Edwards Road, Erdington, Birmingham
Painted directly onto the brickwork of a building near Erdington High Street, a remarkably well-preserved advertisement announces J. Dicks, tobacconist and confectioner, alongside Wills' Three Castles cigarettes. Its bold lettering, once intended to catch the attention of passing customers, has acquired an entirely different character. Weathering, damaged paint and exposed brick have transformed a commercial advertisement into a striking piece of accidental public art.
Three Castles was introduced in 1878 by W. D. & H. O. Wills, the Bristol tobacco manufacturer that became one of Britain's most influential cigarette producers. The advertisement belongs to an era when independent retailers were prominent features of local shopping streets and cigarette manufacturers used elaborate painted signs to promote their products. Although the precise date of this advertisement has not been established, its survival provides a tangible connection to a period when tobacco advertising was commonplace and the neighbourhood shop occupied an important place in everyday commercial life.
The original purpose of this sign was entirely temporary: to persuade people to buy a particular product from a particular shop. Neither the advertiser nor the painter intended to create a historical monument. Yet the business has disappeared, attitudes towards smoking have changed profoundly, and the advertisement remains. Its commercial message has become a record of the society that produced it. There is something remarkable about an object designed to influence the present becoming, through simple survival, a means of understanding the past.