Friday 9 August 2013

Drapery stores, Kingston

This drapery shop in Kingston may have been fairly modest but the ghost sign that once advertised it is rather elegant with its different typefaces and curvy lines.

Cheap
& Good
Drapery
Stores
-------
Goods
Paid
... By
Weekly
Payments

The style of this ghost sign would suggest it is more than a century old but I have not found any mention of a draper on Acre Road in trade directories or in any other document.

Unfortunately both the 1878 edition of the Post Office Directory of Surrey and the 1891 edition of Kelly's Directory of Kent, Surrey & Sussex do not include street numbers (several shopkeepers and a dress maker -no draper though- had their premises on Acre Road and one might have been behind this sign) and by 1913, the wall this sign was painted on separated a grocer from a furniture dealer according to Kelly's Directory of Surrey.

Location: Acre Road / Pictures taken in June 2013

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