
29 January 2025
Join The Conversation at St Martin-in-the-Fields. Robert Macfarlane and the plight of our rivers.

24 January 2025
Not bog standard – Central London's public conveniences
We often read that there are hardly any public conveniences in London these days. Campaigners complain that there are scant facilities available to us. We've lost our loos, they say. It's outrageous.
Four years ago, most public conveniences were closed during the pandemic. But many of them were never to reopen, or they were available to us for only a short while before being locked up again, such as Westminster's Council's facilities opposite Madame Tussauds and in Broadwick Street, Soho (shown above). Information notices often told us in these instances thatthese facilities had been closed due to them being used for illicit purposes or abused/misused by revellers.
Yet, just around the corner from Broadwick Street at the rear of Liberty's there is another pair subterranean conveniences, that remain open. They are well-designed, clean and lovely. Here's the interior of the Women's* loos decorated in ice cream tones, the tiles depicting 1960's fashions to echo Carnaby Street's groovy heyday:
I was there for at least ten minutes taking photos and no one else came down the stairs. My male friend checked out the men's toilets. He was the only person in there too.
I have returned whenever I am in the vicinity. I have only once seen other people in there, when I chatted to four Swedish girls last August.
I suggest that the people who are campaigning for more public toilets have not experienced how under-used the existing ones are. It's a shame because Westminster, in particular, offers to us some delightful, facilities, all with bespoke tile art and differing colour schemes.
First, Covent Garden Piazza, accessible at the side of St Pauls:
Next, Westminster Underground station/Whitehall:
Similar tiles are now hidden from us within other Westminster toilets, such as at Kensington Gore when the wall tiles depict images of The Albert Hall etc, and, I'm guessing, within the inaccessible inconveniences at Hyde Park Corner too.
UPDATE: I have just discovered this article from Nov2024 announcing that Westminster is going to open some of the closed facilities and upgrade some of the ones shown above. I really hope this does not mean the loss of these unique tiles, but I think judging by the main image on that article that is exactly what will happen I don't think a change of wall covering will encourage more beople to use these toilets. Read my reasons for that further down...
There are also some other tiled facilities still available to us in the form of marvellous Edwardian era lavatories that still retain their chunky Art Nouveau basins and heavy wooden doors. These can be found in the Hampstead area (West Hampstead below) and although perfectly amenable are always devoid of other people whenever I pop in. I discovered that the similar ones at King William Walk, Greenwich closed only a few years ago and I very much doubt they will ever open again.
So, how come these were all empty when I visited them?
It's clear to me that the public, perhaps specifically the British public, is reluctant to use these basement conveniences, perceiving them to be sleazy places, frequented by perverts and drug dealers. Having to descending into an underground space that isn't visible from the outside is also off-putting to most people, hence the masses prefer to use the facilities in nearby shops, bars and restaurants, which means that the council's well-maintained, clean and efficient public conveniences become under-used and subsequently abused and, because of they are secluded environments they then get used for the wrong reasons... and so the cycle begins again.
On the flip side, some of London's public toilets are frequently in use during working hours. These can be found in zones that surround street markets such as in Portobello Road (below) and Camden Town where they have a visible attendance rate, therefore promoting the safety, popularity and convenience of the space beneath street level.
*It's interesting how the male/female signage changes from site to site. For instance, at Carnaby Street it's Men/Women and at Camden it's Gentlemen/Ladies.
There's a strange additional plural applied at Lincoln's Inn Square (above), something that I pointed out to one of the cabbies there because he asked why I was taking a photo of a toilet. But when I explained that the ladies loo is just LADIES not LADIESS, he just smiled inanely at me, in that 'avnt gotta clue wot yor on abaht luv' way!
In a similar punctuational vein, there's a MENS LAVATORY at Gt Portland Street station (inaccessible and looks to remain so for the foreseeable future):
The Ladies is not marked as a lavatory. Ladies don't pee you see, they rest. And so must I.
22 January 2025
Ringing in the changes
Brr-ring Brr-ring!
Unlike the example shown above in Carey Street at the back of the Law Courts, most of the old red telephone boxes on our streets are no longer in use as communication devices. They stand empty and dirty with broken glass windows, used for other things.
However, here and there, some have been transformed into little libraries, coffee shops, art installations and mini-greenhouses, such as just up the road from me near Archway station, London N19, where two K6 kiosks contain plants – behind the bus stop here at the top of Holloway Rd and at the end of Hargrave Park, installed to replace a metal consruction that was there in 2019.
Further afield, others are sport street art, with paintings designed to look like someone is trapped inside, such as a diver painted on the rear/park side of this one in Regent Square and a similar one in St John Street.
I've just returned to this, having started writing it a few weeks ago. I'm only now back on the case, having finally attended to a swathe of unread emails, one of which is from Londonist Substack about this very subject – thanks M@, I now need not continue this any further.
I have a Jane's London Substack account myself you know.
17 January 2025
Gray's Inn Road – strange backward-facing houses, a water trough and another laundry (with fancy tiles)
I was walking from Russell Square to Kings Cross today and, as I passed by these houses that end at Heathcote Street, I thought it was high time that I shared my idea that surely they face the wrong way.
I mean to say, the front doors face Mecklenburgh Street, yet the walled back gardens abut Grays Inn Road here. I've only seen the like in two other London locations: off Liverpool Rd in N7 and near Kensington High Street station, but those aren't along big main roads. Explanations welcome.On the Gray's Inn Rd side there's a nice old water trough planted with flowers. It's listed on Historic England's site but they make no mention of its inscriptions.
The street side says 'DRINKING FOUNTAIN & WATER TROUGH' – the drinking fountain element (for humans) would have been that protrusion at end. The west-facing pavement side commemorates HTW and MWW, whoever they were back in 1885.The north-facing end is hard to decipher. It's degraded, and a circular stud has obliterated some of the letters – I can make out what looks like: ... RICHARD'S MA... / REGARDETH THE LIFE / ...ST HIS BEAST ...?! – see the comments section for more.
I continued my journey northwards towards Kings Cross station and glanced across the street to check on Nos.332-336 at the corner of Britannia Street which sports the a bizarre mix of tiles which look like they belong in a 1960's kitchen, strangely affixed to a pair of buildings that are surely Victorian. Again, I thought, surely it's about time I looked into why this building sports this mad patchwork.
As I took these snaps a man stopped to talk to me, intrigued that someone else was also interested in this façade. Jonathan told me works in the ENT Ear Institute next door and that this building was until recently part of their complex. Indeed, this is evident by the spayed out names on the door where only UCL is now visible. He said this corner site, which actually continues further along Britannia Street, through a series of later building extensions, was known to the as 'the cottage'.
We looked at the mix of different building styles at street level. I pointed out the slabs of grey stone at low level below the large plate glass windows which include large ventilation panels. I suggested that this might have previously been a grocer shop or a butcher's. It wasn't until I was heading home on the bus that it occurred to me that it might have been a laundry.
Well, bash me over the head with a packet of Persil, it turns out this was an outlet for Western Laundries Ltd, a company I wrote about only a few days ago here (this Grays Inn location is shown the middle of the 1939 listing within that link). John Richard Western is here by 1910 and I suspect at that time the store sported the bright blue tiles we see at other locations.
As to what/who was here before the launderette, I'm thinking the pair of houses might have initially been associated with St Jude's church which was sited next door between this building and what was then called the Throat and Ear Hospital at 330-332. By 1882 the corner shop was Wellen & Co's fancy repository and in 1899 Joseph Thomas Roe is selling fruit from here.
13 January 2025
Sir William Atherton at Kensal Green Cemetery – he's got plums!
I do love a wander in a cemetery. I visited all of London's 'Magnificent Seven' last year, some for the first time, others were repeat visits because there's always something new to see each time whether flora, fauna or man made monuments.
Kensal Green Cemetery as designed to resemble Paris's Père Lachaise, indeed some people have memorials at both sites (I say 'some' becausee I know of one, so it's likely there are others). Notable famous name graves at Kensal Green are the Brunels, Thackeray, Pinter, Babbage, Rattigan, Blondin and Pete Burns (who I hope isn't still spinning around).
Last time I was there I spotted an intriguing grave with fruit on it and took a few pics to find out more at a later date (that's now!).
I thought at first the motif was a pair of lemons, but when I got home and studied the photos, I decided they better resemble plums. Soft fruit at least. But why?
6 January 2025
The blue tiled laundry shops of Sunlight, Westerns and Loud & Westerns
I've written a few times about shops that used to be laundries/dry cleaners, evident by blue tiled exteriors, often featuring and promoting Lever Bros' Sunlight Soap. Having spotted quite a few of these across London and written about them here I think it's time to share them as a collection.
There are two companies here, Westerns Laundry in North London and Loud & Western in South and West London, both used and advertised Sunlight products – more info at the further down.
First, here are the London outlets that still retain blue tiled exteriors (please do let me know if you know of any others):
Still a laundry but, for some daft reason, the blue tiles have been overpainted with blue paint!
Much of the exterior was still intact until 2015. Pic here is from Google 2009:The shop's exterior was remodelled, keeping only the black and white floor tiles at the left side :Today (2024), the laundry's blue tiles can be glimpsed under the grey paint at low level: Note also the loss of the little street sign that identified this as Fortess Mews:
The first pic shows how it looked in early 2018 when the blue tiles were briefly revealed, having been covered in black and white paint for many years:
The low level panel at the bottom was also visible for a short while – I'm guessing it said something like 'Expert cleaning service':
See more here
See more here
GENERIC INFO about Westerns Laundry / Loud & Western
This is a work in progress – I will be updating and amending as and when I source more/better info.
It's proving hard to ascertain which came first, Westerns or Loud & Western – it's a chicken and egg conundrum.
But it's fair to assume that John Richard Western is connected to both companies. By 1910, there were laundry outlets in his name at 160A and 674 Holloway Road with sixteen other outlets across North London, as shown in this snippet from Kelly's 1910 directory:
It's interesting to note that this does not make clear which sites were laundries vs high street shops.
Question is, who was Mr Western? Did he start the laundry as his own idea, or was it set up by Sunlight/LeverBros in his name. If so, what was their relationship? See more about him in the The Laundries section below. As regards Mr Loud of Loud & Western, he might have been a director on the board of Lever Bros, or perhaps Loud is an acronym or similar.
THE LAUNDRIES
Incidentally, further along the street there was also another laundry company, The Clissold Laundry, situated at the corner of Arvon Road here which in previous years been called The Drayton Park Laundry. There are many natural springs and water courses in this area so, historically, this would have been the ideal location for this kind of business.
South and West London – Loud & Western, various locations: