Now I have never been to Dorking but I know someone who has and while walking down the High Street Lois came across a faded painted sign announcing “Antique Furniture China Curios & Prints Repairs a speciality.”*
It’s on the gable end of nu 261 the High Street which in turn is sandwiched between the flower shop “Blooms of Dorking” and a group of residential properties.
The sign is much faded and for those who don’t know it is a ghost sign, one of those adverts for a business or a product which has long ceased trading or is no longer on sale.
Usually you also get a name, but not so with this one.
Which means tracking down its story will be difficult.
I am guessing that the elegant late Victorian building that is no 261 once offered the antique service but it is now for sale with “terms agreed" and I doubt that I will find a clue there.
Nor do I think Blooms will help given that in 2008 it was called Thistles and is probably under new management.
All that is left is to trawl the street directories which at some point will deliver a name alongside the correct business.
But Dorking is a long way from Manchester and so I think it will remain a mystery.
To which some will mutter that it doesn’t really matter which is a line I don’t agree with. All our ghost signs have a story sadly this one isn’t ready to be told yet.
Location; High Street Dorking
Pictures; ghost sign Dorking, 2016 from the collection of Lois Elsden
*Lois Elsden loiselsden.com, loiselsden.co.uk
The sign is much faded and for those who don’t know it is a ghost sign, one of those adverts for a business or a product which has long ceased trading or is no longer on sale.
Which means tracking down its story will be difficult.
I am guessing that the elegant late Victorian building that is no 261 once offered the antique service but it is now for sale with “terms agreed" and I doubt that I will find a clue there.
Nor do I think Blooms will help given that in 2008 it was called Thistles and is probably under new management.
All that is left is to trawl the street directories which at some point will deliver a name alongside the correct business.
But Dorking is a long way from Manchester and so I think it will remain a mystery.
To which some will mutter that it doesn’t really matter which is a line I don’t agree with. All our ghost signs have a story sadly this one isn’t ready to be told yet.
Location; High Street Dorking
Pictures; ghost sign Dorking, 2016 from the collection of Lois Elsden
*Lois Elsden loiselsden.com, loiselsden.co.uk
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