Palmers, Richmond

Palmers' drapery stores may have disappeared but their ghost sign is still an eye-catching feature of Kew Road. The design is rather modern but, somehow, I find the rolls of cloth on each side of the name slightly too angular.

Drapery
Palmers
Stores
Location: Kew Road / Picture taken in October 2011

Belle Vue House, Richmond

Why would a formerly-detached late 18th century house have its name painted across its façade?

Belle Vue House
A much smaller sign, slightly altered on one occasion, on the south front may provide an answer.

Belle Vue
House / Hotel
This Georgian house was enlarged in the 19th century, possibly when it was converted into a hotel. My guess is it was the hotel owners who added the large sign onto the street façade and this small one, visible from the road leading towards the centre of Richmond from the south.

Location: Petersham Road / Pictures taken on: 21/05/2008

Vigor, Richmond

What could a Victorian shop called Vigor have been selling? If anyone has any idea, please leave your suggestions through the comments link. Somehow, even if the meaning is similar, I'd like to think it is the Latin word, "vigor, -oris", rather than the English one that is written there.


For years the shop remained empty and a thick layer of grime and dust covered this doostep mosaic. Then last year the toy and bookshop Story Explorers moved in and after much scrubbing the mosaic has now regained its colours.

Location: St Mary's Grove / Picture taken on: 06/03/2011

Hygienic Bakeries Ltd, Richmond

Here is strangely located sign. It is painted at the back of a building, facing a small residential street, which certainly never witnessed much traffic (even more so now that it has been turned into a dead-end road). Had it been on the side or the front of the building it would have been seen by hundreds of people, but there, only locals would have noticed it. In my case, it's been a common sight for years simply because it is on our way to Kew Gardens.

Hygienic
Bakeries
Ltd
Bakers
Confectioners
Caterers
An online search did not provide much information about Hygienic Bakeries Ltd, a firm with branches in Richmond, Twickenham, Chiswick, and Gunnersbury. In the Richmond area, they had several bakeries including one on Hill Street, the original shop of the celebrated Richmond tarts the 'Maids of Honour', which they took over in 1921 and closed in 1957. Another was located on North Road, near Kew Gardens station. As for the one where today's sign can be seen, it stood roughly half-way between the two, on Lower Mortlake Road.


Self-proclaimed 'hygienic bakeries' seem to have flourished across the kingdom (and in other English speaking countries) from the last quarter of the nineteenth century onward. Many traces of and testimonies about 'hygienic bakeries' can be found from Glynde in East Sussex to Oakham in Rutland and Stone in Staffordshire, or closer to London from West Norwood to Wimbledon and Knighstbridge, to mention but a few. But what makes a bakery 'hygienic'? To be honest, I don't really know but I suspect the adjective relates to the use of new machinery and in particular of a cleaner baking oven as the example of the bakery in Glynde would suggest.

Access to the bakery is obtained from the engine-room. First, however, we find ourselves in the old bakehouse, built about the same time as the mill. Here is the old furnace oven which is now almost disused, having to give place to the new hygienic oven installed in a spacious new bakehouse by Geen and Sons of Lewisham. Of this Messrs Cooper and Aylwin speak in high praise, combining as it does economy of fuel, time and labour, with absolute cleanliness. It is built of the best hard burnt bricks from Capt Brand's estate, and the furnace door is constructed at the back in a separate department, so that all fuel is kept out of the bakehouse proper, the flues running round the top, bottom, and sides, and not into the oven itself. This is a decided improvement on the old system, as there is no danger of the fumes entering the baking chamber, and it gives a pleasing air of cleanliness and order to the place. The front of the oven is finished in red bricks, with pyrometer for gauging the heat, oven and flue damper, hot water tank (built in the side), and large 'prover' for small goods. Everything works very smoothly indeed, and Messrs Cooper and Aylwin have the satisfaction of knowing that in the first six months that the oven has been built, their trade in bread and small goods increased quite three sacks per week.
From The Sussex Express, Saturday 18 April, 1896.

Did such ovens improve the final quality of the product? They certainly reduced the risk of impurities getting into the bread both before and during the baking process, and eliminated the strong smokey taste some loaves could have. Given that at least until the first decades of the twentieth century bread was in quite a few cases of more than dubious quality, the introduction of such ovens must have been a clear progress and those bakers who invested in one would have wanted to capitalize on it by proclaiming their 'hygienic' status loud and clear.

Location: Pagoda Avenue / Pictures taken on: 01/02/2010

The Temperance Permanent Building Society, Richmond and Lewisham

With the holidays in China and the extra work that goes with the beginning of a new academic year now behind, it's time to bring this blog back to life.

China was full of painted signs, especially in rural areas. My guess is that most of them, and virtually all the older ones given the nature of the regime and its past policies, were of a political nature but in the south I came across plenty of large ads for China Mobile, one of the country's mobile phone providers (easy to recognize: the company's name was written in English), and several for a couple of building companies. Unfortunately I saw most of them while travelling by bus and couldn't take all the pictures I would have liked. Still, I came back with some but before posting them I'll ask my Chinese colleagues from the languages department if they don't mind translating a few for me.

Unfortunately on the day I flew back home clouds were low and the only thing we could see before landing at Heathrow were streets after streets of 1920s-30s houses. That reminded me of the painted ads for the Temperance Building Society, which feature such a typical suburban house.
I came across the sign in Richmond in February. It had certainly been hidden by a billboard for some time, and that would explain why one part is so well preserved while the rest has disappeared. It would also explain why I hadn't noticed it ealier as I pass there quite often. Even though only part of the name is visible, a quick search on the net pointed to it being for the Temperance Permanent Building Society, one of many building societies that appeared in the 1830s-40s. As the name suggests it adhered to the principles of the temperance movement, and its directors were required to sign The Pledge on a yearly basis. This was confirmed a few months later when I spotted another, this time complete, sign in Lewisham. Its incredibly good state is due to the fact that since 1933 it had been almost completely hidden by the building of the former Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society! On the picture, I have slightly brightened the sign while leaving the rest unchanged (you can click to enlarge it).

Choose Your House
And The
Temperance
...
A suburban dream...
Location: Sheen Road / Both pictures taken on: 17/02/2009

Choose Your House
And The
Temperance
Permanent
Building Society
4 Ludgate Hill EC4
Will Help You
To Buy It
Location: Lewisham High Street / Picture taken on: 23/07/2009

In 1974 the Temperance Permanent Building Society merged with the Bedforshire Building Society to form the Gateway Building Society. In 1988 the latter was bought by the Woolwich. The requirement to sign The Pledge was dropped at the time of the merger with the BBS.

White Mantles, Richmond

Since I don't have much time these days, I have chosen a ghost sign I don't have much to write about. Three weeks ago, Yelfy published another of his fascinating accounts about southwest London, this time about Richmond-upon-Thames. Just to add to what he posted, here is a ghost sign that was on his way but is tricky to spot. The sign itself has badly faded, the pavement is pretty narrow, and on the other side of the street is a tiny sloping garden protected by a small railing.

	4d Sunlight
Branch		Wholesale

[written at a 65° angle on each side of the window]

White Mantles 4d

Location: Richmond Hill / Both pictures taken on: 21/05/2008

Candy stores, Richmond

As I look through the windows, now that the sun is shining and temperature rising the red deers in Richmond Park move from the open fields near Roehampton and Sheen gates to Duchess Wood near White Lodge to find some shadow.
That reminds me that Richmond has a few ghost signs and mosaics, including one I noticed only a few months ago, even though I've been crossing the park and walking down Richmond Hill regularly for about ten years... If you know the place, I'm sure you'll understand why I didn't spot it earlier: the view over the Thames valley is so lovely that you're irresistibly drawn towards it, and you become almost oblivious to what lays behind you. Earlier this year though, the southern gate to the Terrace Gardens was closed for some odd reason so I stayed on the pavement, and that's when I spotted this sign. Or rather signs.

At least two signs have been painted on this wall indeed, but only one is clearly legible today.

The Terrace
Candy Stores
High Class Confectionery
Minerals
Cigarettes & Tobacco

A closer looks reveals a few letters and one word for the previous, larger, sign(s).

...
Tobacconist
...as.ol...

Location: Friars Stile Road / Picture taken on: 07/03/2009