Faded Catford

My impossible ''ride every road'' project took me down to Catford last week.  As a teenager I used to have a fair number of friends who lived in this part of the world but they're long gone and, given that part of Catford's raison d'être is that its roads don't go anywhere, I haven't really been down that way for decades.  So freewheeling down Sandhurst Road I was pleased to find this pretty well-preserved Butcher's sign above the corner grocery-cum-off licence at the junction of Muirkirk Road.

R C EVANS

FAMILY

BUTCHER

PURVEYOR OF

ENGLISH

7 SCOTCH

MEAT

Finest Quality

LOWEST PRICES

A little further down the road, at the junction of Inchmery Road, there's this one.  With several layers and highly faded, it's little more than the vague memory of a Chemist's sign.and I can't decipher anything but individual words.

I was also pleased to have spotted this one opposite when I arrived at the junction from a different direction.  Not instantly visible, the main clue is the advertising hoarding above - sites for advertising often stay as sites for a long time.  SWAN LAUNDRY.

My feeling of self-satisfaction at spotting such an unobtrusive feature was short-lived.  Checking back on Google map's ''street view,'' I discovered that I appear to have ridden straight past this rather more obvious one....

I think I'll have to revisit the street to see what lies behind that young tree.  It appears to be:

WARNER BROS

HYGIENIC BAKERY

with

HOVIS on the back wall.