Hackney

The Boyd is Back in Town

Boyd Pianos’ ghost sign on Shaklewell Lane, London E8, revealed again after 13 years’ hibernation.

16 May 2025

Lancell Road’s Mystery Ghost Sign

[Download in high resolution] At 49 Stoke Newington Church Street, junction with Lancell Road, is this fragment of a ghost sign which, despite my best efforts, has remained a mystery in terms of decyphering. It would once have extended further to the right to fill the chamfer, but this portion was left exposed and subsequently […]

2 Nov 2018

NE Signs Scavenger Hunt

Following a series of discussions on Twitter myself and a handful of others have decided to run a scavenger hunt to locate, photograph and map the remaining street signs featuring the now-defunct NE London Postal District. It will take place 2-5pm on the afternoon of Saturday 21 April, meeting at the Clapton Hart, 231 Lower […]

13 Apr 2018

Numbers 3-7 Stoke Newington Church Street

On one of my walking tours back in 2014 guests had the opportunity to see this reveal of a newsagent and tobacconists’ sign at No.5 Stoke Newington Church Street. Starlove, as it was known, occupied the premises from at least 1962 until the late 1970s and, prior to that, it had been a newsagent since […]

29 Dec 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

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

RIP: Signwriters – Gilding & Pictorial Artists

This beautiful gilded script once marked the home of Ambridge Signs. When they left the premises the sign didn’t come with them and, until last month, it provided a reminder of the area’s signwriting heritage. It was situated on this unassuming building at the end of a terrace on Southgate Road, De Beauvoir, but has now […]

21 Mar 2015

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

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

Time Travel with Google Streetview

This fragment of a ghostsign for Daren Bread in Stoke Newington is one of the stops on my walking tour in the area. Now, thanks to Google Streetview’s new ‘timelapse’ feature, we are able to visit the location as it was in 2008, prior to the removal of the mounted sign for Lemongrass. This clearly […]

29 Apr 2014

Rediscovering Club Labrynth on a Type Safari

This is my creation following Sunday’s Type Safari in Dalston with Type Tasting. It is a composite of various pieces of public lettering and signage that I photographed while on ‘safari’ with Type Tasting’s Sarah Hyndman. The brief was to bring a phrase that represents Dalston for me, and then to seek out its letters […]

21 Jan 2014

Local Listed Status for Hackney Ghost Signs

Love Local Landmarks, an English Heritage-backed project, has been successful in gaining local listing status for two of Hackney’s most famous ghostsigns. The Blooms Piano sign (above) and the Waterman’s Fountain Pen sign on Stoke Newington Church Street have both been recognised for their “Aesthetic or Artistic” merit, and also for their historical significance. The […]

12 May 2013

Stoke Newington Ghostsigns: History Pin Tour

After discovering the ‘Ghost Signs of Louisville’ Tour on History Pin I couldn’t resist having a go myself. The preliminary result is my first tour, ‘Stoke Newington Ghostsigns’.  I reckon the walk would take a couple of hours depending on how long you stop to photograph the 18 featured signs and former locations of signs. […]

18 Dec 2011

Love Local Landmarks and the Hackney Society

To protect or not to protect? As I’ve discussed before, my interest in Ghostsigns started in my home borough of Hackney in London. The concentration of specimens in Stoke Newington intrigued me and I had to learn more about them. I was soon finding and photographing great examples not only in Hackney but across the […]

29 Oct 2011

Street Art

sarflondondunc, ever alert to the gradual shifts in our Ghostsigns landscape, alerted me to this new piece of street art positioned on the great Boyd Pianos sign on Shacklewell Lane, Hackney. It’s by the Canadian artist Specter and is part of the ‘If I saw you in heaven’ project. This attempts to “address the issue of […]

11 Aug 2010

The Return of Boyd Pianos

I saw the above headline come through on my RSS feed from Flickr and I was very excited to see the news from Fin Fahey that the classic Boyd Pianos sign has returned after being covered for some time. Perhaps something similar might happen to the old Redferns double-bill in Wandsworth one day… Good spot […]

20 Nov 2008

Boyd Pianos

Charlie, sarflondondunc and Ross all told me about this great sign for Boyd Pianos that has recently been revealed on Shacklewell Lane in Hackney, presumably by the removal of a billboard. It is interesting on a number of levels, not least the quality of preservation 1. It is advertising pianos which is something you would […]

23 Nov 2007

Hackney Gazette

Yesterday (11th October) the Hackney Gazette did a nice spread on the project.  I had a few photos taken for this, some of them very cheesy, so I was quite pleased with their eventual selection. It was great to see some more of my pictures in print, especially those that are most local to me. […]

12 Oct 2007

Hackney Council

In preparing an article for the Hackney Gazette a response came from the council as to what they’re doing to preserve old ads.  In principal this is very positive, especially given the large number of signs in the borough (a rare double pictured). The following message came from Emma Britton, Media Officer, Hackney Council: Please […]

8 Oct 2007

John Brown’s Whiskies

Yesterday I hopped on the bike and went out to follow up some leads given to me by friends. On my way to the first sign, the great Spitalfields Gillette, I went past three or four in the same area that I hadn’t expected to see.  This is generally the nature of ‘hunting’, that new […]

22 Jul 2007

Gillette Palimpsest 2

Here’s another example from the Gillette campaign where there are three signs revealed on one site (palimpsest) in Dalston: Gillette across the middle; Cafe vertically on the right; Sunday… on the diagonal in the top left. There are probably even more but these are the most prominent.

2 Jul 2007

Gillette Palimpsest

Following the previous post on Gillette Razors I was looking again at this sign which I had always referred to as ‘Westminster Criterion Matches’. It is a rare example of two signs on different walls of the same building, sharing its home with my original post. On closer inspection it is possible to make out […]

2 Jul 2007

Vaneers

This is a huge sign for London and is tucked away round the back of Shoreditch High Street/Kingsland Road.  It was painted in order to be highly visible from the nearby train line and has the old style way of writing phone numbers, SHO (Shoreditch) being 746. Out of view on this picture is the 7 […]

25 Jun 2007

Blooms Pianos

I photographed this fantastic sign today after going past it so many times on the bus. It’s just by the Geoffrey Museum in Shoreditch and is covered at this time of year by a big tree.   I had to do a bit of monkey-style climbing to get onto the roof underneath, hence the odd angle. […]

19 Jun 2007