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Ghost signs of Birmingham
- Thread starter Gez
- Start date
brianthelion
master brummie
It's the details that make it rather impressive which you can easily miss as you walk past.It is rather nice inside too:
Radiorails
master brummie
How pleasant to see an older building looked after. It makes a change from derelict places with demolition taking place. Demolition seems that Birmingham holds the number one place.
brianthelion
master brummie
Hence the interlinked M's on the door photo earlier. So much trouble taken in those days.
This one's a bit obscure, but it's nice to recognise the history of the store. It did once have a Rackhams lettered sign above the lower level building (and if you look very closely on Streetview you can just about make out the fixing marks). But !ater the Harrods leaping stag sign was placed above it and the Rackhams sign was removed. The ghost of the leaping stag remains today. Viv.
Attachments
hi derek...i think the wording gives it away ..why say completely unspoilt by progress if it was an original sign of hundred years back..also not so sure that back in the day they used the apostrophe..could be wrong though
lyn
I think that the slogan "unspoilt by progress" began being used in the mid 80s in relation to Banks's Bitter. That picture @ Gas Street Basin is the perfect setting for it and they did very well to give it such a weathered look (if the sign has actually been in place for less than 40 years).
Stokkie
master brummie
Lyn, it must be the heat! I was looking at the rubbed down paint and didn't pay attention to what was written. A fake then, but in keeping with the setting.
Derek
What was or is "The Merchant Stores" ? If this sign is modern it must be using the opportunity to advertise. Is there a place called "the Merchant Stores" that sells Banks's ? Alternatively was there a "Merchant Stores" that sold Banks's ?Viv
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Stokkie
master brummie
Viv, apparently it is (or was) a current pub at 265 Broad Street. I live and learn as the name meant nothing to me. Derek
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pjmburns
master brummie
It opened in May 1996 so if the sign was painted then it would be 27 years old - is that a "ghost"??
Birmingham Mail April 10 1996
Appears to be closed now.
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thanks as suspected it is not old...cant speak for other members but as 27 years is the oldest it can be i personally would not class it as a ghost sign..
lyn
Janet Hunt
master brummie
The sign was not there in 1976 as confirmed in this site on the 1976 photo ...so recent addition.
Gas Street Basin
I first came across Gas Street Basin, the heart of Birmingham’s canal-system in 1976, when it still had the patina of a neglected, workaday industrial site. The canal basin lies at the end-on junct…
www.mikehigginbottominterestingtimes.co.uk
Most definitions of ghost signs mention painted advertising signs on buildings that have been preserved over an extended period of time. (Not come across a specific time definition in any description so far).
But my personal view is we should also consider whether the product or service or business still exists, but also bearing in mind a business may no longer operate from those premises having moved to a new location. In that instance the ghost sign is still of value in understanding the background of the business and its value to the local community. Signs, whether they're 100 years or 10 years old, can usually tell us something about the local history.
In short, I don't think looking at whether it's simply 'old' is enough. Defining old is different to different people. But by looking at the context of the sign it offers much more about trends in products, advertising, businesses, economic changes... I could go on ...!
This is my personal view. Viv
But my personal view is we should also consider whether the product or service or business still exists, but also bearing in mind a business may no longer operate from those premises having moved to a new location. In that instance the ghost sign is still of value in understanding the background of the business and its value to the local community. Signs, whether they're 100 years or 10 years old, can usually tell us something about the local history.
In short, I don't think looking at whether it's simply 'old' is enough. Defining old is different to different people. But by looking at the context of the sign it offers much more about trends in products, advertising, businesses, economic changes... I could go on ...!
This is my personal view. Viv
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Stokkie
master brummie
I agree, Sam Roberts has written a book about London ghost signs and traces the use of the phrase to 1981in an American publication. https://ghostsigns.co.uk/2017/01/tracing-the-origins-of-ghost-signs/
Birmingham has all too often destroyed its past, so it is interesting that in the gentrification of Gas Street Basin an illusion of a ghost sign has been fabricated. There's much to say about ghost signs and their fabrication, renovation and potential to discover the historical context in between 'heritage'. Retro seems a popular cultural trend.
Derek
Stokkie
master brummie
The phrase 'ghost sign' was included in a list of new words and extended definitions in 2021, but clearly people used it well before that. "ghost sign in ghost, n. and adj.: “an old sign or notice displaying obsolete information, or advertising a defunct product or business; (now) esp. a painted sign of this type that…”
https://public.oed.com/updates/new-words-list-september-2021/
https://public.oed.com/updates/new-words-list-september-2021/
Seeing as this thread started in 2012, nine years before that definition, then that certainly is true. "Pretended" historical features (if I may call them that) have existed for hundreds of years. Supposedly Tudor style buildings were constructed in Victorian times . However it does sometimes it difficult to ascertain what is genuine. One of those DNA type programs (recently repeated, told the person concerned that their ancestor had held musical type entertainments in the upper rooms of a pub, and the participants were taken to the pub concerned and told that the entertainments were held in that room. Only thing is that a little investigation (my antennae were tweeked as it did not look a very old pub) showed that this pub was completely rebuilt some years after the events described. If more modern reproductions are recorded that is fine, but only only if it is made quite clear that they are not of the age they presume. Similarly with colourised photos (as I know I have ranted on about before!)
An example of a more modern ghost sign on Brookvale Road. The sign underneath Golden Tree Cafe (possibly Brookvale Cafe ?) is obviously relatively modern. Viv
Pedrocut
Master Barmmie
I knew the shop in the Historic past before it was the Brookvale Cafe, but can’t remember the name. Thanks for sharing.
Quite possibly Mike given the economic situation. But many modern signs (future ghost signs) are simply ripped down, unlike the old painted signs. And we have, ironically, advertising to thank for protecting many old painted signs behind modern-day hoardings. If they hadn't been covered up they'd be largely indecipherable. Viv.