Shiva Leather & Jeans Tailors, Kathmandu

Did adopting the name of one of the major deities of Hinduism bring good fortune to this business?

Shiva

Leather & Jeans Tailors

Ladies & Jents

Manufacturers Whole Seller & Repairing

Location: Guan Kamdev Marg, Kathmandu

B. K. Leather & Jeans Tailors, Kathmandu

I am not sure the leather jackets hanging on the wall do much to attract potential customers.

B. K.

Leather

& Jeans

Tailors

Location: Kathmandu

Jewellery Workshop, Kathmandu

It looks as if the more elaborate design of the first past of this sign was abandoned in favour or greater visibility. The combination of red letters and projected blue shadows did not give a great result indeed.

NR Jwellery [sic] Workshop

Location: Kathmandu

D. K. Trekking Shop, Kathmandu

I loved the Michelin Man-like skier on this sign.

D. K. Trekking Shop

Wholesale & Retail

Sale and Repair Center

Down Suit, Jacket

Tent, Bag, Sleeping Bag etc.

Mobile: 9808377418

Location: Jyatha Marg, Kathmandu

Hoover and Au Grand Quartier, Bourg-sur-Gironde

This wall offers a nice palimpsest, with Hoover's logo covering an ealier advert for Au Grand Quartier, one of Bordeaux's most famous clothes shop. There was certainly a third sign but I didn't manage to identify it.

Founded in 1908 in Ohio, vacuum manufacturer Hoover arrived in France in 1932. This ghost sign painted on a wall managed by advertising agency Bézicot (see here) dates from the mid-1960s though.

Hoover

The Hoover signs covers one for Au Grand Quartier, a clothes shop founded in 1929 by Marcel Castelle. Well known by several generations of people from Bordeaux and the surrounding area, who bought all sorts of good quality garments in this shop located Rue Ste-Catherine, Au Grand Quartier (later shortened to Grand Quartier) closed down in 2012.

Hommes   -   Dames   -   Enfants

Prêts à porter et sur mesure

Au Grand

Quartier

22 à 30 Rue Ste Catherine     Bordeaux

[Gentlemen   -   Ladie   -   Children

Ready-to-wear and made to measure

Au Grand

Quartier

22 to 30 St Catherine's St     Bordeaux]

Location: Rue du 4 Septembre, Bourg-sur-Gironde, Gironde

Schuhmacherei, Pirna

Before these premises were taken over by shoemaker Kun, there was a shop selling spirits and cigars (the name was painted above the windows but only a few letters can still be seen).

Schuhmacherei Kun

Spirituosen

Cigarren

Spirituosen

Cigarren

Location: Obere Burgstraße, Pirna, Sachsen

Le Mont St Michel, Pons

A lovely painted sign for Le Mont Saint Michel, a workwear manufacturer founded in 1913. The company's logo consists of a sylized view of the famous rocky islet off the coast of Normandy, on which rises the abbey dedicated to St Michel.

Le Mont St Michel

Signature de garantie: Ariès

Bleus de [travail]

Blue [-jeans]

Location: Cours d'Alsace-Lorraine, Pons, Charente-Maritime

Gravel et Duhamel, Dufresne & Galipeau, and Potato Distributors Ltd; Montreal

Like the warehouse next door, this building was built in 1857 for Victor Husdon, who rented it to various companies. The name of some of these can still be seen on the façade: Gravel et Duhamel, Dufresne & Galipeau, and Potato Distributors Ltd.

In the early 20th century Gravel et Duhamel were carriage and hardware (saddles, harnesses, paint and varnish, etc.) dealers.

Born in 1882, Candide Dufresne was educated at the Yamaehiche College and the Montcalm Commercial School. In 1906 he started working with boot and shoe maker Théodore Galipeau. Born in 1873 and educated at St. Laurent College, Galipeau spent his entire business life in the boot and shoe industry. The two founded the firm Dufresne & Galipeau in 1912. In 1920 the name of the company was changed to Locke Footwear Company, Ltd. It closed down in 1934.

Finally potato wholesaler Potato Distributors Ltd rented the warehouse between 1939 and 1968.

In chronological order, the signs read:Gravel et Duhamel

Dufresne
& Galipeau

Potato Distributors Ltd

Location: Rue de la Commune Ouest, Montréal

Bruneau, Currie & Co, Townsend Co, and Smith-Anderson; Montreal

Rue de la Commune in Montreal, which runs parallel to the Saint Lawrence, is lined with former warehouses built in the 19th century, many of which still have the names of some of the tenants written across the façades or on the door jambs.

The warehouse below, originally located in front of the newly built docks, was one of three built in 1841-1842 for Robert Gillespie of Gillespie, Moffatt & Company, to a design by William Footner. It is known as Gillespie's Warehouse Number One. Gillespie, Moffatt & Co was the largest importing house in Montreal and sold a wide range of British goods. The company also traded with the West Indies and by 1837 its boats sailed regularly between Montreal and Jamaica. Even though Robert Gillespie had moved to London in 1822 and did not return to Canada, he owned the company's warehouses in Montreal. These had room for 10,000 barrels of flour, 20,000 bushels of wheat, and 7,000 to 8,000 barrels of beef and pork. They also included special facilities for inspecting, packing, and coopering pork barrels.
Upon Robert Gillespie's death in London in 1863, the warehouses passed to his heirs, who sold them in 1872 to Hosea B. Smith. After that date, they were rented to various import-export traders.

One of those tenants was Bruneau, Currie & Company, a wholesaler of flour and other foodstuffs. The company, based on Place d'Youville in Montreal (just behind the warehouse), was founded in 1880 by Louis-Philippe Bruneau and James Currie. By 1883 the company needed more storage space and rented Gillespie's Warehouse Number One. Following the death of Bruneau in 1890, Currie became the sole owner. In 1911 the company's offices on Place d'Youville were demolished to make way for a new building that housed not only its headquarters but also its warehouse. Three years later Bruneau, Currie & Co moved out of Gillespie's Warehouse Number One. The company, which moved to new premises in the early 1920s, closed down in the mid-1930s.

In 1927 the Smith family sold the warehouse to Townsend Company Limited, dealers in ships supplies, which had been renting it since 1924. However Townsend Co only used the warehouse sporadically and most of the time it was rented to various companies, including cloth manufacturer and retailer Smith-Anderson between 1943 and the late 1960s.

With several signs painted on this building, reading some parts is not easy. Three can be identified though. The oldest one, for Bruneau, Currie & Co, reads:

Wholesaler
Flour		Brand Feed		Rolled Oats		Grains
Bruneau, Currie & Co

The following sign, in chronological order, was Townsend's. It reads:

Townsend Co Limited
... Ship [Steamship?] Supplies

Finally, the most recent sign, for Smith-Anderson, reads:

Smith-Anderson Co
... ...

There was certainly something else written, especially on the lower part, as traces of more letters can be seen.

More palimsests can be found on each side of the door.

The sign for Bruneau, Currie & Co was painted twice:

Bruneau Currie & Co Warehouse ----- Office 214 Place d'Youville

Bruneau, Currie & Co. Limited ... ... ... ...

Of the signs for Townsend and Smith-Anderson, only the companies' names, in the upper part, are still visible. In the case of the former, it has faded so much only a couple of letters are still legible. Traces of more letters can be seen here and there but nothing that makes sense.

Here as well there are two signs for Bruneau, Currie & Co:

Bruneau Currie & Co Warehouse ----- Office 214 Youville Square [?]

Bruneau, Currie & Co. Limited Flour Feed ... ....

Taces of more letters can be seen but I did not manage to identify any word... apart from:

No
Parking

Location: Rue de la Commune Ouest, Montréal

Talbot Stores, Westbourne Green

Near the eastern end of Talbot Road is an elegantly written ghost sign for Talbot Stores.

In the absence any further word, it is impossible to ascertain what was sold in these stores.

Various editions of The Post Office London Directory give us the names of people living at this address and their profession. In the early 1880s the premises were occupied by John Ward & Son, tailors. The same profession was carried on by Charles Henderson, who lived there between the mid-1890s and the turn of the century. Finally directories from the first half of the 1910s list Thomas Henry Smith and then Florence Annie Smith (probably his widow), who both carried on as grocers. Could one of them have paid for the sign? Or was this sign painted later?

Talbot
Stores

Location: Talbot Road

A la Belle Botte, Jonzac

On one of the houses built on the banks of the River Seugne in the small town of Jonzac in the south of the Charente-Maritime département is a double ghost sign.

A couple of letters from the original sign, in black, can still be seen on the façade but that is not enough to be able to identify the business behind it.
The more recent sign, wich is certainly nearly one century old, advertised a shoe shop by the rather attractive name A la Belle Botte.

A la Belle Botte

[At the Beautiful Boot]

Location: Rue des Carmes, Jonzac, Charente-Maritime / Pcitures taken in April 2013

The monster ready made and bespoke clothing establishment, Borough

"The monster ready made and bespoke clothing establishment." This is a most bizarre formulation. If they wanted to say this was a very large shop, why not use "the largest" instead. "Monster" seems slightly off-putting. But maybe it's just me.

The earliest document about the Albion House Clothing Company I could find dates from 1890. However this clothier does not appear in the 1891 edition of the Post Office London Trades Directory. One possible reason may be that the company was founded in 1890, too late to feature in the Directory. By 1895 the Albion House Clothing Co was operating from three locations in London: 161, 163, 165 and 167 Borough High Street (where the name "Albion House" was proudly displayed on the façade at number 163), 83 Aldgate High Street and 157 Minories. Actually this should only count as two locations as 157 Minories is adjacent to 83 Aldgate High Street.

By 1899 the company's premises on Aldgate High Street had been extended from the original number 83 to numbers 84, 85 and 86 (buildings along Aldgate High Street are numbered consecutively, starting on the north side and then continuing clockwise back down on the south side. Strangely, in later editions of the Directory, the address given is 83, 85, 87 and 89 Aldgate High Street, even though no renumbering had taken place). The shop in Borough High Street had a different fortune though. In March 1899 the company instructed Debenham, Tewson, Farmer and Bridgewater to sell the buildings at 163, 165 and 167. The notice published at the time indicated the premises covered about 7,000 square feet. Yet in the end only two out of the three buildings were sold: according to an advertisement that particular branch was still made of 161 and 163 Borough High Street in 1906. Part of the money generated by the sale of the two buildings at 165 and 167 went towards the acquisition of 37 Jewry Street, the building round the corner from 89 Aldgate High Street.

The Monster Ready Made & Bespoke Clothing Establishment

Albion House Clothing Compy Branch Establishments Paris Antwerp And Ghent

The 1900s marked the heyday of the Albion House Clothing Co. According to the aforementioned advertisement printed in 1906, it had branches not only at 83-86 Adgate High Street and 161-163 Borough High Street, but also at 59-61 New Oxford Street, on Rye Lane in Peckham (opened between 1896 and 1901), and at 86 Western Road in Brighton (opened between 1899 and 1905). However this apparent success was short-lived. By 1910 the branches at both Borough High Street and New Oxford Street had been closed and the one in Peckham followed suit at some point between 1911 and 1914. The Brighton branch was kept open for longer but I do not know exactly for how long.

The Albion House Clothing Co remained in business during the depression of the 1930s but did not withstand the War. In August 1942 its members appointed a liquidator and by November that year all the company's assets had been disposed of.

Two advertisements from 1906 show some of the clothes the Albion House Clothing Co sold to men and boys and to women and girls. Looking at these, its seems it targeted upper-middle class customers. Interestingly, in his book A brief outline of the Surinam gold industry: Geology, technique, hygiene. Description of the gold placer and the prospects at the Guiana gold placer, published in 1911 (the original version in Dutch dates from 1909), J. H. Verloop mentions another kind of garment available at the shop of the Albion House Clothing Co on Aldgate High Street: thin oilskin, ideal for the tropics. He even precised it came in different colours.

Unfortunately I have not found any information, whether in English, Flemish or French, about the company's branches in Belgium (in Ghent and Antwerp) and in France (in Paris).

Since the Albion House Clothing Company had a branch in Borough High Street during the last decade of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century, this ghost sign was painted more than 110 years ago.

Location: Borough High Street / Pictures taken in April 2008

Jacks, Battersea

Here are a couple of ghost signs left by two of the businesses that traded at 65 Falcon Road, near Clapham Junction station (actually regular traces of paint could suggest there was a third ghost sign on this wall).

One ghost sign was advertising Max Bridge's jewellery shop. In common with many of his colleagues, Bridge was not only a jeweller but also a clockmaker. Max Bridge opened his shop before the First World War. His name appears in the 1914 edition of the Post Office Directory (and later in the 1919 edition). He certainly took over a jewellery shop previously run by George Law. Law's name and profession are mentioned in the 1911 edition of the Directory indeed. It seems Max Bridge's real name was Morduch Bregman but he adopted an Anglicized version to run his business. In April 1922 he changed officially his name to Max Bridge.

Jacks
Bridge's
Famous For Clothes
Famous Clocks

The other ghost sign promoted Jacks's or Jack's clothes shop. Unfortunately I have not found any information about it. I cannot even tell whether this second ghost sign was painted before or after Bridge's sign.

Location: Falcon Road / Picturs taken in July 2012

Tailor, Yangon

A simple painted sign in both Burmese and English seen in the Bahan township of the former Burmese capital.

Tailor

means literally "Sewing shop."

Location: Schwe Gone Taing Road / Picture taken in January 2013

M & J Abrahams Ltd, Hackney

This sign does not look that old but M & J Abrahams Ltd is long gone.

This ghost sign seems to be the only trace left by this business that specialised in ladies' coats and suits.

M & J Abrahams Ltd.
Ladies Coats & Suits
1st Floor

Location: Belsham Street / Pictures taken in May 2013

Boot and shoe specialist, Anerley

This ghost sign was painted over an earlier one but it is impossible to tell what was written originally.

Boot & Shoe
Specialist
Repairs With Despatch

Location: Anerley Road / Picture taken in June 2008

Jackson, Kingston

Clarence Street in Kingston upon Thames has two ghost signs: the enigmatic Local Arms China and, a few metres away and partly hidden, one for a shoemaker by the name of Jackson.

... L. Jackson
Bespoke
Shoemaker

However, for now, the sign for Jackson is partially hidden by a scaffolding erected in front of the building next door. Whatever happens to that building, let's hope it won't lead to the sudden disappearance of yet another ghost sign.

The sign visible on the photo replaced an earlier one but not enough of it can be deciphered to tell whether it was also promoting Jackson's shoemaking workshop or a different business.

Location: Clarence Street / Picture taken in September 2008

Gentlemen's hosiery, Camberwell

A short lane linking Denmark Hill and Coldharbour Lane in Camberwell has two gems: a ghost sign and a mural. The ghost sign advertised Turner's hosiery shop for gentlemen. I have not found any information about it but it was most certainly located on Denmark Hill.

...st
& Cheapest
House
For
Gentlemen's
Hosiery
Is
L. I. [?] Turner's
...

With only part of the first and the last two letters still visible, the first line could have been either 'The Best' or 'Largest'. Strangely, 'Cheapest' is written in lower case when the rest of the ghost sign is in upper case.

I could not resist posting a picture of the mural at the back of the building, inspired by one of the most famous Japanese woodblock prints: Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa, published in the early 1830s. Obviously this is not a faithful reproduction as the wave is progressing in the opposite direction (the presence of the house next door made this necessary as the dramatic impact of the composition would have been lost should the wave have been about to break on a Victorian brick house!) and the oshiokuri-bune (the fast boats used to transport live fish) have been omitted. However Mount Fuji still appears in the background.

Location: Coldharbour Place / Pictures taken in July 2009 and April 2008

Dry cleaners, Forest Hill

Unfortunately we may never know the full name of the dry cleaners as the upper part of this ghost sign has completely disappeared.

... [&] Sons
Dry
Cleaners

A closer look shows we are once more in the presence of a palimpsest. Two, possibly three, businesses advertised their trade on this wall.

A '/' indicates overlapping lines

Ladies
.er M... / O...
M... / Mod...
A / Se... / S...
Tailor Corsets
A...
Made of ...

Location: Dartmouth Road / Pictures taken in July 2009

J. Torrens, Barcelona

In June 1910, the magazine Nuevo Mundo published an advert for Barcelona's high-end shops, disguised as the results of "the Barcelona commercial competition." To the question "which luxury shoemaker offers the most comfortable bespoke shoes?", the answer was J. Torrens. This is the earliest mention of Torrens I found but we can assume his shop on the Rambla de las Flores had already been opened for a little while.
Over the following two decades, several printed adverts appeared in Catalonia's best selling newspaper La Vanguardia. Some invoices from the same period are also on sale on the internet. The last time the name appeared was in 1936, on the eve of the Spanish Civil War. Did this dramatic event have an impact of J. Torrens's business, or did it simply closed after its owner retired?

As luxury bespoke items, Torrens's shoes were not cheap. In January 1936, Jaume Armengou, from Manresa in central Catalonia, purchased several pairs for himself, his wife and his children. Prices for adults were between 70 and 80 pesetas, and 24 pesetas for kids. Eighty pesetas was equivalent in 2001, before Spain's national currency was replaced by the euro, to 17,650 pesetas. Converted into euros, the price would have been just under 110 euros. This may seem pretty reasonable for bespoke shoes but it is worth remembering that in 1936 in Spain the average daily wage in the industrial and service sectors was 11.79 pesetas for a skilled worker and 8.36 for an unskilled one. In the agricultural sector, daily wages on average only reached 7.03 pesetas. Additionally, by 1936, 60% of a household's income was spent on food and 14.6% on housing, while 9.4% went towards shoes and clothing. In short, Torrens's shoes were well beyond the means of the immense majority of the population!

J. Torrens Calzado de Lujo

[J. Torrens Luxury Shoes]

J. Torrens
Despacho
Rambla de las Flores 6.

Even though Torrens's shop was on the Rambla de las Flores (also known as the Rambla de Sant Josep), the stretch of the famous Barcelona street between the Carrer del Carme and the Carrer de l'Hospital, these ghost signs can be seen in a narrow street of the Barri Gòtic. His workshop was certainly located in this building, and looking at an aerial view of the city, it probably communicated with the shop.

Location: Carrer del Cardenal Casañas / Pictures taken in November 2011