Route starts at Hyde Park Corner

 

Preamble

Ghost signs can come in many forms but are typically historic hand-painted advertising signs or old shop signs preserved on buildings that have since changed use. Often found in urban areas, ghost signs are an important part of the historic fabric on our high streets. These faded relics can tell us much about our collective architectural, cultural and social history.

 

While it is hard to accurately date ghost signs, it is usually agreed that they had their heyday in between the later years of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Most that have survived are painted in lead based paint.

 

STOP: Boots

LOCATION: Camden High Street, just before junction with Parkway.  Above Costa coffee

                        

Boots was established in 1849 by John Boot as a herbal medicine shop in Nottingham. It became the Boots Pure Drug Company Ltd in 1888. 

 

In 1920, John’s son, Jesse, sold the company to the American United Drug Company. However, Boots was sold back into British hands in 1933. The grandson of the founder, also John Boot, who inherited the title Baron Trent from his father, headed the company.

 

Between 1898 and 1966, many branches of Boots incorporated a lending library department, known as Boots Book-Lovers' Library.

 

Boots diversified into the research and manufacturing of drugs with its development of the Ibuprofen painkiller during the 1960s.

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STOP: Old Highbury stand

LOCATION: Junction of Avenell Road and Elwood Street

 

The home of Arsenal F.C. between 1913 and 2006. It was popularly known as "Highbury" due to its location.  The original stadium was built in 1913, when Woolwich Arsenal moved from Plumstead, leasing the recreation fields of St John's College of Divinity. The lease stipulated that no matches were to be played on "holy days" and that no "intoxicating liquor" would be sold at the stadium; however, these stipulations were dropped within a year.

 

None of the original stadium remains. What you see here is a 1930s redevelopment. The first stand completed was the West Stand, designed in the Art Deco style which opened in 1932. Shortly after, the local tube station was renamed from Gillespie Road to Arsenal. The new East Stand, matching the West, opened in 1936. The North Bank terrace was given a roof and the southern terrace had a clock fitted to its front, giving it the name the Clock End.

 

Attempts in the 1990s to expand the stadium were blocked by the community, and the resulting reduction in capacity and matchday revenue eventually led to Arsenal opting to build a new stadium, known as the Emirates Stadium. They moved there for the start of the 2007 season.  

 

The old stadium was redeveloped and converted into flats in a project known as "Highbury Square". There are 711 properties on the site. The North Bank and Clock End stands were demolished. The exteriors of the listed Art Deco East Stand and the matching West Stand were preserved and incorporated into the new developments, and the pitch became a communal garden.

 

STOP: Sunlight Soap    

LOCATION: Blackstock Road - corner of Conewood Street, just after Bank of Friendship pub

 

Sunlight is a brand of household soap introduced by Lever Brothers in 1884. It was the world's first packaged, branded laundry soap. It was designed for washing clothes and general household use. The success of the product led to the name for the company's village for its workers, Port Sunlight. 

 

The new soap used glycerin and vegetable oils rather than tallow. The Lever brothers invested in this new invention and its initial success came from offering bars of cut, wrapped, and branded soap. Previously, commercially made soap was bought in long bars and had to be cut at home. Sunlight was eventually supplanted by modern products made from synthetically produced detergents rather than naturally derived soaps.

 

In several markets (e.g., Belgium and the Netherlands) Sunlight soap has survived as a personal wash product rather than a laundry detergent.  Unilever still uses the brand in several countries around the world. However, production for Ireland and the UK ceased in 2009 due to low demand; it is available only as an import.

 

TOILETS IN CLISSOLD PARK

 

For some reason Stoke Newington has a wealth of ghost signs, so keep your eyes peeled as you cycle through.  Here are some particularly good ones to look out for.

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STOP: Walker Brothers (fountain pens)   

LOCATION: Stoke Newington Church Street, above Stokey Garden

 

This must have been painted between 1924 (when the Walker brothers moved into the premises) and 1928 when Waterman's – a national brand that would have teamed up with the brothers to appeal to customers on a local level – changed the font it used for its adverts.

 

STOP: Criterion (matches) | Westminster Gazette | Gillette (palimpsest)

LOCATION Stoke Newington Church Street, above above Stokey Garden (same building as Walker Brothers)

 

Not one of theirs, but Bryant and May made prolific use of wall painted signs under the brand name Brymay and many can still be seen.  One of the best examples is opposite Upper Holloway station. Unfortunately, there is only one on our route today has faded so badly it can no longer be seen, so we have by-passed it.

 

Two Quakers, Francis May and William Bryant, started the business in 1843.  By 1853 Bryant and May were selling over eight million boxes of matches per year. By 1860 sales had risen to 27.9 million boxes a year. Bryant and May survived as an independent company for over seventy years, but went through a series of mergers with other match companies eventually being taken over.   However, the brand still exists and it is owned by Swedish Match.

 

The London matchgirls’ strike of 1888 was caused by the poor working conditions in the match factory in Bow, including fourteen-hour work days, poor pay, excessive fines and the severe health complications of working with allotropes of white phosphorus, such as phossy jaw, but was sparked by the dismissal of just one of the workers.

 

At first, the management was firm, but factory owner, Bryant, was a leading Liberal and was nervous of the publicity.  Eventually, terms were agreed which stated that fines, deductions for cost of materials and other unfair deductions would be abolished and that in the future, grievances could be taken straight to the management without having to involve the foremen, who had prevented the management from knowing of previous complaints. Also, very importantly, meals were to be taken in a separate room, where the food would not be contaminated with phosphorus.

 

In 1891, the Salvation Army opened up its own match factory in the Bow district of London, using less toxic red phosphorus and paying better wages. Part of the reason behind this match factory was the desire to improve the conditions of home workers, including children, who dipped white phosphorus-based matches at home.  Several children died from eating these matches.

 

The Bryant and May factory received much bad publicity from these events, and in 1901 they announced that their factory no longer used white phosphorus. 

 

In 1908 the House of Commons passed an Act prohibiting the use of white phosphorus in matches.  At which point the Salvation Army closed their factory.

 

STOP: Alf Rubinstein The Purse King

LOCATION: 89 Stoke Newington Church Street

 

Several ghost signs on our tour advertised well-known products. Here’s one that displays a more intriguing name: Alf Rubinstein The Purse King.

 

Although he was only present in this building for a few years in the middle of the 1920s, Alf Rubinstein enjoyed a successful life in the leather trade with an East End empire that stretched as far afield as Great Yarmouth.

 

Alf’s story may have been lost to history had he not commissioned this painted sign. He was born around 1876. His birth name was Abraham but he later adopted Alf, a common transition among the Jewish community at that time.

 

By the turn of the century, the cottage industry started by his father had expanded and Alf was selling their wares on a stall at Petticoat Lane Market which continued until long after his death in 1941.

 

The leather trade suited Alf and he was very successful with shops in Brighton, Luton, Sutton, Victoria and Wood Green, in addition to Petticoat Lane. The factory here was a relatively short-lived affair but the ghost sign references a shop much further away in Great Yarmouth where Alf opened a kosher guesthouse and an outlet selling his leather goods. That shop was managed by his youngest son Samuel well into this century although the premises were destroyed by fire in 2016, four years after Samuel’s death.

 

STOP: Daren Bread    

LOCATION: Stoke Newington Church Street, corner of Fleetwood Street above Gail's

 

This is one of London's many ghost signs remembering a brand of loaf that has long since vanished from our shops.

 

Throughout the 19th century you tucked into a mouthwatering slice of bread at your own risk. People believed that the whiter the loaf the better the quality of the bread, and so bakers were prone to adulterating their product with all manner of additives.

 

Alum and/or chalk were popular colourings, whilst bakers could pad out their basic ingredients by the addition of mashed potatoes, plaster of Paris, pipe clay and even sawdust to increase the weight of their loaves. Rye flour or dried powdered beans could be used to replace wheat flour and the sour taste of stale flour could be disguised with ammonium carbonate.

 

It was only in the second half of the century that people began pushing for reform and, from the 1860's onwards a series of Food Adulteration Acts were passed with a view to stamping out the abuses.

 

As a result, people became more demanding and several brands were established that could guarantee the quality of their flour and set consumers' minds at rest.

 

The common way this operated was for brands to provide flour to a local baker who would then produce the loaves of that brand under licence.  The best known of these late Victorian brands today is Hovis; but, in the early 20th century Hovis had several major competitors, amongst them Daren Bread.

 

In the late 1890's and early 1900's, Daren Bread was a household name, and adverts for it appeared in newspapers countrywide. It was a brown loaf, produced by bakers all over the country from flour that was ground at the Daren Mill at Dartford in Kent.

 

Adverts for it extolled its health giving benefits. An advertorial in the Navy and Army Illustrated in 1901, for example, advised that "every mother who desires her children to have beautiful teeth and good health should see that Daren bread is their "staff of life" for the first twenty years of life while their constitutions are being made or marred.”

 

However, the mill that produced Daren flour went bankrupt in the 1930's and eventually the Daren Brand was merged into the Hovis brand and phased out.

 

STOP: John Hawkins and Sons, Cotton Spinners 

LOCATION: Stoke Newington High Street/Manley Court Alley (opposite Sainsbury Local)

 

No information.

 

STOP: Whiskies advert 

LOCATION: Above Salvation Army shop in Cazenove Road

 

Good Judges Drink

John Brown’s Whiskies

 

STOP: F. Cooper,  Job Master for Wedding Carriages, Broughams, Landaus, Cabs  

LOCATION: Cazenove Rd - on side of No 9 opposite Whiskies advert

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STOP: Cakebread Robey    

LOCATION: Stoke Newington High Street, corner of Tyssen Road

 

Cakebread Robey was a firm that supplied materials to the building trade. It was founded in 1882 by George Cakebread and Arthur Robey. The firm is still trading under the name Neville Lumb and is now known for its sanitary, plumbing and heating equipment. 

 

However as the sign reminds us that, for several decades, Cakebread Robey was also relatively well-known for its glass products. Many of their etched, engraved or embossed glass and mirrors as well as their stained glass windows can still be found around the country in pubs, hotels and churches.

 

In London, some of their best glass is at The Queens, Tottenham Lane, and The Salisbury on Green Lanes. 

 

As for their stained glass windows, the largest concentrations can be seen at St. Andrew's, Whitehall Park in Holloway, or at St. Andrew's, Chase Side in Southgate.

 

STOP: Sunday Illustrated, Gillette, Cafe, and Iron Jelloids (palimpsest) 

LOCATION: 476 Kingsland Road - on side wall above Topalogu Grocers, just after Forest Road on l/h side

 

The sign for the paper reads:

 

Sunday

Illustrated

...

Picture Paper

24 Pages 2d

 

There was more text advertising this 1920s publication, but it is hidden by the blue background for Gillette. 

 

The Sunday Illustrated was one of several newspapers and magazines founded by Horatio Bottomley, MP for South Hackney. He was a journalist, politician, and swindler who originally launched the National News paper. This was a failure and was revamped and relaunched in July 1921 as the Sunday Illustrated.  So this sign is post 1921.

 

As part of the launch campaign, Bottomley convinced the Registrar General, to allow the amendment slip for the delayed 1921 census to carry an advert for his new weekly paper. The census had been postponed because it was feared a coal dispute and the threat of a strike by railway workers would invalidate the results. So, instead of reprinting 11.5 million forms, the Registrar General printed small slips with the new date at a cost of £2,000. 

 

Although this was not a large sum, it was decided to offset it by selling the space available on the back of the slip. In early 1921 Bottomley had already offered £100,000 to have an advert for his papers printed on the original census forms but that had been rejected. In May 1921 though, Bottomley's offer of £900 per million slips was accepted. 

 

As you can imagine, the presence of an advert on official material raised a few eyebrows and questions. In Parliament, some MPs argued people could mistake the slips for an advertisement and throw the forms straight into the rubbish bin. Others argued this could be seen as official endorsement by the government. 

 

When some of the enumerators refused to distribute the contentious slip the authorities had to allow them to cross the date and write the new one instead on the original form. 

 

As a result the advertising agency that had bought the space from the Register General Office refused to pay and was sued by the Crown, while Bottomley also sued the agency. Yet far more damaging for the Registrar General was the association with Bottomley, a crook and multiple bankrupt who was about to spend five years in jail for fraud, having sold Treasury £5 Victory Bonds at a discounted price of £1 to readers of the vulgar and populist John Bull, another of his magazines. Many people subscribed but of course there were no bonds. This was the only time advertising was allowed on census material.

 

The other main advert on this wall, clearly recognisable with its typical blue background, was for Gillette. It reads:

 

Gillette

British Made

Razor Blades

 

Written vertically on the right side and equally well-preserved is the word ‘Cafe’.  Why was such a narrow space used on such a large wall? Cost may have been a reason.

 

The different ghost signs mentioned above don't account for all the words visible on this wall. One of the other products promoted here was Iron Jelloids tablets. Although it is very difficult to see "Iron Jelloids" written there, part of the text of their typical adverts can still be read:

 

Re[liable] Tonic

Of All Chemists

...

 

A few more letters that don't go with the Iron Jelloids advert can be seen here and there, suggesting yet another ghost sign, but this one will remain a mystery.

 

STOP: Blooms Pianos

LOCATION: 134 Kingsland Road, next to Geffrye Museum (Museum of the Home)

 

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 and the Waterman’s Fountain Pen sign we saw earlier have both been recognised for their “Aesthetic or Artistic” merit, and also for their historical significance. The impact of this listing is that the Council must now think about their heritage significance when considering planning applications that affect them.

 

Research reveals nothing further about Blooms. I guess they just disappeared off the face of the earth like many other businesses, with nothing but an old advert as a legacy.

​

STOP: Wells and company commercial iron works

LOCATION: Opposite St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch

 

Built in 1877 this was the showroom, shop and factory of Edward Wells who ran a wholesale ironmongers making stoves, ranges, guttering and pipes, but also decorative accessories for the furniture trade.

 

The building is an eclectic design with a mix of gothic and Moorish inspirations, There’s some lovely detail of tiled patterns. Not so lovely is the ‘subtle’ addition of a modern window, cutting out the ‘o’ and ‘r’ of works!

 

Wells & Co. wasn’t here that long and left this location in 1895.  This building dates from a time when it was considered worthwhile to make industrial buildings look attractive.

 

STOP: Ghost building

LOCATION: Gun Street/Artillery Lane junction

 

Sometimes retaining facades is done with great sensitivity and the modern building can complement the older. However, there are some pretty horrendous examples of ‘façadism’.  This is one of them.

 

The Cock A Hoop tavern was established by 1788 at No.1 Gun Street. But it’s likely this is the facade of the second building on the site.  

 

The pub belonged to Meux’s Brewery.  Although the brewery no longer exists, its name became infamous due to the London Beer Flood of 1814. At that time, its brewery was based on Tottenham Court Road, close to where the Dominion Theatre is now. Surrounding the brewery were the incredibly impoverished slums of St Giles. 

 

On 17 October, one of the huge beer vats ruptured, spilling 323,000 imperial gallons of beer onto the surrounding streets. The beer flooded basement homes and destroyed several buildings, resulting in the deaths of eight people, half of which were children. 

 

Meux and Co were taken to court, but amazingly managed to escape prosecution, with the judge and jury claiming the spill was an ‘Act of God’. The brewery was demolished in 1922, with the Dominion Theatre going up on the site in 1928-29.

 

The Cock A Hoop appeared to be a successful business during the Victorian era.  By 1884, it had been renamed The Artillery Tavern but was closed by 1915. By the 1980s, all the pub signage had been removed, but the building was still in use. Today, the façade casts a shadow over the modern extension of Lilian Knowles House – an accommodation building for students of the London School of Economics. 

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STOP: Take Courage    

LOCATION: Redcross Way, junction with Park Street

    

This is one of London's most famous ghost signs. It is on one of the remaining buildings of the Anchor Brewery - a house built around 1807 for senior employees.  Slogan must have been painted some time after 1955, the year the brewery merged with its London rival Courage.

 

The brewery closed in 1981 and the land was subsequently sold for redevelopment. The Anchor pub and this sign are two of the few reminders of what used to be a major industrial site in the heart of London.

 

STOP: Monster Clothing

LOCATION: Borough High Street, to the right of Newcommen Street

    

The Monster Ready Made and Bespoke Clothing Establishment, Albion House Clothing Comp’y, Branch Establishments, Paris, Antwerp and Ghent, Borough High St, founded in 1900 the Albion Clothing Company traded here until 1910.  It also had branches in Peckham and Walworth.

 

TOILETS IN FLAT IRON SQUARE

 

STOP: James Ashby    

LOCATION: Union Street, opposite the Print Rooms

 

Rose Brand Fine Teas were one of the brands within the James Ashby & Sons portfolio. The ‘Ventilator’ bit underneath seems to relate to something that perhaps came before James Ashby’s occupation of the building. 

 

Perhaps most interesting is that James Ashby & Sons filed a patent for a coffee substitute as recently as 1978, apparently in response to rising coffee prices at the time. This had as ingredients the unlikely combination of barley, chicory, fig, soya and more. It isn’t clear if this concoction ever came to market but my guess is not! 

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STOP: St Andrews Church    

LOCATION: Roupell Street, junction with Windmill Walk

 

This historic neighbourhood was developed between 1820 and 1840 on a marsh after the erection of Waterloo Bridge in 1818.  It was built by John Roupell, and was called the Lambeth Estate.  It is a conservation area.

 

The church was built in 1856.  Sadly, it was bombed beyond repair in an air raid during the Second World War and demolished soon after. Only the sign survives. 

 

Amazingly, most of the Lambeth Estate escaped Hitler’s bombs, and it is virtually unique as a classic example of artisan housing of the period, still retaining its original shops, pub, school (no 74) and teachers’ house (no. 77). It is regularly featured in TV and film productions. One of these houses will cost you well over £1m today.

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STOP: Little Crown Court Tailor

LOCATION: Tisbury Court

    

The street featured on the sign, Little Crown Court, became Tisbury Court in 1937.

 

This sign dates back to the late 19th century. Only half of it is written in English. The rest is in French. Yet this is hardly surprising given the location and its history...

 

Discrimination against French Protestants in France pushed many to cross the Channel. In London they settled around Threadneedle Street, Spitalfields, and Soho, where, in around 1680, the Huguenots had taken over a church built originally for the Greek community. The presence of a French community in Soho acted as a magnet for those who would come later.

 

During the 1860s and 1870s, large numbers of Germans, Italians, and Swiss also settled in Soho. In the 1890s, they were joined by Polish and Russian Jews, many of whom had previously been living in Whitechapel. However the southern part of Soho, immediately behind Leicester Square, still kept a French character, largely thanks to the genuine French shops, cafes, and restaurants in the area.

 

The heyday of French Soho was before and just after the First World War. From the 1920s growing numbers of Italian cooks settled in the area and they were followed by a myriad of other nationalities, who all brought their distinctive flavours to the area.

 

It was the presence of these French-owned restaurants and hotels that explains why half of this ad is in French. 

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STOP: Little Compton Street

LOCATION: Junction of Old Compton Street and Charing Cross Road (look down though the grating on the traffic island)

 

Maps from the 1790s show Little Compton Street connecting Old and New Compton Streets, in between Greek and Crown streets. But all of that came to an end in 1896 when the area was demolished for the building of the Charing Cross Road.

 

Little Compton was turned into a utility tunnel. 

 

It is not a street at all, but is part of the subway network built beneath Charing Cross Road to carry the utilities for the emerging modern age of London. By containing the utilities in a network of accessible subways, disruption could be kept to a minimum, as they wouldn't have to dig up the road every time something needed repairing or relaying.

 

The tunnels have numerous such signs along their lengths and they served the simple purpose of letting workmen know where they were beneath the streets of London. Without them they’d have to pop to the surface every so often to figure out where they were.

 

The upper of the two signs (the blue and white one) may possibly have been rescued from Little Compton Street when it was demolished, it certainly looks old enough, but the wall to which it is attached is certainly not a surviving wall from the old thoroughfare that managed to dodge the redevelopment of the area in the 1880’s.

 

The ride ends at the cafe in Russell Square