History

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

Writing on the Whale and Other Novelties

Joe Thompson emailed me these fascinating photos of lettering on unusual objects, namely a dead whale (1919) and a shipwrecked oil tanker (1926). They are from San Francisco, recently donated to the Western Neighbourhoods Project. Read more about the photos and the project on SF Weekly News. As a bonus, an exploding whale video below. […]

4 Feb 2015

R.N. Cattle & Son in Harvey Gould’s Soho

This fascinating video about Soho features longtime resident Harvey Gould talking about the people and places that he remembers from the area. At 10:48 he discusses the painted wooden sign for R.N. Cattle & Son in Portland Mews. He then heads up the mews itself to reveal the ghost of cricket stumps once painted onto […]

21 Dec 2014

Ancient Indonesian Cave Paintings

Here is the latest discovery relating to the ancient history of paint on walls around the world. This time the image above and others depicting human features and animals have been found in Indonesia and dated to 35,000 to 39,000 years old. This is comparable to the oldest in Europe which are in Spain. Read […]

10 Dec 2014

Ghostsigns in the Family: Henry Dunn of Deal

This mid-1800s photograph shows a painted sign on the wall in Deal, Kent, advertising Henry Dunn and his various trades of cabinet maker, upholsterer, paper hanger, undertaker, broker and more. Born in 1818, Henry Dunn is my Great Great Great Grandfather, so I was chuffed to discover that he shared my appreciation of the hand-painted […]

15 Jan 2014

The Mick McTiernan ‘Wall Paintings’ Collection

Mick McTiernan has sent me his collection of archival ghostsigns photography, and what a collection it is. (More in his Ghost Signs set.) Proving that fading advertising painted on walls has held people in fascination for many years, Mick dates some of his images to the mid 1980s. Lots of them I recognise from submissions […]

15 Sep 2013