Don’t forget, prospective Bough & Dough Shop artists – next Friday, September 2 is our last call for applications for the 2022 Shop! Download a copy of the information sheet and application and return them to PHW – by email to phwinc.org@gmail.com or by snail mail to PHW, 530 Amherst St., Winchester, VA 22601. We are super excited by the artists who have applied so far this year and can’t wait to share the lineup in early September!
Ghost signs have gotten a fair amount of attention, so we thought our readers may enjoy a UK-based online archive from the History of Advertising Trust documenting famous and obscure signs across the pond. One that caught our eye was the W. Smithson & Sons. Let us know if you spot a good one!
We also enjoyed reading about Guédelon Castle and how an “experimental archeology” project is likely to aid in the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral. From the article:
“The roof frame [at Notre Dame] was extremely sophisticated, using techniques that were advanced for the 12th and 13th centuries,” Frédéric Épaud, a medieval wood specialist, tells the Observer. “After the fire, there were a lot of people saying it would take thousands of trees, and we didn’t have enough of the right ones, and the wood would have to be dried for years, and nobody even knew anything about how to produce beams like they did in the Middle Ages. They said it was impossible. But we knew it could be done because Guédelon has been doing it for years.”
Last, as we’ve had rowhouses and demolition on our mind lately, you may likewise enjoy Philadelphia’s ‘Building Ghosts’ Have a Lot to Say at Atlas Obscura. These ghosts, like the ghost signs, are traces not just of former businesses but of entire rowhouses or other buildings that were once attached to their neighbors. When a part of the row is demolished, a tantalizing glimpse of the interior can remain on the neighboring structure. From the article: “Building ghosts show up in many cities that have historically had lots of rowhouses or attached buildings. . . . . Donald Friedman, an architectural preservation consultant who co-founded New York-based Old Structures Engineering, explains that masonry-walled rowhouses were a 19th-century phenomenon and became much less common after around 1910.” Next time you are in the historic district, keep an eye out particularly on the upper stories of structures – we have a few such building ghosts in Winchester, though here they are mostly limited to roof and addition outlines.