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. 
I'm guessing that these fancy repeat pattern tiles were added at a time when this branch was offering self-service coin-operated machines as well as a laundry collection service. I'd love to hear from anyone who recalls this shop when it functioned as a laundry.
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.

2 comments:

  1. Inscription likely “A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast” - Proverbs 12:10

    ReplyDelete

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