This page continues some of the faint traces of public (mainly trade)
lettering
to be found in the Ipswich. Once again, we include these because they
exist,
even though they may not be clearly readable at the screen resolution
used
on this website. Again, the signs are spelt out in the captions.
This one's a peach. A large ghost of a sign, it is on the side wall of
the
HSS Hire Shop on the corner of Cullingham Road where it meets Handford
Road.
You can see part of the metal street sign to the lower right and near
it,
partially covering our sign, the modern shop sign screwed to the wall.
So
what does it say, we hear you cry? Well, it took a bit of deciphering,
even
on site, but the long pale cartouche reads: 'CORN HAY CHAFF AND STRAW
STORES'
(there may be other lettering beneath). The wall of this building is a
patchwork
of rebuilding and blocking-up (particularly noticeable above the
decorative
frieze) and in fact it stands on one of the ancient roads into the
town,
running in a south westerly direction from Colchester towards the site
of
the long-lost Ipswich Castle near Civic Drive; this area was once very
marshy
and largely uninhabited. It's nice to think that the sign reached that
far
back, but unlikely. It does, however, link us to an age when the horse
ruled
the highways and chandlers advertised the products of the corn harvest
for
the steeds' upkeep and well-being.
This was one of the notable shops of Ipswich, now long gone after a
move
from the 'planning-blighted' Upper Orwell Street to the large building
overlooking
Tower Ramparts (now Yates' Wine Lodge, see Egertons).
From the Cox Lane car park you can still make out a distant name, the
paint
fading to a peach colour: 'BARNES: of Ipswich Ltd.' (the last part
virtually
indecipherable).
<The lower lettering is visible in the monochrome
photograph from
a different angle.
At the back of Lamden Gallery and framing/art shop at 137 Felixstowe
Road (several shops knocked into one) is this mysterious cartouche, now
obliterated by fawn paint: the more recently built flat-roofed
extension unfortunately made this operation easy. Ghosts of characters
are visible, but no words readable as yet. This sign faces up Newton
Road to draw attention to what? A grocer, tobacconist, ironmonger at
the corner shop of yore:
Return
to Ipswich Historic Lettering website, trade page
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Ipswich
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©2004 Copyright throughout the Ipswich Signs and
Ipswich
Lettering sites: Borin Van Loon
No reproduction of text or images without express written permission