12 June 2018

The things that divide us. Pilastercide.

The pilasters that divide shops help delineate where one shop ends and the next one starts. 100 years a lot of marvellous effort went into designing and creating them.
But shop owners these days don't seem to be able to leave well alone – they've just gotta claim their half of the dividers that bind them.
Aaargh!
Just up from the Phoenix cinema on East Finchley High Street there is a 1913 terrace with very nice fully-tiled pilasters complete with fancy corbels, capitals and plints. As far as I recall, not one of these remains intact.


As you can see by these four examples (of the ones that are actually still there or visible) they have been ruined – some have been painted (!) or chipped away at, and others have been partially covered. Such a shame.
Why can't these silly shop owners see that a uniform dividers along a terrace help to frame each shop rather than what we have here which turns the whole into a bad patchwork quilt.
Sigh.
See here for some colourful painted-over examples

5 June 2018

In wall post box

You might recall that last year I wrote about the loss of the cute little Victorian in-wall letter box that used to be at Upper Holloway Station.
Still no news on that one – it was probably skipped in error or sold on either as a vintage artefact or for its scrap metal value.
So now I am now making it my mission to check on the others...
As you can see here, the one at the top of in Caledonian Road, Holloway N7, is still intact.
It's a more recent example, but it's still there, and that's good.

May 2018