Care Assistant Training

Care Assistant Training, Deptford High Street, Borough of Lewisham, London SE8, 2002 • Remember this kind of thing? No wonder there were care home scandals. How depressing.

Lloyds TSB (Oxford Street)

Lloyds TSB (Oxford Street), 32 Oxford Street, City of Westminster, London W1, 2003 • Now for a bit of summer shopping grimness, and where better to start than Europe’s busiest shopping […]

W.C.R. Dies

W.C.R. Dies, JW Print Finishers, Quicksilver Ltd, Fox Finishers, 27 Wallis Road, Borough of Hackney, London E9, 2006 • Morbidly-named hive of industry which had gone by 2008, when Olympic projects swept into the area.

G. Horton Ltd

G. Horton Ltd, 7 Market Place, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, 2007 • Not quite Profil font, but near enough. This old pharmacy actually looks more vintage now, as is the trend. 

Boardmans Teleflora

Boardmans Teleflora, The University of Manchester, 296 Oxford Road, Manchester, 2009 • Teleflora, that name’s a blast from the past. Looks like an pretty old sign to me, with its alphabetical […]

St Marys Centre (Mountain of Fire & Miracles Ministries)

St Marys Centre (Mountain of Fire & Miracles Ministries), Ladywell […]

26 Bedfordbury (Peter’s Gents Hairdressers)

26 Bedfordbury (Peter’s Gents Hairdressers), 26 Bedfordbury, City of Westminster, […]

North Eastern Rubber Co Ltd

North Eastern Rubber Co Ltd, 35-37 Clive Street, North Shields, North Tyneside, 2013 • Profil font lives on in light industry…

Southern Video

Southern Video, 41 High Street, Herne Bay, Kent, 2004 • Red Profil on pink fascia, what a colourful shop. Last spotted in 2009 with blue Profil on yellow.

Streatham Skinworks

Streatham Skinworks, 4 Bridge Parade, Streatham High Road, Borough of Lambeth, London SW16, 2002 • From the days before tattooing became a hipster boom trade. Pity they didn’t use Profil font for the […]

Surrey Sports

Surrey Sports, 67 High Street, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, 2002 • I love this OTT discotastic font. The shop’s still there, but with much more boring logo.

Surrey Foam

Surrey Foam, 54 Croydon Road, Caterham, Surrey, 2001 • Surrey denizens are so proud of their county they even name foam shops after it.

Grimwade Services

Grimwade Services, 262a Brixton Hill, Borough of Lambeth, London SW2, 2002 • Another Dickensian name from old Lambeth. I doubt there was much demand for ‘president’ signs.

Fagin’s House Clearance

Fagin’s House Clearance, 105 Lower Marsh, Borough of Lambeth, London SE1, 2001 • Dickensian name and address for a Dickensian line of work. Became clothes shop Valerio.

G.J. Petts

G.J. Petts, 5 Westmoreland Road, Borough of Southwark, London SE17, 2001 • Unfortunate name for a butcher. Was still there in 2015, looking even more battered.

Beder Telecom

Beder Telecom, 207 Streatham High Road, Borough of Lambeth, London SW16, 2002 • Beder than a Lycamobile shopfront, anyway, despite the wired phone. Been replaced by a pub, unusually.

Quickie Heel Bar

Quickie Heel Bar, 198 Southwark Park Road, Borough of Southwark, London SE16, 2002 • Brilliant name, as featured in the book Formerly (right). No longer there, of course.

Eva Petulengro

Eva Petulengro, Palace Pier, Brighton, East Sussex, 1983 • A slow day for clairvoyancy at Brighton’s then-decaying Palace Pier, which is nowadays called Brighton Pier and much smarter. I hope that is Eva herself emerging, with […]

A.H. Prior

A.H. Prior, circa 6 Cleaver Street, Borough of Lambeth, London SE11, 2001 • Another ecclesiastical name, long gone. Now The Locker Room, a male sauna.

Bishops Stores

Bishops Stores, 365 New King’s Road, Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, London SW6, 2001 • Nice bit of cheery acrylic signage, alongside newer coke-sponsored sign. Still there, complete with apostrophe […]

St. Judes

St. Judes, 172 London Road, Mitcham, Surrey, 2001 • Quaintly-named newsie in quaintly-named Figgs Marsh. Jude – the patron saint of desperate causes – is nowadays sponsored by Lycamobile.

Christian Caring

Christian Caring Ministries, 189 Old Kent Road, Borough of Southwark, London SE1, 2002 • Not sure if this is a church or a shop – God moves in mysterious ways. Now beauty […]

Bungalows Cafe

Bungalows Cafe, 80 Mare Street, Borough of Hackney, London E8, 2007 • Another cafe with handily-placed church. Still there but not as attractive. 

Marshfield Farm, St Nicholas Church

Marshfield Farm, St Nicholas Church, Pett Level Road, Hastings, East Sussex, 2015 • Handy snack-church combo, also incorporating jumble sale, on the long beach between Hastings and Rye.

Blessed, Peter Thomson Solicitor

Blessed, Peter Thomson Solicitor, 203 Coldharbour Lane, Borough of Lambeth, London SW9 • Traditional Brixton, getting harder to find.

Kabra Kebabra

Kabra Kebabra, 58 Coldharbour Lane, Borough of Lambeth, London SE5, 2015 • Coldharbour Lane seems to specialise in bonkers shop names. This one’s already quite famous on the internet. Not to […]

Rock Steady Eddies

Rock Steady Eddies, 2a Coldharbour Lane, Borough of Southwark, London SE5 • Longstanding Camberwell landmark, famed as the nearest cheap cafe to Maudsley ‘mental hospital’ (to use the 1980s term). Reviews could […]

Crown & Glory

Crown & Glory, 10 Coldharbour Lane, Borough of Southwark, London SE5, 2015 • Upper case italic script, always a bold move. A holdout from the bland new signage infecting the […]

Indian’s Unisex Hair Salon

Indian’s Unisex Hair Salon, 82-84 Coldharbour Lane, Borough of Lambeth, SE5, 2015 • The scary weaponised hairdresser geezers date from an earlier sign, which Google’s magic wayback view shows was “a fine […]

Amaraché

Amaraché, 96 Coldharbour Lane, Borough of Lambeth, London SE5 • Some quite impressive wiring here. Note accented ‘e’ in different font. Google can’t translate the name, so I don’t know […]

Seagull Launderette

Seagull Launderette, 212 Coldharbour Lane, Borough of Lambeth, London SW9, 2015 • In the backwoods of Brixton, far from gentrification, a tiny wistful name with an elegant flourish.