partially covered by new signage for the Still Bar and Restaurant. In addition, the last visible portion of the sign, a small strip on the right, has been painted out in white. While most of the sign is likely […]

10 Oct 2017

‘London Sign by Sign’ by Marco Bazelmans

Back in May, Marco Bazelmans contacted me about a project he was working on as part of his communication design studies in Aachen, Germany. The brief was to create a guide of some sort, and he had selected signwriting as his theme. In particular, he had honed in on the idea of portraying signwriting, both […]

4 Oct 2017

More Minnesota Ghostsigns…

Earlier this month I was back in Mazeppa, Minnesota for more workshops with Mike Meyer and Better Letters. This gave me an opportunity to see some of the signs there without the snowy backdrop, and also to spend some time in Minneapolis where there were numerous new ghostsigns to discover. (See my earlier photos here.) […]

21 Jul 2017

When Better Letters Met Cliff Headford

This is a reposting of the article that originally appeared here on the Better Letters blog. On 4th July 2016 I received the following email in response to a book I was working on at the time: I care for an elderly gentleman in Bristol, now nearly 96, who was a sign painter after the […]

1 Jul 2017

Fading Ads of Gloucester by Chris West

Fading Ads of Gloucester extends the current series from the History Press in the UK, USA, and Ireland. The material has been researched and gathered by Chris West, graphic designer for the publisher. The format of the titles in the series varies but this one opts for some very brief introductory comments, before moving into […]

29 Apr 2017

Dingo Flour Restoration in Fremantle Australia

On one of my recent Bankside Ghostsigns Walks an Australian guest tipped me off about the recent restoration of a famous Dingo Flour ghost sign in Fremantle, Australia. This was undertaken at the end of 2016 with a grant from the Western Australian Heritage Council. The sign was originally painted in 1940, and was maintained […]

22 Apr 2017

The Vacuum Shop and George Braun

Guests on my Stoke Newington Ghostsigns Walk in early 2015 were lucky to see a bonus fading fascia en route, advertising The Vacuum Shop. This was revealed by works to the Anglo Asian restaurant, which now straddles numbers 60 and 62 Stoke Newington Church Street. Ben Selig was the proprietor of an “electrical appliances” shop […]

15 Apr 2017

Harwich’s Shops: Now & Then

Mary Roberts recently visited Harwich and captured these photos of the Harwich Old Bookshop, with it’s distinctive glass fascia, tiled panel in the entrance-way, and mosaic threshold sign. Her friend Christine then did some digging via the wonderful site, Harwich & Dovercourt, and discovered an archival photo of the shop in an article, Through the […]

8 Apr 2017

Hidden Coca-Cola Ghostsign in Portland’s Witherspoon Building

Building work hems in two ghost signs, one for Coca-Cola and one for Dodson’s Whiskey, in Portland, Oregon.

1 Apr 2017

Quernmore Road Signs & Ghostsigns Cluster

Above is my 2007 photo of the Brymay/John Bull palimpsest on Quernmore Road in Haringey. At the time, in addition to wondering who John Bull was, I said I needed to go back in the winter when the tree would be less obstructive. I did so a couple of weeks ago, as part of my […]

25 Mar 2017

Gold Dust Washing Powder: An Unsettling Reveal

Lurking in my folders of blog post ideas I came across a photo that I’d forgotten about, of a ghostsign advertising Gold Dust Washing Powder. This is shown below and was quite small so I did a few searches and discovered the one above, used in this extended article from Velma Maia Thomas about the […]

18 Mar 2017

Scales, Weights & Weighing Machines in London’s Kings Cross

This popular London ghostsign is located at the Kings Cross end of Gray’s Inn Road, with the photo above from Jennifer Pedler and the History of Advertising Trust. A couple of years ago I gave a talk at Middlesex University where one of the students, Mariana Messaggi, was researching the origins of the company as […]

11 Mar 2017

East End Shops from Spitalfields Life

Spitalfields Life has published a series of pieces documenting East End shop fronts, in support of the campaign against the forthcoming rise in business rates across the area. I have picked one photo from each piece and would encourage a proper browse of all of them. Fascinating stuff! Alan Dein’s East End Shops John Claridge’s […]

4 Mar 2017

John Hawkins, Steeles & Chaney Signs

This ghostsign on Stoke Newington High Street comes at about the halfway point of my walking tour through the area. It is a palimpsest which has been well researched by Sébastien Ardouin. I recently took a couple of close-up photos, one of which has added to this information about the sign. Sébastien references this old […]

25 Feb 2017

William Walker & Sons, Tanners, Curriers

This very faint ghost sign on Snowfields in Bermondsey is close to the start of my Bankside Ghostsigns Walk. It may not be around much longer if the building is lost to demolition, or another goes up in front of it as part of the redevelopment of the area around it. Roy Reed shared this […]

18 Feb 2017

What is a Ghost Sign?

‘What is a Ghost Sign?‘ is the title of the second chapter of our book, Advertising and Public Memory. It is an attempt to provide a logical approach to formulating a definition, and a formal response to the many times I’ve been asked, ‘Does this count?’. The article started life a few years ago as […]

11 Feb 2017

Painted Advertisements in Islington: Part 1

I am conducting a small investigation into the ghostsigns of Islington and am appealing for help from readers of this blog. The map below (view full screen) will form the basis for this, in the context of the following notes. Recently while going through old binders with some of my very early research into ghostsigns […]

4 Feb 2017

Ken Jones’ Butte Palimpsests

Dr Ken Jones has been doing an incredible job documenting the ghostsigns of America via his American Ghosts project. Not only does this involve detailed photographic documentation (see previous post on his process), but also pinning ghostsigns onto an ever-growing map. This now pinpoints thousands of examples and allows areas with high densities of signs […]

28 Jan 2017

NOTICE: An English Language Ghostsign in Paris

I heard about this ghostsign in Paris via an email from Ralph Adam. It caught my attention for the use of English language on an historic sign in France and reminded me of the British Legion sign in Ypres, Belgium. It was then photographed by Adam Roberts of Invisible Paris and some email correspondence between […]

21 Jan 2017

Tracing the Origins of ‘Ghost’ Signs

When did old painted signs on walls become known as ‘ghost’ signs, and who coined the phrase? These questions crop up often in my discussions with others, and on my tours, and I always have to hold my hand up and say I didn’t invent the term, but have just made use of it for […]

14 Jan 2017

When Daren Became Hovis: A Bizarre Ghostsigns ‘Restoration’

‘Ask for Daren Bread’ was once the simple slogan on this ghostsign on Avignon Road, London, SE4. The above image was taken by Lisa Edwards in 2007, sourced here in the History of Advertising Trust Ghostsigns Archive. The site was likely a former bakery, sourcing its flour from the mills on the river Darent in […]

7 Jan 2017

Photos of Old Stoke Newington

Amir Dotan’s excellent History of Stoke Newington project has just published over 4,000 images on Flickr, from a variety of sources. They are well worth a browse, as are his Facebook and Twitter feeds. While looking through I pulled out a handful relating to locations featured on my Ghostsigns Walking Tour. The famous, and listed, […]

3 Jan 2017

Advertising & Public Memory: Social, Cultural and Historical Perspectives on Ghost Signs

Advertising & Public Memory is the first scholarly book focused on ghostsigns. It was a labour of love across much of 2015, work that included editing others’ work, as well as contributing to some of the writing inside, notably an attempt to answer the question ‘What is a Ghost Sign’ (Chapter 2). After submitting the […]

27 Dec 2016

Spitalfields Ghostsigns from Philip Marriage

Philip Marriage recently sent me this photo of these perpendicular palimpsests at the junction of Brick Lane and Princelet Street. He was trying to work out what they say. This followed his question about the location of another Spitalfields ghostsign which followers on Twitter and Facebook were able to track down to Hanbury Street. I […]

20 Dec 2016