Google Street View

I've been geotagging lots of my pictures on Flickr for the UK Ghost Signs archive project. In order to get postcodes for some of the locations I've also been putting the street names into Google Maps. If you haven't come across it already then you must check out Google Street View. They've taken what must be millions of photos of lots of streets and reconstructed a realistic view that allows you to move about as though you are driving along. Inadvertantly this means that you can also check out Ghost Signs.

Have a go yourself. An easy one for starters is Dad's barbers on Hoxton Street. Put 'Hoxton Street, London' into the search bit here and then, when it shows the map, look for the little speech bubble and click on 'Street View' which should be underneath the picture.

Straight away you should see the Dad's sign immediately ahead. You can also zoom in and move around by clicking on the white arrows, dragging the screen by clicking and holding or double clicking to move in and out.

I love it, it get very addictive when you realise you can look at your own house, where you work and live and anywhere else of interest. Here's some more examples, Boots and Bovril.