A short Urban Wander around Bath (ghost signs a plenty)

Venturing away from London for a few days this week, I found myself in Bath yesterday. I'd seen some various posts of all the fabulous ghost signs in Bath, so decided to see how many I could bag during the couple of hours I had there.

First up is the Circulating Library:

CIRCULATING LIBRARY

AND READING ROOM

which now seems to be the home of Hobbs on the ground floor, and a Jamie Oliver restaurant on the first floor.

 Circulating Library ghost sign, Bath

The next one is a bit of a mystery. I can just about make out

& Co

Ghost sign in Bath 

The lettering on this next ghost sign is quite clear until the final word, but a bit of googling helped me out, and it is in fact 'polonies' ... whatever a polony is (I suspect not a sausage from Bologna as my first search results suggested).

DILL'S FAMOUS BATH POLONIES

Ghost sign in Bath 

As we were looking at the view into the river and across to the Pulteney Bridge, I spotted this one in the distance. Unfortunately this is a case where the poor quality zoom on the phone let me down and the ghost sign was much clearer to the naked eye.

A.WILLS & SONS LTD

Ghost sign in Bath 

Another mystery ghost sign, possibly NUMERAL  or NUMBER ?

Ghost sign in Bath

This next ghost sign was probably my favourite of the short visit, especially with the false window beneath, and so from a circulating library we move to a lending library.

BOOK STORE

LENDING LIBRARY

WELL STOCKED WITH ALL THE

LATEST FICTION

Ghost sign in Bath

I wasn't quite sure what the sign CORRIDOR referred to when I took this photo, but it would seem to be the name of the original shopping arcade which opened here in 1825. Just a bit nicer than today's soul-less, out of town, retail parks.

Corridor shopping arcade, Bath 

Just as well we didn't need any diary products today, as this shop beneath this ghost sign is now occupied by a photographers.

HAND'S DAIRY

SPECIALISTS IN

CREAM

DAIRY PRODUCT

SINCE ????

Ghost sign, Bath

Hmmm, this doesn't happen very often, and in fact it's usually the opposite in that if I take a picture of a very faded sign, then the process of transferring it from phone to computer enhances the lettering. However, on this occasion the lettering in the photo is completely missing. I am sure there was definite an 'S' at the end.

Ghost sign, Bath

Fortunately this next ghost sign was much easier to read:

SHEPHERDS HALL

Ghost sign, Bath

This is by no means anywhere near a complete collection, as a few quick internet searches will show you, but I don't think my haul was too bad. And just to prove that I did look at some of the other wonderful features that Bath has to offer, here are a few pictures taken of and around the Pulteney Bridge, with the waters full from the recent flooding and featuring a part of a tree that I would imagine is not usually there.

Pulteney Bridge, Bath 

Near the Pulteney Bridge, Bath

Pulteney Bridge, Bath

And finally, if you're wondering why there are no photos of Royal Crescent or The Circus, then the reason is that both contained scaffolding and plastic clad houses pretty much bang in the middle.

    

Ghost signs, abandonment and semi-abandonment in Wiltshire and Somerset

Last weekend I embarked on an epic, well epic for me anyway, bike ride from Newbury to Frome, a total of 57.5 miles. I had no idea where I was heading other than the fact that I decided to head west, and my wife kindly agreed to pick me up from wherever I ended up. The purpose of the ride was to reach the 250km challenge I'd set myself for May, and I'd not planned to look for anything to blog about here, so was pleasantly surprised to find a few ghost signs and other interesting places along the way.

This was a rather sad looking, former petrol station. As with many rural petrol stations and garages, they have closed down now, presumably unable to compete with the out of town supermarkets.

Abandoned petrol station, Milton Lilbourne, Wiltshire

I caught this ghost sign out of the corner of my eye as I cycled past, so looped back on myself to get a shot of J.R.FELLOWS. Looking at the white paint behind the name, I do wonder whether there was ever more to this sign than can be seen today.

Ghost sign for J.R.Fellows, Pewsey, Wiltshire

This next ghost sign is actually a collection of ghost signs. The clearest word, in white, would appear to be DRAPER, underneath which in black is

GODFREY'S

CASH STORE

REFRESHMENTS

but if that wasn't confusing enough, the Market Lavington Museum blog has old pictures with even more words which are not visible at all today but say 

WALTON

BAKERY &

SUPPLY STORES

M-LAVINGTON

Multiple ghost signs in Easterton, Wiltshire

This is another multiple ghost sign, this time in Lavington, or possibly West Lavington. Not very easy to read at all, but I can see the words HOUSE, VALUE and BOOKS.

Ghost sign in West Lavington, Wiltshire

My last picture is from Somerset and is of Frome railway station. Despite looking abandoned, and having just one platform remaining operational, and just one actual track, it is still in use and sits on a loop just off the main GWR line. Although there was not a single person on the station when I arrived early on a Saturday evening, the annual passenger numbers is close on 150,000, and in fact when I get the 07:08 from Newbury to London Paddington, it's a train which actually starts its journey at Frome.

Frome railway station, Somerset

    

Rural Wandering: a short bike ride through the Deverills in Somerset

I've managed to get a bit out of sync with my postings, and this is in fact from last weekend when we were away for a long weekend at Center Parcs, in Longleat, Somerset. I had not really expected to do much exploring, but was fortunate enough to manage to find time for a couple of bike rides outside the main complex. The countryside was beautiful, the roads were quiet, and on one of the rides the sun was shining. The only downside was on the second bike ride, where my rear disc brakes all but seized up, meaning that it was a tremendous effort to peddle at all, and on the down hill stretches I still had to peddle to keep going. I stopped a few times to take the wheel off, and adjust the brakes which seemed to free them up for a short while, but overall it was really hard going. However, going at this slow speed, I did spot this old AA sign in the village of Brixton Deverill, which marks the villages of Kingston Deverill and Longbridge Deverill both as being 1½ miles away, and London being 99½ miles away.

Old AA road sign, Brixton Deverill, Somerset

Tales of my Urban Wandering will continue later in the week, with a post about an Urban Wander over to the Pall Mall Deposit building in West London already in progress ... so stay tuned folks.