Ghostly Remains

After the last post on Ghost Signs I was contacted by a reader with information as to where three further signs were in the town, so this afternoon I took my camera and myself on a walk of discovery around the south of Tonbridge.

Meadow Road Tonbridge

The first painted sign I found clings to a garage wall in Meadow Road which I found incredibly hard to  completely decipher, but it seems to read:-

Dry Tree Farm Dairy

Tonbridge

Deliveries twice daily

in this district

There is a name and it is possibly E Harris, but I am unable to work that out or the inscription at the top of the advertisement.

St Stephens Street Tonbridge

A second bleached and faded sign remains on a property in St Stephens Street adjacent to the Punch & Judy pub.  This was probably painted by Mr. Palmer himself who is advertising the one and only as a Signwriter, Grainer, Painter, Paperhanger and Decorator. I searched through the Kelly's Street Directories with great expectations that a Mr. Palmer would have lived at this address, but his name was not to be found here or in St Stephens Street.  As there has always been a watering hole next door I wondered if Mr. Palmer could have been always found there.

Rear of Priory Street Tonbridge

The final remaining ghost sign I was directed to was really hard to find as a block flats has been built in front of it, and has rendered it almost invisible.  It sits high in the apex of  a side wall near to the corner of Priory Street and Priory Road. The flats that were completed this year were built on the site of the former Railway Bell pub.  The sign reads:-

Est^b 1845
Medway Coal Com^py
And At
Tunbridge Wells, Hastings,
London & Elsewhere

I don't hold out much hope for the preservation of this sign, and believe it will be lost very soon as a number of flues spurt out their vapour directly onto the lettering.  This was so disappointing as it will only be a matter of time before it fades and disappears.

Vapour damaging the sign

Luckily the sign has been documented and photographed many times, and also appears on Google Street Map (see here http://g.co/maps/qkvqy) before the flats that hide it were built.

I am not sure how long the Medway Coal Company was in Priory Street, as the main office was in or close to Tonbridge High Street.  There was a coal merchants listed in Kellys Street directories at this address in 1886, followed by Carter Smith Ltd who were firewood dealers and by 1919 the Medway Coal Company are listed, but as firewood dealers and not coal merchants.  A photograph on http://www.tonbridgehistory.org.uk/photos/shops-and-retailing/slides/29.033.html that depicts Ray Lucas with his horse and Medway Coal Company cart, does have some evidence of a firewood store in the picture, but it is unsure where this was taken.  It could be at the Priory Street address.  It is all rather a mystery.

Tonbridge Historical Society Pictorial Collection No. 29.033

I believe that I have now probably covered all remaining ghost signs in Tonbridge on this blog.  If there are any more that haven't been mentioned please let me know, and in the meantime take a look at those that still cling onto these old walls before they disappear.