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 […]

Robert Walker Cut Price Sweets Cigarettes

Robert Walker Cut Price Sweets Cigarettes, 75 Deptford High Street, Borough of Greenwich, London SE8, 2002 • Pastel-hued cheap fag emporium which had disappeared by 2014, and by 2017 was (bizarrely) […]

Silk Cut

Silk Cut, 41 Dorset Road, Borough of Lambeth, London SW8, 2018 • Brief ghost sign revelation for a once-lavishly advertised cigarette brand, on a backstreet shop that was previously Leena […]

Post Office (Ashbourne Parade)

Post Office (Ashbourne Parade), 4 Ashbourne Parade, Borough of Ealing, London W5, 2006 • Randomly-branded postie with 1960s-looking logo in Franklin Gothic. Amazingly it’s still a post office, in the […]

W.J. Cox & Sons

W.J. Cox & Sons, 37 High Street, Whitstable, Kent, 2002 • Battered tobacconist with ghost sign saying “Established 1863” and a deep arcade entrance. A contemporary gallery later moved in and […]

H. E. King

H. E. King, 26 Albert Road, Southsea, City ofPortsmouth, 2016 • Very old newsagents shuttered due to the death of its 87-year-old owner, Ray King – the shop had been […]

Hares of Hexham

Hares of Hexham, 45 Fore Street, Hexham, Northumberland, 2016 • A sign sellotaped to the door of this traditional tobacco / sweetie / shaving emporium says “closed until further notice”. Sadly, […]

City Confectionery

City Confectionery, 105 Shoreditch High Street, Borough of Tower Hamlets, London E1, 2006 & 2002 • Maybe the flat-dweller crept in under the angled shutter. The top photo is from 2006, when it […]

G. Smith & Sons

G. Smith & Sons, 74 Charing Cross Road, City of Westminster, London WC2, 2011 • I thought this ancient snuff specialist would always be there, but it closed unceremoniously in 2011 with […]

Zenith Fancy Goods (A2Z Smoking Products Ltd)

Zenith Fancy Goods (A2Z Smoking Products Ltd), 42 Goulston Street, Borough of Tower Hamlets, London E1, 2014 (top), 2010 (bottom) • Grand brackets and creepy graffiti for ex-fancy goods outlet […]

Softys

Softys, 68b Bridge Street, Bolton, Lancashire, 2010 • Its full name was once Softys’ Hard Stuff (sic), but part has fallen off – see the full sign on Flickr, taken in […]

Good News

Good News, 33 Sydney Street, Brighton, East Sussex, 2014 • Brighton newsies  seem to have appropriately sunny names, but the news in the window isn’t so good – “Mum’s horror […]

Lennon Bros Ltd. (Mr Simms)

Lennon Bros Ltd. (Mr Simms), 15 Market Place, Rugby, Warwickshire, 2012 • A very substantial ghost sign, much longer resident than the faux-olde worlde Mr Simms sweetshop chain beneath (which was later replaced […]

A.J. Massey

A.J. Massey, 53 Linkfield Street, Redhill, Surrey, 2002 • Superannuated signwriting on what is now a deli.

Supercigs

Supercigs, 20 Richmond Street, Liverpool, 2003 • Now, more politically-correctly, called Supernews.

Smokers World

Smokers World, 344 Bethnal Green Road, Borough of Tower Hamlets, London E2, 2005 • Fags, mags and net curtains – interesting mix. It was still there in 2012, not sure […]

Morrow

Morrow, 41 High Street, Leominster, Herefordshire, 2014 • I have no idea what this is – those look like spotlights in the window. It’s a listed 16th century building which […]

M. Landaw

M. Landaw, 5 Eagle Place, City of Westminster, London SW1, 2003 & 2014 (bottom) • Stylish alleyway newsagent looking straight out of Vienna. Not only has it disappeared, the entire […]

Jai Amibika

Jai Amibika, 3 Great Eastern Street, Borough of Hackney, London EC2, 2006 • A colourful shutter by the street artist Eine, who at the time wasn’t famous. Painting doors paid […]

Valley Vapes

Valley Vapes, 20 Castle Gates, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, 2014 • I’ve never seen a shop for these creepy devices before. Lovely step and entranceway, though.  

Parkers

Parkers, 13 Oxford Street, Whitstable, Kent, 2002 • None of those namby-pamby filter tips for the salty seadogs of Folkestone. The gallery next door shows which way the wind was blowing; […]

London Laundry

London Laundry, 120 Upper Spon Street, Coventry, West Midlands, 2013 • Part of Black Swan Terrace, a row of historic cottages that was derelict in the 1990s, and now restored to […]

Teignmouth Parade: Terry’s News, Lloyds TSB

Terry’s News, Lloyds TSB, 4 & 3 Teignmouth Parade, Perivale, Borough […]

Cigarettes Confectionery Tobacco

Cigarettes Confectionery Tobacco, 6 High Street, Herne Bay, Kent, 2002  • Old sign briefly revealed during redevelopment into flats – you’d never know there’d been a shop there now.

K.T. Andrews (London) Ltd.

K.T. Andrews (London) Ltd., 404 St John Street, Borough of Islington, London EC1, 2002 • 404 not found: this became half a Pret a Manger.

Belgravia Cigarette Coy.

Belgravia Cigarette Coy., 25 Grosvenor Gardens, Victoria, City of Westminster, London SW1, 2004 • Currently a newsagent of the same name, windows unchanged; so the old fag ads may lurk […]

Burnards (B.J. Warrell)

Burnards (B.J. Warrell), 38 Brixton Road, Borough of Lambeth, London SW9, 2001 • This beautiful palimpsest probably remains beneath the huge blue fascia of later occupant Ever Fresh Food & […]

Jami Newsagents J.B. Winton Ltd

Jami Newsagents J.B. Winton Ltd, 322a Grays Inn Road, Borough of Camden, London WC1, 2002 • I like the way Jami is tacked onto the previous name. Now gone and […]