A bit of digging has unearthed two old photographs of the location. The faded lettering looks like it's part of a run of six words (maybe seven), one on top of the other, but it's not possible to read what they are; likely old style shop advertising. The shop maybe did sell booze - in one picture you can see a girl having a pot filled at the entrance to the shop. However, what at first I thought was an advertisement for
Whites Lager Beer, looks, on closer examination, to be a partial reading of
???whites (Gin)ger Beer. I suspect the shop is the kind of general store common to Victorian England.
Using the position of the window as a datum, I think the older shop canopy was situated further up, and actually obscured the arrow sign. (In the contemporary photo posted here by Dick Turpin the window is maybe 4/5 courses of brick above the top edge of the sign - in the older pictures, this is around where the top of the canopy sits.)
I'm now wondering if the upwards arrow is associated somehow with the area's use prior to 1682, that image having long been associated with archery originally (not surprisingly), and later ordnance in general, and the Board of Ordnance in particular. (Various online sources contain words to the effect:
On 3rd January 1537 the area was designated as an artillery ground for the “Fraternyte or Guylde of Artyllary of longbowes, Crossbowes and handegonnes”. This from a
local authority planning document.)
Obviously, the buildings are post 1682 - so possibly this is a later acknowledgement of prior use, or a claim of post 1682 ownership.
Photographs:
here, and this one:
View attachment 17554
…
But, you know, things are never that simple.
After writing all that at 04.00 this morning – being unable to sleep and looking for distraction – I then stumbled across a great bit of trivia:
This very corner of Artillery Lane and Artillery Passage makes an appearance in the 1981 movie
Omen III: The Final Conflict -
Source.
View attachment 17555
You can see from the still that the earlier and later window area was at that time completely bricked over – and a whole section of wall seems to have been rebuilt, rather than the window simply bricked in. This means the window has since been reinstated and may not be in precisely the same place as the original – so my scaling may be based on complete bobbins. (There’s another slightly later image
here – you can just about make out the same discolouration in the differing brickwork.)
As part of a Conservation Area it’s highly likely that the buildings have been renovated in accordance with the original architecture – hence the reconstituted window. In all the images I’ve found the arrow sign is obscured, possibly under a darker paint. I also think it’s likely that if this was found under the later paint, and was salvageable (which is possible), it was likely to have been uncovered as part of the restoration.
As you can no doubt deduce – I
really couldn’t get to bloody sleep last night.