Victoria Chemist

Victoria Chemist, 80-82 High Street, Banstead, Surrey, 2001 • Quite a fancy 1980s-style frontage for a chemist (and named after me, always a good thing). It’s still there, double the […]

Top Value Drug Store

Top Value Drug Store, 299 Hale Lane, Edgware, Borough of Barnet, London HA8, 2004 • Giant purple plastic sign in plain Futura font – nice. By 2017 it was still […]

Brodt Chemist

Brodt Chemist, 30 Coombe Road, Norbiton, Borough of Kingston upon Thames, London KT2, 2002 • Closed-down pharmacy with old-school vending machine and Profil font on its empty shelving. By 2016 […]

Triplesave (Chemist) Ltd

Triplesave (Chemist) Ltd, 8 MacDonald Road, Walthamstow, Borough of Waltham Forest, London E17, 2004 • Classic plastic sign for drugs.

Imperial Pharmacy

Imperial Pharmacy, 4 The Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, 2014 • Grand drugstore in an 1804 Georgian bath house; a niche housing the chalybeate (iron-rich) spring that gave the town its […]

White Stuff (Hexham)

20 Fore Street, Hexham, Northumberland, 2016 • Incredibly ornate ex-pharmacy repurposed as fashion outlet. The early 20th century fascia is listed for its magnificent carved woodwork by the Belgian refugee M. Cullmans. Amazingly, it was […]

Oakville Care Centre

Oakville Care Centre, 3 Badcox, Frome, Somerset, 2015 • Beautiful old stone heads decorating a boring shop. Titles include Summer, Mirth, Peace, Plenty, and one that’s unreadable. It’s part of Badcox […]

Tony’s Hemp Corner

Tonys Hemp Corner, 10 Caledonian Road, Kings Cross, Borough of Islington, London N1, 2010 • Creepy flower-child fascia for controversial cannabis cafe whose proprietor Tony Taylor supplied ‘medicinal’ marijuana to nearly 300 […]

Jedediah Strutt

Jedediah Strutt shop, corner of Exchange Street and St Peters Street, Derby, Derbyshire, 2010 • Empty Grade II listed former Boots building (info here) with statues of four notable locals. […]

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 […]

South Merstham Pharmacy.

South Merstham Pharmacy., 55 Nutfield Road, Merstham, Surrey, 2002 • Cute and useful 1960s-throwback post office-cum-pharmacy. It’s now a bland Day Lewis pharmacy with no postie (although the mosaic remains).

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. 

The Old Maids Pharmacy

The Old Maids Pharmacy, 321 Bethnal Green Road, Borough of Tower Hamlets, London E2, 2005 • What a brilliant name. It’s still there, but with a newer, “posher” sign.

Kings Pharmacy

Kings Pharmacy, 104 Edgware Road, City of Westminster, London W2, 2003 • It’s nice when a regal name has a suitably noble sign. Judging by the dual crowns and lack of […]

Arkle Pharmacy

Arkle Pharmacy, 39 Junction Road, Archway, Borough of Islington, London N19, 2003 • A good old-fashioned name and address next door to yesterday’s De Marco. Now just called Pharmacy (incorporating […]

Wicker Pharmacy

Wicker Pharmacy, 55-59 Wicker, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, 2010 • More 1960s marble on a building which started life as a Midland Bank. The pharmacy, founded  by a consortium of local chemists in 1952 […]

Ex-Boots (Hull)

Ex-Boots, Hull, East Yorkshire, 2005 • Positively my final Boots for now, once again proving the brilliant recognisability of its longstanding logo (designed by Jesse Boot in 1883) – even when […]

Boots (Oxford Street)

Boots (Oxford Street), 151 (I think) Oxford Street, London W1, City of Westminster, 2002 • Sorry to harp on about Boots, but this wouldn’t have happened with their old-school stone signs […]

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 […]

Boots Opticians (Horsham)

Boots Opticians (Horsham), 39 West Street, Horsham, West Sussex, 2003 • Modern variant of the last two days’ vintage 3D Boots signs, which, though cheapo-looking, shows the benefit of not giving […]

Boots (Golders Green)

Boots (Golders Green), 638 Finchley Road, Golders Green, Borough of Barnet, London NW11, 2003 • Another vintage Boots sign, this one now gone though the shop’s still there.

Boots (Pret A Manger)

Boots (Pret A Manger), 7 Parade, Canterbury, Kent 2013 • Yet another parade of boots – this time, evidence of an earlier occupant of this ancient-looking building.

Kents Chemists

Kents Chemists, 104 Walton Road, East Molesey, Surrey, 2002 • Hard to believe such a beautiful “chymist” exists in unassuming suburban Surrey. Both it and the building it’s in were established […]

Chemist

Chemist, 182 Jamaica Road, Borough of Southwark, London SE16, 2001 • The word chemist is falling from use; this is now a pharmacy.

Chemist.

Chemist. NHS Prescriptions Dispenced, 165 Deptford High Street, Borough of Lewisham, London SE8, 2002 • A classic: generic name, random full stop, spelling issues, misplaced security fears. Became Hair by […]