Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Today's visit to the Armadale uncovering

This afternoon I managed to get to Armadale to take a look at the latest uncovering of signs on two walls, following a demolition. Funnily enough it's only a block from the recent uncovering of a large Cadbury sign on the same side of the road (that sign is now entirely covered by a concrete wall, more's the pity).

I'd neglected to check how charged my camera phone was though - so I turned up with 17% charge left and, after climbing through the fence into the building site (as is my wont), I snapped like crazy until the phone karked it a few minutes later.

The signs were from before the 1950s it seems - this is backed up by the 1950s two-tone brick style of building that had been demolished:


The revealed signs are fabulous, with more exposed with the progression of the demolition works. One wall appeared to be a wall advertising a range of products to passing traffic, and the other side was an automotive centre specialising in tyres. The signs are layered. One side has a sign for butter menthol drops beneath a Persil washing powder ad (for Persil's history, see: http://www.henkel.com/henkel-headlines/2006-18539-100-years-of-persil-11029.htm). The drops sign has the signwriter's signature: Edgar Hook Signs.

Here's what the Persil sign once looked like, thanks to the Stonnington Council website (http://stonlib.stonnington.vic.gov.au/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/ENQ/PIC/BIBENQ?IRN=6401817&FMT=PA. What's interesting here is that a) the signs below the Persil one are older than the photo (which looks like the 1940s), since they predated the construction of the bakery building, b) The Persil sign was painted quite sloppily on top of the butter menthol sign, which looks like it was for the Allens brand (look above the 'Persil'):



Underneath the Persil sign (see below) are older signs for Pennants next to the remains of a painting of a cricket player. Palmer's Pennants was something sports-y (bats? balls? muscle rub?) but as yet my Google searching has turned up nothing...any help much appreciated.

On the wall opposite are lots of layered sign for Dunlop and other tyres, as well as what looks like older signs for a Ford dealership. I'm including all the photos below. Who knows how much longer these signs will be around? John Hunter's website also has some more photos of the site: http://jalbum.net/browse/user/album/1482256.

Anyway, here are the pics:











 













4 comments:

  1. I checked out old Persil logos and they were a red circle with the white lettering over top. What's happened up on that wall is that the red circle had long ago faded out to nothing (as red is prone to do over time) You can see in the old black and white photo that it had vanished even before the bakery was demolished. Another really interesting glimpse back in time...I wonder how many are still there along High Street.

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  2. I remember a Palmers Sports store and the reference to Palmers Pennant might be to Pennant Bowls (lawn bowls)
    Rob Gray

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  3. Another thought is to a whitening product or even a paint that was super white. The other connotations of pennant are for flags and the district cricket competition which has been known as pennant cricket.

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  4. Another thought is to a whitening product or even a paint that was super white. The other connotations of pennant are for flags and the district cricket competition which has been known as pennant cricket.

    ReplyDelete