Hairdressing saloon, Tonbridge

Most signs for hairdressers are rather simple, and this one is no exception.

Ladies
&
Gentlemen's
Haidressing
Saloon
Location: Bank Street, Tonbridge, Kent / Picture taken on: 14/06/2009

Medway Coal Company, Tonbridge

Coal merchants, part 2 (part 1)

The future of the second sign for the Medway Coal Company seems mor secure. A quick search on the internet doesn't reveal much about the company apart from a few pictures. One shows its Tonbridge office, which was located in a different building than the one where the sign is. Another picture shows one of their horse-drawn carts in what could be their Priory Street coal yard. Finally a third one shows its office in Tunbridge Wells.

Est^b 1845
Medway Coal Com^py
And At
Tunbridge Wells, Hastings,
London & Elsewhere.
Elsewhere included Maidstone, and Edenbridge, where the company had a wharf next to the Southeastern Railway Station, as I learnt from some court proceedings. In 1853 one servant called Reed had been sent to the Medway Coal Company's wharf with his master's cart for some coal but on the way back disposed of some of it to one Peerless. For that Reed was convicted of the crime of larceny and sent to jail.

Location: Priory Street, Tonbridge, Kent / Picture taken on: 14/06/2009

Daren, Camberwell, and Hovis, Tonbridge

As soon as I passed the door yesterday evening, I realized I had forgotten something: to buy some bread! Fortunately we still had some ready-to-bake baguettes for this morning, but to remind me to get some tonight, I decided today's post should be about bread and bakers.

Large numbers of bakers' signs appear to have been sponsored by either Hovis or Daren. These companies provided the recipe and ingredients for baking the bread, and paid for painted signs, which displayed their name in letters at least as large as those for the baker himself. Unfortunately a quick search on the internet for Daren does not reveal much about this particular brand, which must have been quite popular at some point.

This sign was painted on several occasions, the name "Daren" appearing three times. Unfortunately the upper part is now barely legible, apart from the aforementioned company's name and "Bread".

Although the lower part is much better preserved, it has been partly obliterated. Here is what is left of it:

Daren
The Best Brown Bread
Made From
... of the Wheat

Additionally the words "Electric Machine", written in white and forming an arc across the second line, can still be read. The use of such a device would have been a selling argument, telling prospective customers this was a modern bakery. Electric machines may also have guaranteed a more consistent product day after day.

Location: Daneville Road / Both pictures taken on: 16/07/2009

Daren's main competitor was undoubtedly Hovis, a name crafted in 1890 from the Latin Hominis Vis (meaning "strength of man") to market bread produced using Smith's Patent Process Germ Flour. In 1898 S. Fitton & Son became The Hovis Bread Flour Company Ltd. From the very beginning Hovis used a whole range of marketing techniques to increase brand awareness and its share of the market. The number of Hovis ghost signs still around testifies to its success.

Today, rather than using one of the better known London signs (don't worry, they will appear on another post), I decided to put one I spotted recently while exploring Tonbridge on my way to see the 13th century mural paintings in the Church of St Thomas a Beckett, Capel, and the wonderful Chagall windows in the Church of All Saints, Tudeley.

E. ...en [move this banner!]
Maker of
Hõvis
Golden Brown
Still the Best

To celebrate its 120th anniversary, the company produced a little book (available at http://www.hovisbakery.co.uk/about-hovis/) but it does not explain why between the 1920s and the 1950s a tilde, sometimes simplified to a dash, was placed on the "O" of Hovis... I'm sure someone out there will have an idea.

Hõvis, with the characteristic tilde on the "O"
Note that Hovis has been painted another time but in rounder letters.

Location: Barden Road, Tonbridge / Both pictures taken on: 14/06/2009

So now, I can only hope I won't forget the bread tonight!