The Little Teapot

Recently I met up with a friend at a very trendy café up on Lygon Street, but on the way I was amazed to see this little teapot painted on the bricks of an old building. This would have to be my favourite ghost sign so far! It is short and stout with a handle and a spout, just like in the children’s song. 

Methven Park

This is a small park just off Lygon Street, with magnificent old elm trees and a path that winds through it from one corner to the other, causing the beholder to wonder: where did it used to lead to? Surely not just from one street to the next? The destination and the story have disappeared.

Ghost signs

 

Well, I knew that my interest in bricks and twentieth century industrial buildings is shared at least by Thomas Ryan in Tasmania, but I thought this was perhaps a rather obscure interest. As also my eye for what I called in an earlier post "bricks with vanishing signage". Then I heard on the radio about a recent conference and followed this lead on the internet. To my delight I learned that there are a whole community of people documenting what are officially known as “ghost signs”.  And I discovered the websites of Dr Stefan Schutt of Victoria University.