Ghost signs in the sky

Well less in the sky and more accurately in Didsbury. 

It is one that you can easily miss, as my old friend Lawrence acknowledged today when he sent this picture over, adding, “Can’t believe I’ve never spotted this ghost sign in Didsbury before. It’s at everyone’s favourite little street Warbuton Street. 

Think it says “R Oldfield Coal Agent & Dealer”. Can’t remember if you’ve written about this sign before”.

And I have to confess that while the sign features as a picture back in a story in 2021, I never actually wrote about it.

So here it is again, and despite a first trawl of the records I can’t find a reference to R. Oldfield in either the late 19th or early 20th century, but I travel in hope that someone will.

The location does make perfect sense given that at the end of the road there were the coal yards of the railway and other known coal merchants.

For those who don’t know, ghost signs are the names of companies or products most of which no longer exist.  In a simpler age they were painted or picked out in coloured brick on the sides of buildings and date back well into the past.

Today they are slowly fading out of history, because the painted signs are peeling and growing fainter by the day.  While others are just being painted over, which for another Didsbury ghost sign was a fate which very nearly happened.

So that is it, leaving me just to thank Lawrence and point you to the link on the blog for plenty of other “ghost stories”.*

Location; Didsbury

Picture; The Didsbury ghost sign, 2022, from the collection of Lawrence Beedle 

*The Ghost Sign, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Ghost%20Sign