I would like to know more about W.H. Potts, what he sold and
when he decided to have the sign painted.
But that is the problem with ghost signs. The individual and the business they
advertise have long since vanished and that pretty much scuppers any attempt to
know more.
Sometimes the company is a well known one and is still
trading, so when Neil Simpson sent me a collection of six advertising Beecham’s
Pills the research was easy.
And even if the company has long gone it is often possible to
tease out their story from old photographs, street directories and even from oral
testimony.
Which is how I tracked down one Joseph Emerson, tailor at 28
Market Place, whose hand painted sign still adorns a wall near the covered in
market in Stockport.
My friend Sally had come across the sign snapped it and sent
it on to me. It was as they say a text
book case in rediscovering a lost business.
And even when the trail goes cold there can be something
interesting to discover, so it was with Angie’s picture of a long lost chemist’s
in Stalybridge which while I could find nothing about the shop or its owner led
me off on a journey investigating the building itself.
But at present Mr Pott’s has me stumped.
It was collected by Stephen Marland and can be seen on a
gable end on Castle Street in Stockport.
In time its story will be revealed, but not quite yet.
Picture; courtesy of Stephen Marland
*Just when you thought there were no more, ...... four ghost
signs, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/just-when-you-thought-there-were-no.html
**In the Market Place in Stockport in 1905
***A ghost sign in Stalybridge and hints of something more, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Stalybridge%20in%20the%202000s
No comments:
Post a Comment