Ipswich Historic Lettering: Kentish Town

Kentish Town

2025 images courtesy David Gaylard
Above: the brown five-tiles-high station names feature on the curving 'side walls' of the underground station on the Northern Line:

'KENTISH : TOWN'

and what a curious use of a colon in this handsome serif'd letterform.
This Edwardian station design by architect Leslie W. Green RIBA required huge numbers of ceramic tiles. The tiles measure 9 inches by 3 inches and it is estimated that some 2 million were required for each of tube stations under the management of the American Charles Tyson Yerkes, who made his fortune on US railways. Tile patterns were repeated along the platform wall which included, usually three times, the station name. Tracings on A2 sheets of semi-transparent paper were made of these letter forms. Later, having got tracings of hundreds of individual letters, it became very obvious that none of them were literally speaking identical and visually there were distinct differences in the style of alphabets between tile manufacturers – W.B. Simpson & Sons (of London) had two styles, whereas G. Woolliscroft & Son Ltd and the Permanent Decorative Glass Company had one style each – though this only became apparent while this particular exercise was being carried out.
[Information from Doug Rose, author of the book Tiles of the Unexpected, from an account of a talk he gave in 2015*.]
*https://www.lurs.org.uk/07%20jan%20LONDON%20UNDERGROUND’S%20EDWARDIAN%20TILE%20PATTERNS.pdf

Below: it is instructive to shift from luxuriating in the tasteful station platform sign to the urban art lettering at the surface. It is bold and readable on a sky-blue background – it is only a pity that it obliterated the old trade sign beneath. All that remains is:

'TRELLIS AND JOINERY WORKS'

Photographed from a station platform, it also shows a footbridge linking the platforms; Leighton Road is the nearest thoroughfare from which the signs can be seen. At one time, around 2009, the proprietor's name was still visible behind some basic capitals in white (plus an exclamation mark, with no background). It appears to be 'Crowe & ?'.

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