H. Law, baker, and Memory Makers, Exmouth

To conclude this series of signs and mosaics from southeast Devon, here is a building displaying ghost signs for two, maybe three, completely different businesses, including one with a great name.

This building was originally a bakery, as advertised high up on the gable.

Law's
Premier
Hygienic
Bakery

To find out more about hygienic bakeries, please check these earlier posts about Hygienic Bakeries Ltd and Hovis.

The ghost sign on the lower part of this wall is much more recent. Indeed Memory Makers, the photo studio of Julian Francis Bates, is mentioned on several occasions in professional magazines and in Country Life between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s.

Memory
Makers

This is such a great name, and such a nicely designed sign! The curlicues remind me of ribbons. Did they wrap photo prints with ribbons? Maybe not.

More information about H. Law can be found on the façade of the building.

H. Law
Baker
Tea Dealer
&
Corn Factor

Another ghost sign appears on the wooden part between the ground and first floors.

Appointed
Oil Fired Heating
Installer

This is surrounded by the logos of Shell and of an unidentified company. Did this mean a heating engineer once occupied these premises? If so that would have been after the bakery closed down and before the early 1980s when Memory Makers moved in. Or was this simply some kind of certificate indicating the heating system inside had been installed by a qualified professional and not some kind of rogue trader? Given the small size of this ghost sign, I believe the second option to be right.

Location: South Street, Exmouth, Devon / All pictures taken in April 2012