Fascia

J.R. Brewer, the Butcher

I’d always noticed number 77 Shacklewell Lane because of the ghostsign below. Although very faint, I always thought it advertised a business called/run by Grime. However, as we’ll see below, this word was in fact ‘Prime’. Below this was a blacked out shop fascia, overlooking the bus stop. Back in January I was cycling past […]

8 Mar 2015

E. Mono in North London

Back in 2011 an old 1920s shop fascia was revealed on Kentish Town High Street. The nature of the E.Mono business remains a mystery but the new occupants, a kebab shop, decided the sign was worth keeping and named their shop after the historic proprietors. (Andrew Whitehead has written detailed pieces on the reveal on […]

28 Feb 2015

The Fantastic World of Shopfrontelegy

I’ve recently subscribed to Shopfrontelegy, a post-per-day blog from Vici MacDonald, the photographer and publisher behind Formerly. Given my recent interest in ‘fading fascias‘ the blog has been compulsive reading/viewing, with a collection of shopfront photography going back many years. It should probably come with a health warning about the hours you’re likely to lose […]

30 Jul 2014

W.A.Higgs & Co: A Stoke Newington Beauty

Walking past Tatreez, the Palestinian restaurant, I spotted this beautiful Victorian sign on the inside. It is clearly a shop fascia which got me wondering why it isn’t on the front? I did some digging at the Hackney Archives and found out that W.A.Higgs & Co. was an importer of tea. They had premises at […]

21 May 2014

F.C. Osborn and the Fading Fascias

This beautiful shop fascia was recently revealed on Dalston Lane, Hackney, London, as part of renovations to the shop by a new tenant. (Thanks Bryce for tipping me off!). The following photos show some of the detail of this sign for F.C.Osborn, Bookseller, who occupied the premises from the mid-1920s to at least 1950. Prior […]

2 May 2014

Melbourne’s Milk Bars and the signs that adorned them

This is one of the shop signs found in this article which profiles the decline in Melbourne’s Milk Bars, retail outlets that once dotted the streets.  The article features a collection of 22 other shop signs and fascias and was spotted by Stef on the investigatory Finding the Radio Book blog.  The comments suggest that […]

28 Jun 2012