Carvings in Cornhill, inlets and outlets, and lofty observations in the City of London

Wandering around the quiet streets in The City of London after visiting Leadenhall Market I ambled into Cornhill. I stopped to admire one of my favourite buildings which sports this gorgeous bit of hand-carved typography* and the shop next to it that retains its curved glass windows and mosaic threshold:

I crossed the road to take a wider view and as I looked down at the pavement I spotted something that amused me. Whether this was an accident or a clever bit of cement graffiti, it appeals to my puerile sense of humour! Further along the street I noticed the lettering within a brass strip on an access plate had worn away to become almost illegible. It actually reads: SMOKE OUTLET FROM BASEMENT:

I entered Finch Lane, a narrow street that evokes the era of Georgian coffee houses and as I passed The Cock and Woolpack pub. It occured to me that I don't think I have ever been inside. How very bizarre. A quick snap of the view to Threadneedle Street and then left into Bartholomew Lane where I pondered if the skinny space between two buildings was once an alleyway: 

At my feet I noticed more eroded brass letters where a London Fire Brigade manhole offers access to inlets rather than an outlet:

Whoops, forgot to include this strange adjoinment (I think I might have just invented that word!) where two properties meet at an odd angle on Threadneedle Street, facing the Royal Exchange, creating a very unusual triangular inlet:

I couldn't find anything in there that might offer access to the Spinkler Tank Infill or a Dry Riser Inlet which I suspect is probably in the road, but there were workmen and their vans in the way. I bet this space is used as a hidey hole for a single smokers. 

That'll do for now. See you soon, JPx

*find out more abut this building on my City Deco guided walk via janeslondonwalks.com

Kensington Coal Hole Cover Plates – Farmer, Pearson, Bartle and Bird

I recently wrote about the lovely things to be found along the streets to the east of Gloucester Road and I mentioned that I spotted quite a lot of attractive coal hole cover plates along the way. Quite a few bore the name Haywards, a company that became one of the largest suppliers of this kind of thing, others had names worth further investigation. 

This first of these Bartle cover plates, shown below left, is cut into into a slab of York Stone in Cornwall Gardens. It shows two different patents. 

Patent 1: The outer ring/casing is made by Haywards Patent ring and includes instructions how to install the fixture:"This ring to be fixed with Portland cement / For Haywards Patent Plate 12" which indicates that Haywards intended that one of their own lids should be to be dropped into this space. Whenever I have found plates with these fixing elements visible they have mostly included the Haywards* name, however, with about 98% of cover plates being of the 12" variety, it's fair to say one size [almost] fits all. But the instructions are not meant to be visible – as per Haywards' instructions, the outer recessed lip should have been covered by cement to hold it in place, as shown by the pic on the right; a messy example I spotted in nearby Lexham Gardens. 

Patent 2: These two covers advertise James Bartle's Western Ironworks in Notting Hill and are interesting because they also include "Bird's patent self-fastening plate" – something I have seen before but not really thought about or addressed until now. Who was Mr Bird? Perhaps he worked for the Bartle family and had another job making custard? Having just 'wasted' 20 mins on this in a futile nline search and found nothing but observations, I am going to have to shelve this research for another day – please do let me know if you can shed any light on Mr Bird.

Another Notting Hill company is also prevalent within the posh streets of South Kensington is R. H. & J. Pearson Ltd:

Pearsons also implemented circles within their anti-slip designs, varying the amount of circles from five to seven, as I believe the one on the left is the more recent of the two – it advertises the company's 'Patent Automatic Action' – a different way of saying 'self-locking' as seen on other makers' plates – the plate was dropped back into the hole, it triggered a catch which immediately locked it, negating the need for additional human interaction below.  The pretty plate on the right sports ventilation holes allowing air to circulate within the coal bunker below. 

More circles near Cornwall Gardens. Two very simple designs:

The self-locking plate on the left sports raised dots as additional non-slip and appears to have travelled all the way from Stockport!  Mikey Ashworth has shared some marvellous info about John Needham & Sons here. The one on the right bears no maker's name but includes glass inserts to allow light into the space below, as also seen here in another Bartle plate:

I like these two because it shows how one design can be adapted as sold or with glass, which I assume are prisms or cones that spread the light rather than just direct it downwards. 

Finally, these two – an almost smooth plate set within an octagon shape and a plate bearing the name of a local trader. 

I have only ever spotted one other housing with eight sides and it's in Marylebone, near Regents Park. Neither are branded. The Farmer Brothers plate in Drayton Gardens is special because it is sited a stone's throw from the company's shop – and they are still trading today, but I can't seem to link to their website. I have not discovered any Farmer Bros plates, but surely there must be, Farmers being the local hardware store. 

I now now realise that this last pair of pics looks like a diddy little hexagonal plug point next to a manhole cover! The pics here are all exactly the square format shots that I snapped on the day – I haven't shown the subject matter in proportion.  FYI, the standard size cover for a cover plate (the central removable bit) = 12"/30cm diameter and I've just recalled that one of them was [unusually] slightly larger than the standard size – I think it was probably the older Pearson one with the ventilation holes. 

*If you are interested in finding out more about Hayward Bros, a fascinating company, why not join me for my Southwark Ghostsigns guided walk.   

August 15th – Happy Birthday to us!

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, etc.

I had an idea to put together a small montage of people who share my birthday but then I remembered some other people and, having checked to see if there are others who I was not aware of, I have now created this collection of eighteen. 

Top: Anne, Oscar, Jen, Nic, Tony and Ben

Middle: Jim, Napoleon, Con, Louisa, Jimmy and Jack

Bottom: Walter, Matt, Meshe, Samuel, Edith and Thomas

Hmmm.. a lot of names beginning with J there. And I haven't included myself of my friend Julie. 

Commemorative plaques and woodblocks in Langley Street, Covent Garden

My first job after leaving school in 1980 was as junior in the design and artwork studio of Lennart Advertsing, 7a Langley Street, Covent Garden, WC2. I was immediately fascinated by the area and most lunchtimes my workmate Debbie and I wandered about looking at how it was all being renovated, changing from a zone of fruit and veg and tradesmen to become the popular shopping and entertainment district we see today. Neal Street back then was a building site. The piazza was almost completely refurbished and we enjoyed seeing some of the entertainments. Actually, enough of that, I'll park all the memories for now and save them for another day, otherwise I will never get to the point.

The tall buildings in Langley Street, Shelton Street and Earlham Street were all built to store fruit and veg. Hence the name of Pineapple Dance Studio and all the other fruity references you might see as you wander about. For such a short road, Langley Street, has a lot to offer. Not only is this street where Yours Truly first worked*, but there are also plaques in the street that commemorate other things. 

For instance, on Saturday 11th May this year, I attended a small ceremony for the unveiling of a red plaque to remember lives lost fighting an awful fire in the same very building back in 1954, a horrible incident that I had no previous knowledge of. 

I'd seen the event listed on the London's Fire Brigade's site (I subscribe for updates) but I was surprised and a little disappointed to see so few people in attendance. It was mostly relatives of the deceased as well as wives and colleagues related to the organisers or people participating. There was a speeches by dignitaries and the local priest blessed the plaque.

The firemen are here standing outside Pineapple Dance Studios in front of their vehicle, looking magnificent but obliterating a couple of things I hadn't noticed before. 

Two days ago, on Saturday 12th August, I was leading one of my walking tours when I noticed that in the middle of this recently resurfaced street, there is a man hole cover which contains woodblocks in one of its segments!

At the risk of sounding like a cracked record, how had I never spotted this before?! 

I wondered if it might have been moved here from elsewhere, but no, Google Streetview shows it in 2008:

There's something else of interest here, and I don't just mean the demolition of those smaller buildings on the right which now form an open space in front of Stamfords that leads through to Mercers Street, I am looking at the scaffolding that is boxed in. Today there is a metal gate that was mostly obscured by the fire truck in my pics above.  

I have often admired it as being a good modern example of well-crafted metalwork – one of those things that I make a mental note to find out about another day. Well, it turnes out that I didn't have to look hard because all the information is there! 

 

A metal panel to the side of the gate is hard to read but it tells us that this was installed in 2021 on behalf of the Mercers Company which owns this swathe of land. The gate is the work of Bex Simon AWCB, artist and blacksmith, and was forged and fabricated by CB-Arts Ltd. Indeed this information can also be found within a tiny panel at the bottom left of the gate itself:

I looked again at the man hole cover and pondered whether I should wander the nearby streets to see if I could find any more remnants of woodblocks, but it was a hot and sticky day and the area was busy with shoppers people out having a good [noisy] time, so I thought better of the idea, for now, and caught a tube home instead. 

For more wood blocks, see my A-Z here. 

Ooh... I've just remembered another thing in Langley Street – I am always delighted to see that Café Pacifico, London's first Mexican restaurant, is still trading. It opened in 1982 and must be one of only a handful of businesses that have stood the test of time. Again, I will return to this idea of then and now in due course.

*there ought to be a plaque for this too!

The Portland stone façade of Joseph Emberton's magnificent 1929 building at Olympia is slathered in paint

Going past Olympia on the top deck of a bus from Hammersmith to high Street Kensington earlier this week, it meant I had a good view of the works there. I was really keen to see the recently uncovered Grade II listed Art Deco era façade, that has for at least two years been covered in scaffolding and protective cloth and supported by scaffold. 

The first pic below shows it in 2016 and the second two are from 2002. All three are screen grabs from Google Streetview:

From my seat I could see that the whole façade has been slathered in a continuous sheet of white paint and there are already dirty marks on it, mostly near ventilation pipes:  

I pondered why the developers would be so daft as to paint over beautiful Portland stone.  Also, the windows looked different to me (were they grey before?) and the panels of horizontal bars also looked odd. 

Ah, but no, well, sort of... it turns out that my memory is playing games with me. 

When I got home I dug out a pic of how it this part of the exhibition complex looked when it was first completed. Being as the building has been covered for so long it appears I have sort of forgotten what it looked like in recent years and, instead, it is this next pic that I have in my mind's eye because I show it to people on my guided walk around the area. It shows that the façade in 1930. It was stone clad, the windows were not so obvious and those horizontal metal we see today bars weren't part of Emberton's original design.

I was going to start ranting on about how daft it is to cover the Portland Stone, but having checked previous years via google Streetview and zooming in for a closer peek, I can clearly see that it's been slathered in paint for at least 15 years. 

For instance, his is the building in 2014, which also shows that extra row of windows and rows of horizontal and vertical bars used to attaching signs for the events within:

All this paint has meant regular upkeep, as here in 2012:

The rant didn't happen. I have no finger to point being as the 'damage' happened decades ago. Though, it would have been nicer if they had cleaned off all that paint and return to the beauty of the Portland stone rather than slap on another layer.

There are some really interesting things happening with this site and I am looking forward to seeing how the whole complex will look when it's finished. Why not join me for a guided walk...?

Ding Dong Doorways and Doulton – Delightful Distractions in Kensington

I went to the The Design Centre on yesterday afternoon. I like it there. But this time, my enjoyment was spoiled by screaming kids at every turn, meaning I couldn't hear myself read. Yeah yeah, I know it's school holidays, but some parents were allowing their sprogs to charge about the place like it was a playground, treating the exhibits as interactive toys. A small Habitat pod exhibition on the ground floor contains a bed with a duvet. I tried to read the the info board in there whilst two adults stood and waited as their charges had a pillow fight and screamed at high pitch. I fear this is what the Museum of London will become. Sorry, I mean The London Museum, henceforth to be known as 'The House of Splat'. 

I gave up and headed out into Kensington High Street and investigated the nearby charity shops* before deciding to wander the streets that form the lower part of my Agatha Christie walking tour. I made my way down to Marloes Rd, passing the revamped St Mary's Hospital site, and turned left into Lexham Gardens. At the far corner there is a passageway leading to Cornwall Gardens.

There is a tree at the centre of this path that has the most enormous leaves, bigger than your head. I can't now recall the name, and I'm pretty sure it's not an indigenous species, but the leaves look gorgeous in the Autumn when they turn marvellous shades of pink, orange and yellow. I continued into Cornwall Gardens and headed south via Grenville Place, looking left and right at the mews. 

Then across Cromwell Road and directly into Ashburn Place with The Millennium Hotel ahead on the left. As I passed the side of the wall I noticed what looks like a face in the render:

Surely this is no accident?!  I had hoped that retrospective Google Streetview of this wall might show what this was, but I can find nothing on there. Perhaps this was a bit of street art/graffiti that was swiftly overpainted by the hotel...?

I turned right into Harrington Gardens. This wasn't my intended route, but this road serves me something new every time I walk along it. I managed to keep my phone in my pocket until the end of the end of the road when I noticed that the houses along the south side seem to have all had some kind competition 'my tiled threshold is better than yours' thing. Each one spectacularly different to the next and all splendid in their own way.

Most are small tiles but one of them sports slices of grey marble.
They also boast some excellent coloured glass in the porches. 

Round the corner, the first/corner house in Collingham Gdns has a lovely symmetrical mosaic pattern.

Turning southwards, I nipped briefly into Wetherby Gdns when I spotted the ghosts of the original doorbells in a gatepost. 

Collingham Gardens becomes Bolton Gardens and here I noticed something I've not seen on houses anywhere else – there are fancy metal ventilation grilles on the ground floor adjacent to the front doors. The second pic is one of a few Thomas Crapper manhole cover plates that I spotted along the way, this one is in Cresswell Place: 

I continued my detour and took a wander around The Boltons, a sort of elliptical shaped arrangement of large houses surrounding a church and private gardens. I counted twelve large vehicles idling with chauffeurs within, and about about the same number of drivers standing or leaning by gates waiting for moneyed clients to exit these large properties. It's all very sterile. Exacerbated by these houses all being painted exactly the same shade of bright dazzling white, which, to my eye, looks completely wrong, and fake. I dread to think what the insides of these houses look like as I very much doubt any of them retain much of their original C19th features. I think I'd be gutted, just like the interiors.

I turned into Priory Walk. There are two properties along here which sport 'Ancient Lights' signs. This tells us that c1870s this area, being ripe for property development, was a cause for planning concern and we might well have had taller blocks on narrower streets. 

One sign is high up on the back of 5 Harley Gdns, the other is a street level adjacent to the side entrance of 86 Drayon Gardens. (possibly the lowest sign of this type?):

Staying in Drayton Gardens there are  a couple of lovely mosaic thresholds. The one at No.90 is HUGE, flanked by beautiful fired tiles on the walls on the porch, and the other is chequered:

Enough. I was hungry. I headed back to Brompton Rd to get a bus to Sth Ken tube station but got distracted by the blue Doulton tiles on The Duke of Clarence. I should have taken a pic of the whole building because I hadn't realised until now that it has only recently been restored – see here to see how the pub used to look when it was slathered in paint. Hurrah!

The delightful Dove Mews behind the pub was yet another, albeit short detour, and then, as I waited for a bus on Old Brompton Rd, I noticed an old hand-painted street name peeping out from underneath the metal one near the corner with Creswell Gardens. It shows how it used to be called Moreton Terrace. 

What I haven't mentioned or shown here are all the lovely coal hole cover plates that I 'collected' along the way. I'll write up separately. Try not to get too excited... LOL!

*In Oxfam I had found and purchased a book about arsenic poisoning – 'The Inheritor's Powder' by Sandra Hempel.  I used to occasionally work with Sandra when I freelanced for publishing houses. I haven't seen here for +15 years and had no idea she'd written any books. I started it on the way home last night and continued it today, such that I have read the whole thing already. It's fascinating and engaging. 

Another tiled shop front has gone – Express Dairies, 300 Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill

There seems to be a tile removal epidemic... as if it's not bad enough painting over tiles as per here and here and here, at least the paint can one day be removed to reveal the fired ceramics beneath. 

But in many places I am seeing lovely old tiles on old butcher shops, bakeries and dairies completely removed and replaced, as here in Notting Hill where a lovely shop front for a branch of Express Dairies that used to look like this....

... now looks like this (1st August 2024):

I discovered this latest bit of blandification yesterday whilst leading my Notting Hill Ghostsigns guided walk, this shop being one of the places I talk about along the route. It has for the past year it so been standing empty, waiting for a new occupant. Its intact exterior was unusual as I have not seen the like elsewhere in London, so I was stunned to see that so much of the shop's century-old façade hade been revamped. 

I say 'revamped' because, if you look closely, you'll see that they (whoever they is/are) have removed all the original features, excluding the tiles on the wall to the right, and replaced them with modern versions of the same proportion. I cannot believe that these alterations have been achieved by anyone who lives locally or has a link to the area, especially as there are other restored shops and businesses in this are such as the green tiles at Mary’s Living and Giving and the Electric Cinema. 

The bizarre fakery installed here echoes the shape and size of the window frames and the door, and includes panels of blue tiles which I assume have been affixed directly on top of the old ones. Compare and contrast 2022 with 2024 here:

I mean, what's the point?! It's not even a decent pastiche! Perhaps this is all down to Health and Safety – I have been told in the past, when other shops of a similar style have been gutted or over-panelled, that cracked tiles are unhygienic. If so, this tells us that this will be a food outlet of some kind. But this is the exterior, not the interior.  

These next pics contrast the depth, colour and variation within the old artisan/hand-made deep blue tiles on the left, with the flat blue panels installed in 2024, right:

These pics better highlight how the shape and style of the original front door has been echoed in its modern replacement. It's a wonder that they didn't also include a little plastic 'beware of the dog' badge as per the old one. I am hoping that the terrazzo threshold still remains under that sheet of cardboard. 

But, if like-for-like was the brief or intention here, why not use modern products that better resemble the 1920's originals? There are many companies today making very good brushed aluminium frames, and joiners who can produce good quality bespoke wooden doors. Why use such bland products that will not last ten years, let alone a century? Because it's cheaper, but only in the short term.

This next group of pics shows how good the shop looked a few years ago. Note the mechanism for the retractable sun blind/awning which ran across the whole front of the shop (also removed as part of the revamp), the ED logo in white and gold within glass panels and the Jazz Age geometrics of the ventilation grille at low level.

This, to me, is such a great loss as I am unaware of any other Express Dairy shops that still retain their original logos and tiles – please do let me know if you have any further information.

Observations in Leadhall Market – Harry Potter, an optician, the 2i's cafe and a tobacco shop

Last Sunday 28th July I went to Leadenhall Market to have a mooch and around Judy's Vintage Fair, a which occasionally uses this marvellous space as a selling space for bric-a-brac, furniture, clothes and more.  

Usually, on a weekend, the only people you see here are large groups Harry Potter fans on a guided tour hearing how a shop here is the inspiration for, or a location used in one of the movies (hands up that I haven't a clue about all this, having never read any of the books and I fell asleep during the first movie). As I headed out of the market via Bull's Head Passage I noticed that the name on that shop has changed. It most definitely was not called 2i's the last time I was there. 

Some girls were taking snaps and I asked if this was the name used in the book/film. They said yes. I suggested that this shop has recently been renamed to echo the book, which is interesting because 2i's was the name of a popular café in Old Compton Street, Soho, back in the 1950s through to the 70s. See here. 

I went on to enlighten them that Platform 9 and 3/4 at Kings Cross Station as a portal in the HP book(s) also has connections with London's history – it was there that Boudicca was said to have died after fighting her last battle. I don't think they really understood what I was on about.

Ah but no. I think they misunderstood me, as it turns out that 2i's is an opticians. I dunno, perhaps it's also a Harry Potter reference. I am losing the will to live here!

Further along this narrow street, at No.4, is one of my favourite little details in the market and it's this mosaic doorway threshold which is reflected in the mirror to the side and the glass within the door:

This was Baylin's Tobacco Stores, here from the 1920s. The shop is listed in the 1939 directly but I am unaware if the business continued after WW2. Do let me know if you have any further info.

I crossed over Gracechurch Street and went for a wander around the streets around Cornhill. I'll leave it there for now.