When I travel along Grays Inn Road on a No17 bus I like to admire this west-facing terrace between Calthorpe Street and Wren Street.
Ever other shop along here shows hints of a bygone era, specifically numbers 240, 244 and 248 which, judging by the embellishments and metalwork on the upper floors, looks to be 1830s-ish.
Reading left to right, north to south, let's start with number 248, C. Antoniou, tailor:
This shop, with its hand-painted signs on the wooden fascia and on the window glass, has looked like this for as long as I can recall. But I cannot ascertain when Mr. Antoniou started offering his tailoring services here (perhaps I should simply go in and ask them or phone that number!) but I can see no tailors listed here before WW2. A hairdresser by the name of William Fowler was here in 1910 and there is nothing listed at all for this address in 1939 by which time Rosen & Rosen tailors, who were next door at No.246, in 1910, have given way to a print supply shop.
Two doors along, today's hair salon window advertises two brands of Wills's cigarettes, revealed during renovations in 2020.
The Wills's company was one of the largest tobacco manufacturers in the country.
This shop has been a tobacconist since at least 1882 when James White's name would have been over the door. Gold Flake first appeared on the shelves in 1901 and I suggest this advertisement probably dates from the 1910s during Hebert Stoddart's era, although I expect Mrs Rubina Smith was still offering the same brands in 1939.
Note also the impressive columns here showing that this was originally the doorway to the shop, today slatered in layers of grey paint (it was white pre-2020 – what is it with the over-use of grey paint these days?!) Other decades-old signs have also been discovered and retained in the last few years – there's another Wills's sign in Hornsey Rise and the St.Bruno ads in St Paul's Rd.
Staying with smoking and also revealed in 2020... Fourways convenience store at No.240 displays a 1970s-era Player's No.6 cigarettes sign above the shop, showing that the proprietors were RL & M Griffiths:
Back in 1882 this was a baker shop owned by Henry Harvey Bearns. By 1910 it had become a tobacconist, at that time run by Mrs Sarah Fair. In the late 1930s Walter Stewart was selling here. It's interesting how two tobacconists could survive in such close proximity to each other and I'm wondering if they offered different brands.
There used to similar shop sign to this at 65 Highbury Grove revealed in the period 2009-12, but they painted over it rather than covering it with a board (duh!) and I think I recall another No.6 fascia in Chatsworth Road, Hackney, again, gone.
Incidentally, it's unusual to see that the Calthorpe Arms is not at the Calthorpe Street corner as is usual in cases like this where a pub has the same name as the terrace, originally called Calthorpe Terrace when there were fewer properties along this road.
Seeing these old signs reminds me of one of the first posts I ever wrote on here about the reveal of an electrical components store near the junction with Clerkenwell Road, back in 2008. More recently, I wrote about this tiled shop at the Kings Cross end of the street.
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Thanks, Jane