Oxford Ghost Signs: Butler's at 169 Cowley Road
BUTLER'S / IRONMONGERY / CHINA & GLASS STORES
Photographed by Liz Woolley in 2023 from the second floor above Tesco
No. 169 Cowley Road is on the eastern corner with Chapel Street, and this ghost sign can be seen on the chimney stack.
This photograph bearing the ghost sign in 1957 shows that there were two more shops with the name Butler (selling shoes and drapery) on the west corner of Chapel Street, but it is uncertain whether they were run by the same family.
The photograph below shows the former Ironmonger's shop with the ghost sign on the chimney stack in 2023. The two former Butler's stores to the west were among the shops demolished in c.1967 to make way for Tesco.
Butler Brothers, ironmongers, were at 169 Cowley Road by 1913. and on 3 September that year they took out a full-page advertisement for the new Reznor Portable gas heaters that they stocked. These heaters still featured prominently in their entry in Kelly's Directory for 1930, which read:
169 Reznor Manufacturing Co. gas heater mnfrs
169 Butler's Ironmongery, China & Glass Stores. Telephone 2518
Butler's remained in this shop until the late 1960s. Its last entry in Kelly's Directory was in 1968 and read simply “Butler's Ironmongery Ltd”.
By 1970 another ironmonger, Shergold's (later Carpenter Shergold's) had moved into No. 169.