M.E. Price
M.E. Price, 5 High Street, Knighton, Powys, Wales, 2017 • Old-school toy shop with a tobacco ghost sign and farmyard alarm clocks in the window. It’s clearly related to yesterday’s group […]
W.E. Price
W.E. Price, 25-27 High Street, Knighton, Powys, Wales, 2017 • Charming cluster of blue-and-white homewares shops in the steep town centre.
Poseidon
Poseidon, 102 High Road, Finchley, Borough of Barnet, London N2 • I always like it when ancient gods are namechecked. By 2008 this had expanded into the next shop and […]
Pompey Hardware (Keys Kingdom)
Pompey Hardware (Keys Kingdom), 92 Fawcett Road, Southsea, City of Portsmouth, 2016 • Completely brilliant shop themed in blue and white after Portsmouth’s football team, aka Pompey. The owner even […]
Robson & Sons
Robson & Sons, 2 Meal Market, Hexham, Northumberland, 2016 • Low-down script logo for 1864-founded family butcher, situated in the meal market where flour and grains were once sold. These days […]
Dawn Crystal
Dawn Crystal, 3 HighStreet, Amblecote, Stourbridge, West Midlands, 2016 • Cute old shop opposite the Ruskin Glass Centre in Stourbridge, a West Midlands town that was once the world centre of the cut glass […]
Collins & Jervie
Collins & Jervie, 32 Sycamore Road, Amersham, Buckinghamshire • There are some interesting modernist houses around Amersham so I hoped it would be a trove of old shop signs. But […]
Public Toilets Dry Cleaning Key Cutting
Public Toilets Dry Cleaning Key Cutting, St Ages Well, Old Street Underground Station, Borough of Islington, London EC1, 2008 • A last redoubt of 1970s tubedom in a subterranean mall named after […]
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.
J.T. Brush E.G. Brush & Son
J.T. Brush E.G. Brush & Son, 24 High Street, Caterham, Surrey, 2001 • That’s what I call a name, though they should be chimney sweeps. It’s just a plain gate […]
J. Seal Quality Butcher
J. Seal Quality Butcher, 7 Barnes High Street, Borough of Richmond upon Thames, London SW13, 2006 • Not only named in Profil, but in tiles. The butcher and tiles are […]
Rightpower Ltd
Rightpower Ltd, Trafalgar Lane, Brighton, East Sussex, 2004 • Note tiny, beautifully lettered instruction to slide the door. By 2015 the windows were still the same, but the painted signs had gone.
Ashton Eng Co Ltd
Ashton Eng Co Ltd, 20 Floodgate Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, 2014 • Garage equipment business in crumbly riverside industrial estate being colonised by creative types.
Pinkney Engineering
Pinkney Engineering, Fairbridge House, Ferry Street, Middlesbrough, 2013 • Attractive rivetted ghost sign on what is now a Prince’s Trust site.
I.S. Dry Cleaners The Clothes Care Solution
I.S. Dry Cleaners The CLothes Care Solution, 34 Totteridge Lane, Whetstone, Borough of Barnet, London N20, 2011 • More retro fontage from N20. Now Ryan Dry Cleaners, which looks the […]
S.R. Kay & Sons
S.R. Kay & Sons, 1 High Street, Tadworth, Surrey, 2003 • Note the very old phone number. Much the same in 2012 but with subtly updated (but still old-fashioned) lettering.
Anjay Displays Ltd
Anjay Displays Ltd, 227-229 Waterloo Road, Borough of Southwark, London SE1, 2002 • I always like sad shop dummies. I think this shopfitter’s still there, though the road’s changing quickly.
Boss
Boss, 4 Criterion Buildings, Portsmouth Road, Thames Ditton, Surrey, 2002 • Looked as if it was for the chop in 2002 but is still there, now with a new sign but retaining […]
Joplings
Joplings, John Street, Sunderland, 2013 • Established in 1804 and rebuilt many times over its two centuries on this site, this long-lived department store closed for good in 2010. Known as […]
Front Page News
Front Page News, Odeon Building, 33 Jordan Well, Coventry, West Midlands, 2013 • Lebara seem to have colonised every paper shop in the universe, but this must be the grandest. (2014 […]
Clueless
Clueless, 88b East Street, Borough of Southwark, London SE17, 2002 • Not the ideal name for a boutique. Now called “CD’s DVD’s“, which also lacks an air of longevity.
Boots Opticians (Strand)
Boots Opticians (Strand), 428 Strand, City of Westminster, London WC2, 2012 • See what I mean about Boots being in interesting buildings – in this case, a slim Art Deco throwback […]
Vogue Printers
Vogue Printers, 30 Rathbone Place, City of Westminster, London W1, 2001 • From the days when fax rolls featured proudly in window displays, an incredibly useful West End stationers with an […]
Wing Wah Fish Bar
Wing Wah Fish Bar, 174 High Street, Herne Bay, Kent, 2004 • I always like a name that rhymes. In a decisive change of national identity, this later became the Britannia […]
RF Potts
RF Potts, 66-68 Babington Lane, Derby, Derbyshire, 2010 • Not as old-fashioned as its faux-digital font suggests, it even has a website which offers a virtual tour, says they were established in 1933. […]
Bloomsbury Service Station
Bloomsbury Service Station, 6 Store Street and 2-8 Ridgmount Street, Bloomsbury, Borough of Camden, London WC1, 2002 • Another quaint garage, founded 1926, which by 2002 must have been London’s most […]
Chequers Lane Garage
Chequers Lane Garage, 3-5 Chequers Lane, Walton on the Hill, Tadworth, Surrey, 2003 • Attractive old-style garage (website here), founded 1991 but making sympathetic use of a facade from the dawn […]
Hair Care by New Figaro Formerly Ronald Saxon
Hair Care by New Figaro Formerly Ronald Saxon, 164 High Road, East Finchley, Borough of Barnet, London N2, 2003 • Nice logo, confused naming hierarchy. Later became Leptos (UK), a Cypriot […]
Chemist
Chemist, 182 Jamaica Road, Borough of Southwark, London SE16, 2001 • The word chemist is falling from use; this is now a pharmacy.
Frake’s Ltd Mace
Frake’s Ltd Mace, 51 Leather Lane, Borough of Camden, London EC1, 2001 & 2013 (bottom) • There’s something so quintessentially 1950s about this Mace sign. By 2013 all the black letters […]
Dilnot’s Bakers & Confectioners
Dilnot’s Bakers & Confectioners, 77 High Street, Whitstable, Kent, 2002 • This looks like it should be a permanent fixture, but became a jewellers. What looks like an ex-Hovis sign, top […]
Shopfront Elegy 