Location: Fore Street
In the late 19th century Carter Paterson was the country's largest carrier, with more than 2,000 horses in its 20 London depots. One such depot was in Mandrell Road in Brixton. The company acquired the premises, which included stables and several buildings, in 1901. These were largely rebuilt and enlarged in 1904 to meet growing demand for the company's services in the area.
The same text was painted twice. The original sign used a slightly larger typeface.
In 1948 the depot became the property of British Road Services but it seems BRS closed it a few years later. The property was then purchased by Danish brewing company Tuborg (see yesterday's ghost sign).
Some information about carriers in the late 19th century and their horses can be found in Chapter 3 of The Horse-World of London by W. J. Gordon, published in 1893 (the paragraphs about Carter Paterson are after the third illustration).
In 1983 a large mural, which appropriately includes horses, was painted by Jane Gifford, Ruth Blench, Mick Harrison and Caroline Thorpe. Sadly its future, and that of the Carter Paterson ghost sign, now seems uncertain as a developer has applied to build nine apartments on the site of the former depot.
Location: Mauleverer Road
The typeface is characteristic of Butlin's adverts from the 1950s and 1960s but the blue colour for "Butlin's" makes it unusual. Indeed in the vast majority of cases the name was written in red (the very colour of the jackets worn by entertainers and stewards). The website of the Daily Telegraph has another rare example of an advert from the 1950s in which blue was used.
Even though most of the second line has disappeared, the last letters make it easy to tell what was written there. However the final line is a bit of a mystery.
Location: Windrush Square
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.
Location: Rue de la Commune Ouest, Montréal
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:
Feed | Oats | |||||
The following sign, in chronological order, was Townsend's. It reads:
Finally, the most recent sign, for Smith-Anderson, reads:
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:
Currie & Co Warehouse ----- Office 214 Place d'Youville | & 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:
Currie & Co Warehouse ----- Office 214 Youville Square [?] | & Co. Limited Flour Feed ... .... |
Taces of more letters can be seen but I did not manage to identify any word... apart from:
Location: Rue de la Commune Ouest, Montréal
Since it barely sees the sun, the ghost sign as the northern end of the mews is better preserved. Two overlapping ghost signs at least, for the same company, feature on this wall.
The name Boundary Warehouse certainly came from the proximity of the building to the boundary between Notting Hill, in Kensington, and Bayswater, in Westminster.
The wall as the southern end of the former depository was painted on three occasions.
Even what was written there has faded quite a bit, it is still possible to decipher a fair part of those signs but not necessarily to reconstitute each one of them.
Below is what I managed to read, irrespective of the chronological order:
Park, named after Hyde Park, was the telephone exchange for Bayswater and Notting Hill.
Location: Powis Mews
Actually there are two versions of the advert for Renault's motor oil on this wall.
The Société Anonyme des Huiles Renault was founded in 1911 by car manufacturer Louis Renault. It offered a wide range of lubricants not only for motor vehicles but also for boats and planes.
This is one of many ghost signs that can still be seen along the former Route Nationale 10 (N10), the trunk road that ran from Paris to Hendaye on the Spanish border, via Bordeaux. However in order to see them, one has to leave the many by-passes and newer dual carriageway sections of the road and follow the old route through the centre of villages.
Location: former RN10, Montlieu-la-Garde, Charente-Maritime
If you missed the signs, you can visit the appropriate posts (links above) or simply look at the pictures below.
Location: Percy Road / Pictures taken in July 2009
The Elf brand was the result of a five-year long process that aimed at bringing under one banner the different networks of petrol stations controlled by the Union Générale de Distribution, a subsidiary of ERAP originally created in 1960, as well as the company's wide range of products. This major project was kept secret until the directors of ERAP gave a press conference on 27 April 1967 at 18:00. Within a few hours, 4,500 petrol stations were rebranded, staff uniforms changed and products renamed. The next morning the Elf logo, a stylized representation of the drill bit used in oil wells with colours reminiscent of the French flag, was everywhere to be seen.
One of the networks that disappeared in the process was Caltex, a subsidiary originally of California Texas Oil Company (a joint venture between the Texas Company -now Texaco- and Standard Oil of California -now Chevron) that had been acquired by the UGD.
The fact that this ghost sign includes a reference to the Caltex network would suggest it was painted shortly after the Elf brand was launched. The Elf logo is in its original colours, petrol blue, white and red. In 1985 the petrol blue colour was replaced by a cobalt blue, believed to be dynamic.
m Relai Caltex |
Location: D 137, Saint-Aubin-de-Blaye, Gironde / Pictures taken in May 2012
Founded in 1934, Simca (for Société Industrielle de Mécanique et Carrosserie Automobile - Industrial Society of Mechanical and Automotive Body) was the brainchild of Fiat, even if the Italian manufacturer remained hidded behind a façade of French shareholders to get round protectionist measures adopted by France during the Great Depression. High tariffs had made Fiat cars assembled in France using parts made in Italy too expensive and no longer able to compete with French-made vehicles. This was why the decision was taken to undertake the whole production process in France. The new company bought the factory of bankrupt car manufacturer Bonnet in Nanterre, on the outskirts of Paris, and the first cars bearing the name Simca on a Fiat logo emerged in mid-1935. The first two Simca-Fiat models, the 6CV and the 11CV were copies of the Fiat 508 Balilla and the Fiat 518 Ardita respectively. One year later Simca launched the Simca Cinq, again a copy of a Fiat model, the 500 Topolino. Within a few months Simca became France's fourth largest car manufacturer, thanks to the rapid renewal of its offer and to more economic models. In 1938, with the war looming, Simca dropped the Fiat logo and adopted the sparrow as its emblem to match its slogan: "Un appétit d'oiseau" ("A bird's appetite").
After the Second World War, Simca strengthened its position thanks to models like the Simca 9 Aronde launched in 1951 ("aronde" means "sparrow" in Olf French). While the mechanical parts were identical to those of the Fiat 1400, the body was slightly different. Thanks to the benefits generated by sales of the Aronde, Simca bought truck manufacturer Unic in 1951 and in 1954 the French subsidiary of Ford.
In 1958 US company Chrysler acquired 25% of Simca's share. At the end of the same year Simca took over Talbot-Lago. Thanks to an influx of US money Simca, still in cooperation with Fiat, was able to begin on a new project, the Simca 1000. Launched in 1961, this successful model remained in production until 1981. In 1962 Chrysler took control of 63% of Simca. No longer able to control the French company, Fiat decided it was time to withdraw from Simca and, taking advantage of the new rules of the Common Market, created its own subsidiary Fiat France SA in 1964. Under Chrysler ownership Simca's fortunes started to decline. Bad management, an unsuccessful merger with British car manufacturer Rootes under the name Chrysler Europe, and a lack of innovation, together with the growing difficulties of Chrysler in the US explain this downfall. In spite of the success of the Simca 1100, a project initially rejected by Chrysler, Chrysler was forced to sell its European operations in 1978 to avoid its collapse in the US. The French, British and Spanish plants and the Simca brand were bought by French company Peugeot SA. Peugeot kept the Simca brand until 1980, when it decided to replace it with the Talbot one. Simca models continued to be produced until 1986 but under the name Talbot.
Location: D 137, Pleine-Selve, Gironde / Picture taken in May 2012
As it is often the case with signs for petrol stations, it is located a few kilometres away from the petrol pumps themselves 1. In this case one had to drive for another five kilometres before reaching Shell's forecourt in Saint-Genis-de-Saintonge.
This particular design for the Shell logo, with the yellow shell on a red square rather than with a red outline only, was used between 1961 and 1971.
Nowadays there is still a petrol station about five kilometres further south but it is part of the network of one of Shell's competitors, Total.
This ghost sign was painted over an earlier, and wider, one with a white background but it is not possible to tell what was advertised there.
1: for another example, click see another here.
Location: D 137, Belluire, Charente-Maritime / Pictures taken in 2012
While the entrance above has a nice sign with raised letters made of cement, one has to look to the adjacent part of the building to find a long and colourful ghost sign painted on wood.
In the early 1960s Rover cars were available from Smithfield Garage Limited. However it is as a car dealer for Volkswagen / Audi and BMW, between the 1960s and the late 20th century, that Smithfield is essentially remembered. By then Smithfield had been taken over by Hartwell and the official name changed to Hartwell Smithfield.
This building may not be standing for much longer. Indeed redevelopment projects in the Digbeth area may have been put on hold because of the current economic crisis, but plans have already been approved and many former industrial buildings are bound to disappear sooner or later.
Given the length of this sign and the narrowness of the street, several pictures have been stitched to create the complete front view of the ghost sign below.
Location: Meriden Street / Pictures taken in May 2012
Duddeston Viaduct in Birmingham is a folly indeed. It is the city's "Viaduct to Nowhere", a piece of Victorian engineering the Great Western Railway (GWR) never wanted to build and the London & North Western Railway (L&NWR) never really intended to use. Here is why.
The London & Birmingham Railway reached the city in 1838 and in cooperation with the Grand Junction Railway built a terminus in Curzon Street. However this station was inconveniently located on the northeastern edge of the city and over the following years the different companies serving the city lobbied local authorities and Parliament for the authorisation to build a more central station.
In 1846, the year the London & Birmingham Railway, the Grand Junction Railway, and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway merged to form the L&NWR, Parliament passed the Act authorising a new company, the Birmingham and Oxford Junction Railway, to lay its tracks between the two cities. For several years the L&NWR had managed to delay the approval of such a project. As it controlled most of the traffic between Birmingham and the south, the L&NWR did not want a new line that would connect with the tracks of the GWR at Oxford to be built as it would offer an alternative route to London (although to be fair, the route via Oxford to London Paddington was much longer than the direct L&NWR route into London Euston). The L&NWR did not lose out completely as the Act granted it running rights over the new line as far south as Banbury. Yet the L&NWR had to accept, reluctantly, to provide access to its Curzon Street station to the B&OJR. Thus in order to connect the tracks of the two companies, a viaduct was to be built by both companies between Bordesley and a point in the vicinity of Curzon Street station.
At the same time it voted the bill creating the B&OJR, Parliament authorized the construction of not one but two new stations closer to Birmingham city centre: New Street and Snow Hill. While New Street would be built by the L&NWR and the Midland Railway, Snow Hill was to be operated jointly by the Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Dudley Railway coming from the north and the B&OJR coming from the south. As they were to use the same facilities in Birmingham the latter two companies decided to merge during their first general meeting. Actually these were nothing but speculative railways, whose promoters, having been granted the right to build a line, sought to sell or lease them to one of the established railway companies for a large profit. In that case the directors approached the GWR, which agreed to pay £30 5s 0d for each £20 share! However the L&NWR countered the move by buying as much shares as it could to control the company, replace the board of directors, and get new ones to repudiate the deal with the GWR. The bitter battle between the L&NWR the GWR that ensued eventually ended in the House of Lords and in 1848 the Lord Chancellor ruled in favour of the original agreement with the GWR. Brunel's company had its access to Birmingham! Since the company it had acquired had been granted the right to build its own station, Snow Hill, and since its runnning rights on L&NWR's tracks did not extend beyond Curzon Street station into New Street, the GWR lost any interest in the link with the L&NWR. As for the L&NWR, it had no intention of using its running rights to Banbury. Yet in spite of this lack of interest on both sides, the L&NWR still insisted the GWR complied with the Act of Parliament and build the Duddeston viaduct.
Construction started c. 1848 and in February 1853 Brunel reported that his company had reached the limits of the L&NWR's property. However the rest of the viaduct was never built and the junction with the L&NWR at Curzon Street never made. To this day Duddeston viaduct ends abrupty after 325 metres and its brick arches stand as a memorial to the battle the two biggest railway companies in the country fought during the Railway Mania of the 1840s.
Note the manicule immediately to the left of 'Cattle' pointing towards the entrance of the cattle station in Upper Trinity Street.
Given its position on the north side of the viaduct, and since there is no equivalent on the south side, it can be assumed this ghost sign was painted after 1897. Indeed before that date the main livestock market was at Smithfield and this sign would not have been visible from the route taken by farmers and their cattle. In 1892 Birmingham Corporation decided to relocate the pig market from Smithfield to a site in Montague Street, further west from the centre (incidentally, this is the street where Duddeston Viaduct ends). Opposition from the pig trade delayed the move but it was eventually completed in 1897. One year later cows and sheep also left Smithfield for Montague Street. Heading from from Montague Street towards Bordesley Cattle Station, farmers would have gone southward and emerged into Adderley Street, where they would have been able to catch sight of this sign.
Bordesley goods station closed in 1964. The cattle station would have closed at the same time if not earlier.
The Warwickshire Railway website has a picture of some cattle wagons at Bordesley cattle station and information about the cattle trains.
Location: Adderley Street / Pictures taken in May 2012
Some of these signs include elaborate drawings of buses.
The bus station consists of a row of open offices for the different companies that serve the town.
The Burmese script is very elegant, if slightly difficult to decipher for the average visitor to the country. Fortunately, there is always someone willing to help.
The Latin script is very rarely seen on painted signs. Only a handful of companies that target tourists use it to advertise their services.
Location: Main Road, Bagan / Pictures taken in January 2013
Location: Boulevard de Satin-Hérie, Matha, Charente-Maritime / Picture taken in January 2011
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