Ghost Signs West
Inspired by the excellent Caroline’s Miscellany, I thought I’d share with you some ghost signs I spotted the other day in Hanwell, which is just west of Ealing. Hanwell doesn’t have any stately houses, fine churches or things of that nature, but it does have Brunel’s magnificent railway viaduct that passes over Brent Valley. Queen Victoria (happy 192nd birthday, Ma’am) used to have the royal train stop here so she could gaze over her realm.
Anyway, here they are, round the back of a 2nd hand car dealership in Hanwell Broadway.
Ghost signs do carry with them a special nostalgia, I think, and often raise interesting questions about who the people were who had them painted, how they fared and what happened to them subsequently. Sometimes we manage to find clues to the answers but often the sign is all that remains.
Caroline certainly produces some interesting ones and there is also another blog which specializes in this domain, namely Faded London, whose author collects ghost signs and other material traces of the past.
I have an ongoing photography project documenting striking ghost signs wherever I can find them, if you’re interested take a look at http://www.tombland.co.uk/signofthetimes.htm
Thanks I had not seen these ones before and you make an interesting point about what happened to the people associated with them.
As a photographer I am also documenting them before they disappear and you can see some of them at http://teachyourselfphotography.blogspot.com/p/ghost-signs-of-london.html and the History of Advertising Trust has a very large archive of them which is where all my pictures end up.