Tuesday 19 January 2010

Cars, Trucks; Wimbledon

While some old painted signs have been relatively well preserved and are easy to read, deciphering others can be a bit of a challenge. Then again, sorting out the jumble to reveal what was written is generally fun (although it can also be slightly frustrating sometimes).
In the case of the wall below, although it is possible to distinguish three different layers, some parts are either too intermingled or faded to be able to read them.


The oldest product advertised, written in lower case and italic was hard to identify. It looked like
Fors... [not sure about the 's' though]

This is because it was covered by the most recent layer, which read
To Let
Apply W... W...

Finally the second sign promoting the services of the local garage read:
Cars, Trucks Trac... [Tractors?]
Repairs
Service
Depot

A few more letters could be identified here and there in the lower part, including some making what looked like
London
painted in white (thus maybe part of the most recent sign), but the rest didn't make much sense...

Unfortunately the wall on which these signs were painted was demolished a few weeks after I too my picture, so no need to jump on your cameras and rush to Wimbledon. All you'll see now is an undistinct small building stuck between the road and the tramway tracks.

Location: Hartfield Road / Picture taken on: 14/03/2008

1 comment:

Sam Roberts said...

Hi Sebastien, let me know if you'd be interested in joining us for the ghostsigns archive launch in March, my email ghostsigns@gmail.com.