Art and craft in Bloomsbury

On my way from Covent Garden to Cockpit Open Studios on Thursday, I took one of my ‘follow my nose’ detours and turned off Theobald’s Road into Old Gloucester Street, tempted at first by the elegant 'Art Deco' façade of Faraday House but also keen to re-investigate the interesting back streets in this zone, because ever time I find something new to me.

Faraday House, built as an electrical engineering college – I love the chunky geometric letterform here which looks to me to be a 1980's NeoDeco addition (any info welcome) - note also, the FH within the railings. 

I was about to use the path by the playground into Boswell Street but, as I stopped to take a photo of the delightful cornerstone there, I recalled another typographic gem in this vicinity – the lovely metalwork in the alley that leads to the rear of number 27 showing that British Monomarks, a mail handling service, was established in 1925.

Gorgeous Jazz Age letterform

As I turned back and exited the alley I noticed an A-board in the street advertising a gallery and cafe that is open until 2.30pm. Ooh a gallery. I didn’t know there was one there at all.  I assumed this was a new venture. 

It was gone 3pm and I misunderstood the information on the sign, thinking that it was closed, especially as the doorways looks like it leads to offices/flats, so I wandered up and down looking at the outside of the building thinking it odd that I couldn’t see inside due to the high set schoolroom windows. Hmm. To hell with it! I decided to enter anyway and investigate. 

Well, knock me down with a feather – look at this:

What an amazing space! The wooden floor in the main room is wonderfully creaky. I was flabbergasted to discover from the lady at the reception desk that there has been a gallery here since 1979 yet, despite wandering past here many times, I’d never noticed it because it still looks like an ecclesiastic educational facility from the outside and I just assumed that the artworks depicted were by the pupils at an art class. 

The back room gives access to the residential spaces beyond.  I love that asymmetric pitched roof.

Then for a wander through the residential developments beyond – a complete contrast to the well-to-do Georgian era town houses in the area. I love the mix of different architectural styles, the murals and the hexagonal paving stones. 

At the end of Orde Hall Street I encountered a big gap in the streetscape where a large chunk of Great Ormond Street Hospital is being rebuilt. I checked the street view on my phone – the 3rd pic below is a screen grab showing what was there before:

And so to the Cockpit studios in Cockpit Yard off Northington Street where over 150 people beaver about being crafty.  

I chatted with many of the artists and especially enjoyed finding out about mosaics, metalwork, woodcarving, embroidery, weaving, basketry, tailoring and ceramics, making the decision to swerve the many many talented jewellers! 

The studios will be open all weekend. More info here.  

Next weekend, 13-15 June, I’ll be visiting Cockpit’s south London studios in Deptford – hope to see you there. 

A bizarre bootscraper installation near World's End, Chelsea

Last January, whilst cutting through from Kings Rd to Fulham Rd, I stopped in my tracks when I spotted a boot scraper protruding out of a gatepost mid way along the street. I pointed it out to my friends, who were equally bemused, and took these four snaps:

How stupid! 

Why? Because the large flat dish section at the back of the hole is actually a base plate that ought to be set flat under the ground and filled with cement, such that the H-shape, bridge-style, boot-scraper element is perpendicular and easily accessible for the removal mud and gunk from one's riding boots or wellies before entering the property. Instead, here we have a hole crudely bashed out of a gatepost and the scraper tipped over at +90 degrees!  See here for the different designs. 

I've spotted some abused and broken examples but never before have I seen anything like this one in Chelsea.

H-bar types like this one are usually sited beside a path or either side of a door/portico. The ones that are set within walls often resemble mini-fireplaces and can mostly be found on terraced houses that are flush to the public pavement so as not to cause a hazard. 

I was so busy chatting with my friends that day that I forgot to take any photos of the street and the house itself. A few weeks later I tried to find it on Google Streeview but I couldn't see it because the middle section of the road wasn't available. Ooh that's frustrating! 

Last week I was in the World's End area of Chelsea last week so I nipped round the corner to take more pics. 

Ah... it turns out I was googling in the wrong street – I had been convinced that we had walked along Gunter Grove, but I now realise it was outside No.33 Edith Grove:

It turns out this daft yet amusing addition is easily visible on Google Streetview here which shows us that it was installed sometime after October 2022. It's not the only silly thing in the street – the Banksy elephants are practically opposite:

Oooh, how did THAT happen with no-one seeing them do it or having in any prior knowledge?! Hmm. ditto that stupid tree mess that 'appeared' on a wall near here, in Hornsey Rd last year. 

It's sad to see what a sorry state The World's End pub is in these days. I went there often in the 1980s and 90s and loved the interior and the mix of people. A few years ago I wandered in with a friend hoping for a pint in a proper old boozer but we found they had no ale on tap so we didn't stop. Had we seen the signs outside that boasted "three floors of food, drinks and fun" we'd have swerved it.  That particular funhouse business has since folded, gone the way of previous attempts to revamp this  premises, hence it is again closed and boarded-up with wood and metal protective panels. 

Gone are the days of The World's End's Victorian 'gin palace' splendour. Almost all of the etched glass windows were replaced decades ago and I noticed that some of those small bits that remain on the west-facing side are smashed where people have clearly tried to break in to the building. The restaurant at the end of the terrace of nearby shops is also partially boarded up making this zone look grubby and unloved, yet the three charity shops here are offering second hand stuff that is ridiculously overpriced. History about this area here. 

If the Search facility is not visible at top right...

...simply scroll to the bottom of your screen and click on 'View Web Version'

Better Hearth, 109 Holloway Road – layers of history revealed (and lost)

Better Hearth is a company selling just that, all things to make your fireplace area more attractive and cost-efficient. The shop's header board is an etched semi-transparent sign that allows us to see an older sign behind it for R.E. Wilson 

Better Hearth have preserved the history here by attaching their own sign on spindles such that the old carved board can be seen if you go up close to the shop and look upwards. Nice. 

In November 2009, I was at Islington Museum Reference Library on St John Street looking for information about something else in Holloway Road and in amongst the weighty pile of old photos they gave me to look through I discovered this drawing.

It shows the plans for this clever installation – if there was a date on it I didn't see it or make a note of it. Later that week, I returned to the shop for a closer inspection and noticed that the door number at the left side included a real treat – a hand-written pencil mark at the bottom left corner showed that the sign was made in April 1912:

Fab!  But less than two years later, sometime in mid-2011, this numbered side panel and its twin on the right hand side were painted black all the way to the edges. Such a shame. But at least we can still see most of it, especially as many other companies uncover signs and then quickly cover them again (as per some of these) or, worse, they slap paint directly over them. I've written about two other reveals along this section of Holloway Road – Williams Pie & Eel shop and the leather shop at 229. I also recall that approx 2010 my sister and I found an old carved shop sign adorning the wall of a South American restaurant a few doors at approx 239. I'm sure we took photos. The owners were very proud of it having uncovered it during their refit, but a year later the restaurant had closed and I never again saw that sign 

Back to R.E. Wilson – Robert Emilius Wilson, watchmaker, is listed at this address in the 1882 directory but I cannot confirm if it the business was actually started here. By 1912 he has commissioned a new sign which would have had a sheet of glass over the top, crisply hand-painted on the rear to give a smooth street-facing frontage. Jewellers' windows were often some of the best, most opulent, shop fronts as per my montage of images in this old post.  

The reason I am writing about all this now, rather than +10 years ago when I saw the change to the number boards, is that last month I was walking past and saw that the modern sign had been removed along with half of the old sign and this allowed a better look at the carved elements and part of the internal mechanism for the awning:

Here are some close-ups:

Better Hearth's own sign has since been reinstalled. 

I cannot tell how long Mr Wilson the watchmaker was here. By 1939 the shop is listed as H.V. Barrett Ltd, photographers. Better Hearth, a family-run business, has been trading since 1976 and it's just occurred to me that, rather than just walking past and speculating, or sitting and writing, I really should pop in for a chat – if the people at BH took time to preserve the old sign in the first instance, they may well have more information about the shop's history. 

Shoreditch – powerful architecture, marvellous metal and a helping hand

This actually follows on from this piece I wrote on my Substack – I continued my walk westwards from Norton Folgate towards City Road, entering this part of old Shoreditch at Worship Street.

Many years ago I recall being disappointed that the magnificent box girder bridge over the railway in Worship Street, used as a location in many movies as a prostitute pick-up zone, had been removed a couple of days before I had planned to go and photograph it for London The Way We See It*, a website set up by dicksdaily who nominated a street each week and we'd have fortnight to go and take photographs, then load up a max of three. It was a wonderful way to see different perspectives.

The bridge was later reinstated, and further along the street what looks like the love child of Nefertiti and Ming the Merciless appeared:.

I love it – look at those tapering corner columns, so redolent of Egyptian temple architecture, and the futuristic spaceship vibe, as if any second it might do a vertical take-off! It's actually the charging station for the loading bay mechanism next to it, allowing heavy items to be transported to the railway lines and platforms below.

I turned left into Curtain Road. The Horse & Groom pub is probably one of the oldest structures remaining on this section of the street. It's worth a visit for it's wood panelled interior, but be sure to check out the artwork and signage on the side:

As you can see, the large red letters show that here was a service station/petrol garage here back in the 1950s, indeed probably pre-that too – I'm judging by the type style here, I can't be bothered to research absolutely everything I write about unless it ends up being part of a guided tour!

Lower down on the wall someone has added some info about the QE1-era Curtain Theatre that used to be in the area behind the pub. I visited the site back in, ooh, er, about ten years ago when archaeologists were busy looking for clues and artefacts. I recall being really fed up that day which is possibly why I didn't take any photos let alone write about it on this blog.  Ah – found it in Londonist.

Then, via a few zig-zags, to the junction of Leonard Street and Paul Street where there is a building I have been watching for many years. Ironically, it's called Development House, which is amusing because it has been in a state of nothingness for many years, accessed only by graffiti artists. 

But it's the sculptural piece that adorns it. that I'm interested in.

The artwork It depicts two men scaling the building and reaching for a third person to join them. I wonder if another companion piece was originally installed in the gardens below...?**  

I have, on many occasions, tried to find out who created this marvellous artwork as I cannot see any marks that could be names on it – perhaps someone else with a better zoom lens can help me here. A visit to RIBA library would be helpful but it's gonna be closed for while yet. 

A proposed development was planned for here, due to be completed in 2022. But it now looks as if demolition has been shelved because the interior is currently available for rent, having been 'freshly refurbished' so perhaps the building and the sculpture is here to stay for the foreseeable future. 

I wonder if the change in plans has anything to do with the gaping great hole on the north side of Development House which has looked like this for as long as I care to remember:

Let's end on one my other favourite details in this area... from the open air basement car park, head northwards along Tabernacle Street and then turn left into Singer Street. A few paces in on the left side there is a gateway leading to the rear. I find it wonderfully uplifting that, even though the ground floor has clearly be refitted, they retained the gorgeous bit of fancy Victorian metalwork for Nos 5, 6 & 7.

 

*having just googled LTWWSI, I discover that top of the list is a project of the same name by Bob Marsden.  I think this might be the same Bob Marsden that I got chatting to a couple of years ago in Victoria Embankment Gardens where we were both admiring the military statuary and we have been following each other ever since. If it is indeed the very same BM, he's a lovely fella. 

** This reminds that there is another sculpture on a late C20th building that I need to find out about here on the side of 1 Putney Bridge Approach which is more abstract in form. 

Take a tour and find out about the development plans for the Earls Court exhibition site

Playing catch-up again... I've just rediscovered the photos I took back in mid-February when I attended a tour of the Earl's Court site. I had booked the ticket back in Summer 2024. The tour starts at The Earls Court Development Company's offices at the end of Empress Place here, where information is freely available to anyone who wanders in.

On the day of the tour the weather was dull and overcast which I found quite apt seeing as I find it so sad that Howard Crane's truly unique Art Deco era exhibition hall was demolished before a definite plan was agreed about what was to replace it. 

This is the header pic from my Deco Demolished presentation that I was hosted through Lockdown and still continue to deliver as an in-person talk for history associations and the like*

But this the wide-open space that exists there now:

The tour is really good – the people leading it are the actual people working on the project and, as such, they can answer lots of questions about what's planned, the existing and new buildings, and how the area will be regenerated. 

The next few pics clearly show how vast the site is. The information boards are really helpful.

I left the site feeling less anxious about the future of this huge development, though it's going to be decades before it is anywhere near finished and many more before it feels established. As per Canary Wharf, I wonder if it will be just a live/work zone that's busy Mon-Fri and dead at the weekends. There will be shops and entertainment facilities etc but, as I have noticed at Battersea, there's barely anyone there most of the time. It's a tall order. Also, will the people who live in the surrounding streets of Fulham and Hamersmith make use of this new environment and how will that impact on the gg-to zones we have already, such as Westfield at ShepBush, Hammersmith and, don't froget, the new re-development currently taking shape at Olympia..?

The scale of how this Earls Court site will look is hard to imagine when you are looking at a wide open space – so, what is it actually going to look like? Well – part of the tour is a visit to a space within the old Met Police office that houses a scale model showing how a good percentage of the new build is being designed to echo the style of existing buildings in the area, and that the street pattern will not be a simple grid. 

The model is fab and it's a shame that this facility is only accessible when on a tour. I suggested that it ought to be open to the public perhaps one morning a week. However, I understand that they will open the facility for group visits on request.

I do think they've missed a trick as regards pulling in little more of the natural environment, specifically a hint to Counters Creek, the river that once ran through here, later replaced by a canal and then filled in to create the Overground line all the way to Chelsea Harbour as Chelsea Creek. Surely a raised rill or similar could have been installed above the tracks below...?

Also in this zone –  the houses on the right/East side of Empress Place are currently home to a variety of talented artists as Empress Studios with open days one weekend  a month

Book your own tour of the Earls Court site here

* This talk comprises over 60 slides, mostly my own photos, of this site and other interwar gems such as The Firestone Building, The Gainsborough, the ABC bakery and The Essoldo cinema on Bethnal Green.  The pic is an adapted uncredited illustration that I found in an old guide book of London.  

Telegraph Place and Tokenhouse Yard

Hearing Telegram Sam by Marc Bolan on the radio yesterday, it reminded that I'd taken a series of photos in and around Telegraph Place almost a year ago whilst wandering in the City of London.

These narrow little streets are accessed via Moorgate as in the pics above, or via Throgmorton Street, and they are full of architectural delights:

A hydraulic power access point outside The Telegraph public house – this might have been for the beer pumps. Further along a teeny tiny access point for the sewers. I've not seen one of these anywhere else so I am keen to know the purpose of it. Perhaps it was manually released for temporary ventilation..?

The street is so named because this is where London's first telegraph office was sited on 1845when it was originally called Founders Court (hmm ponder ponder, suggest the land is owned by the Founders Livery Co). More telegraph and telegram references here. 

The barbershop at the looks good but, until a few years ago there was a marvellous multi-layered hand-painted sign on the mirror within its Whalebone Court entrance. It's such a shame that they saw fit to scrape off all those layers of history. As you can from my 2013 photo, the letterform was a delight. It advertised a few earlier companies here including a manicule pointing down to the chiropodist below. The blue script possibly says 'hairdressers' but might have been 'shirtdressers' where you could get your collars and cuffs replaced.

Near the barbershop, two groups of stepped windows above allow light onto a stairwell, and below them an alley beneath that building leads into Tokenhouse Yard:

There are a couple of elaborate doorways in this enclosed and evocative space and both are entrances to the old GII* listed 1872 bank building – some impressive lions flank the entrance to No.12 and a similar doorway at No.11 sports a couple of fearsome fellas. I've found some pics of the interior.

Tokenhouse Yard was where the exchanging of [small value] tokens took place. Read more about the history of this thoroughfare c/o IanVisits here – I love it when someone else has done all the homework!

Farringdon station – why no escalator from the Thameslink platforms?

This is the southbound Thameslink platform at Farringdon. It's huge. To get to street level you are required either climb these stairs, or the others at the far end, or take one of the two lifts between them. Hmmm.  

What's the good reason for not installing a moving staircase here?

Pre-2012 the area opposite the Farringdon Metropolitan Line tube station entrance looked like this retrospective Google streetview – an elegant 1920's building echoing the style of the station opposite designed by Charles Walter Clark which also served the Thameslink routes. 

Then the Elizabeth Line came to town and a swanky new box was created with an enormous concourse to delineate the train services on one side of the street and the tube services on the other.

Within this vast bland cavern they installed escalators for the Elizabeth Line, but not for the Thameslink platforms – why? 

My friend, who often works nearby suffers from claustrophobia and she hates this station if she is carrying luggage. If she arrives with a colleague they can take her bags in the lift whilst she climbs the stairs, but if she's travelling alone she has to rely on the kindness of strangers or lug the stuff up step by exhausting step. 

Read what I think about the Elizabeth Line's shoddy design here.