Searching for Ghostsigns in Stoke Newington
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| Ghostsign found on Church Street, Stoke Newington |
You just never know where a competition win might take you. In December last year I entered a competition being run by Sarah Hyndman (@TypeTasting) through her Type Tasting studio to celebrate their 5th anniversary. I was lucky enough to win a wonderful prize which consisted of a signed copy of her book 'the type taster', lots of other type font goodies plus tickets to Sam Robert's (@mrghostsigns) Ghostsigns Tour, which is a walk around Stoke Newington spotting old ghostsigns These are fading old advertising signs painted on to walls of some of the historic buildings in the area.
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| 'the type taster' book by Sarah Hyndman |
Prize bundle from Type Tasting
At the rendezvous spot, outside the station, a number of people gathered in couples or individually. We were eyeing each other up wondering if we were on the same tour. Sam arrived and gathered us all around to explain what we would be doing, and giving us challenges and advice. The first bit of advice is to look up - most ghostsigns are towards the top of buildings where they would be seen more easily from a distance. Another piece of advice is to think 'wing mirrors' or looking behind you as you walk along. During the walk he occasionally stayed back to see if the group would look back and spot a sign behind them without his prompting. He also encouraged us to be the first to spot a sign or decipher the words, which led to lots of group participation!
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| Meeting the group at the start of the tour |
What soon became apparent is that a single wall might have had more than one painted sign on it over the years. When an old sign was painted over, a single wash of white paint would cover it up then the new sign would be painted on top of this. In some cases we could see evidence of 3 layers of signs, possibly more in places. The white wash, being only a single layer (a bit like undercoat), seems to have faded more than the lettering (being undercoat and top coat) so gradually, over time, the older signs reappear. This reuse is known as a palimpsest.
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| Walking up Stamford Hill, the first ghostsign is top right. |
Proceding along the road from the station, up Stamford Hill, we spotted a ghostsign showing 2 different advertising signs, one (the most obvious) for Westminster Gazette, the other for Army Club cigarettes. It was difficult to see the Army Club sign but Sam guided us in how to look at the wall, aided by archive photographs, and soon everyone could make out the two signs.
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| Ghostsign showing Westminster Gazette and Army Club signs |
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| Sam Roberts showing the original Army Club advert |
As we continued on our walk around Stoke Newington we saw about twenty of these fascinating signs, made all the more interesting by Sam's knowledge about the history of the signs and the businesses and people responsible for them.
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| John Brown's Whiskies sign |
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| Sam telling the group about Robert Ellis and his ironmongery business |
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| John Hawkins / Steeles ghostsigns |
He also pointed out some 'fake' shop fronts, used as another, amusing, form of advertising.
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| Fake shop front |
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| Fake shop front |
Sam has spent many years on the Ghostsigns trail and has worked hard to find out the history behind these old signs. He imparts this knowledge in an engaging way and his enthusiasm is catching!
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Many layers of signs for Cakebread Robey & Co |
Sam has provided a great app to download to your phone which takes you through the tour so you can go ghostsign spotting under your own steam. The app details two different tours, Stoke Newington and Bankside. I hope to be walking the Bankside one at a later date.
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| Hurstleigh's Bakery advertising Daren Bread |
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| Dees Stores |
At the end of the tour we had learned quite a lot about the kinds of businesses that were based in the area from the late 1800s to the 1950s. We also saw examples of different styles of advertising from the simple announcement of business premises, to brand advertising on a grander scale. I particularly liked the sign for Dees Stores on Marton Road, which was a paint stores opened in 1891. The sign we were looking at would have been painted with his own paint and still survives today, not too easy to distinguish, but by this point we had improved our ability to decipher the signs.
The final sign on our tour was the surviving part of a Banksy mural (a piece commissioned by the band Blur) which the local council had started to paint over during a clampdown on graffiti, luckily someone realised and managed to save the artwork form total destruction, although only the central part survived. It shows the Royal Family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
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| Banksy's Royal Family in 2006 |
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| Banksy's Royal Family today |
For further info regarding Sam's research into ghostsigns go to his website:
http://www.ghostsigns.co.uk/
For further info regarding Type Tasting go to Sarah Hyndman's website:
https://www.typetasting.com/
where you can take part in an online type tasting lab.
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