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Tuesday 21 May 2013

Urban Wandering: ghost signs of Camden, London

I managed to take another urban wander after work one evening last week, and this time I headed out to Camden. I have been to Camden many, many times before as an urban wanderer, and in a past life as a record collector, but until this visit I had never really looked up, so had been unaware of these marvellous ghost signs.

This first one is a bit of a mystery in that it's two, or maybe more, ghost signs overlaid on top of one another. The top two lines appear to read

W.H.JOHNS
DRAPER


followed by

BACON & SONS
STATIONERS


but other pictures of this ghost sign I found on the internet suggest that the first teo lines could also read

W.H.JOHNSON
BOOKBINDERS

I can see that the first line may in fact be JOHNSON rather than JOHNS, but cannot make out BIIKBINDERS at all, so I'm guessing it may be from the sign beneath the one more visible on my picture.

Ghost sign in Camden, London NW1
Ghost sign in Camden, London NW1

This next ghost sign was my favourite of this particular urban wander, althoug hsomewhat frustratingly the building to the right of the ghost signs obscures a great deal of it, and it actually built right against it, so it was not possible to get a better shot. At least the skies were blue for this one, although by now I was already quite wet.

MILLER BEALE
& HIDER LTD
GLAZING
CONTRACTOR

Ghost sign in Camden, London NW1
Ghost sign in Camden, London NW1

On the same building, there was another ghost sign which covered the top of the walls on two sides of the building. I can cleary make out

MILLER BEALE & HIDER LTD

on the left wall, but the writing on the right wall is a bit of a mystery, possibly starting with "GLASS" or "BRASS", and ending with "OLOROS".
Ghost sign in Camden, London NW1
Ghost sign in Camden, London NW1

Ghost sign in Camden, London NW1
Ghost sign in Camden, London NW1

Finally, a smaller and more difficult to read ghost sign. There seem to be two lines here but I can only decypher ther top line which says

GROCERY STORE

Ghost sign in Camden, London NW1
Ghost sign in Camden, London NW1


    

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