At the eastern end of Oxford Street, between Centrepoint and Soho Square, there remains a patchwork terrace that I'm glad to see has not succumbed to the heavy-handed rebuilding that has affected many large blocks to the east.
At the centre of my photo above, you'll see a skinny dark building at 41 Oxford Street. Is this, I wonder, the oldest building on Oxford Street? Viewed from the top deck of a bus it's possible to get a better look of the bay windows, and the decorative panels between them.
The upper floors are currently empty, as per the buildings either side and much of old Oxford Street, which begs the question, why are the powers that be building big new shiny new things everywhere else?! But that's a subject for another day in a pub.
I have tried to find out more about the history of No.41 made all the more confusing that, until the early 1880s, this street was numbered consecutively along the North side from Tottenham Court Rd to Hyde Park and then back along the South side ending at No.440. Luckily, the 1882 directory makes clear the changing numbers and we see that the property in question used to be No.421 which, in 1882, was listed as George Lloyd's coffee house. Delving a few decades further back to 1841, the occupant was Manuel Ferran, wine merchant.
A couple of years before earlier, John Tallis was busy creating illustrative streetscapes of London, and his depiction of No.421 shows a different building altogether:
Tallis, London Street Views, 1838-40, Peter Jackson, London Topographical Society, first published 1969
I'm guessing that the Georgian properties were replaced during Oxford Street's metamorphosis into a fancy shopping high street and the building we see today is c1860 or thereabouts. What do you think?
I also notice within the Tallis illustration that No.421 is annotated as Brooks & Son, wholesale stationers, and I am now wondering if this has any connection to Vincent Brooks's lithographic printing company that would later amalgamate with Day & Sons, a mega-company that I talk about on my Covent Garden Ghostsigns guided walk... give me a minute... yep... here was John Brooks, the radical printer, the son being Vincent.
I love it when things cross-reference like that.
And yes, it was our blog you found. :-)
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean? There’s no ref to another blog here.
DeleteSorry, I should have checked the link (to Wikipedia) before jumping to conclusions. I didn't want to click it only to lose my half written comment. Anyways, here's a link to the blog I was referring to. https://vincentbrooks.blogspot.com/?m=1
ReplyDeleteThanks Simon. This is Jane. Wow. There’s a lot to read there!
DeleteWow wow wow. Thank you so much for getting in touch and adding the link here. A few years back when I tried to find info about VBD&Son for my Covent Garden Ghostsigns guided walk, I found it rather tough-going.
DeleteI have yet to read all your info but this wonderful paragraph from early on in Chapter III piqued my interest:
"Mr Pallett was a very diminutive man with an enormous head, in appearance not very dissimilar to Professor Huxley, but with a nature that suggested Tom Pinch [...] He evinced a profound interest in my commercial instincts, picked up at the Birchin Lane Stamp Mart, and winked at certain illicit dealings that he perhaps ought to have suppressed...."
I really love that description of Mr Pallett's head(!) and the ref to the early used stamp trade, something that I also mention, on my City Deco walk – yes, I know it's not a 1930s era, but it's worth mentioning when I talk about a building there.
Hornsey Rise Gardens is a 10min walk away from my home and the house is still there.
BTW, there is an extensive display of Vanity Fair prints in The Criterion Theatre.
Thanks again
Glad you find it as intriguing and entertaining as we did. So, your covert garden ghost signs, Vincent Brooks had premises in Chandos Place (then a street if I remember rightly) and later in Kings Street. Don't tell his name is still written up on a wall somewhere?
ReplyDeleteHmmm ponder ponder... I'm guessing that the Chandos Place address is likely to be the fancy building that is now The Institute of Chinese Medicine, I suspect the street numbering was changed when it went from Street to Place. Next time I am looking in old directories I will check. I wonder if there might be a cartouche or something in that fancy facade.
DeleteThe sign I talk about is a Day & Sons one up high in Gate St behind Holborn station
Oh, I have often been there and never seen it! The last time they had done a lot of work to the building, hopefully I'm not too late.
ReplyDeleteIt's below the Steven sign – zoom in – https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gate+St,+London/@51.5166301,-0.1187426,3a,75y,342.8h,95.02t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s2PnOpY7z9nFgLSvgFixxng!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-5.019065362942996%26panoid%3D2PnOpY7z9nFgLSvgFixxng%26yaw%3D342.7989422476418!7i16384!8i8192!4m6!3m5!1s0x48761b350e04891b:0x131151d39ebd52ed!8m2!3d51.5172067!4d-0.1194734!16s%2Fg%2F1thvs5f6?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTAyOS4yIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
DeleteRe Chandos Place, turns out the low numbers were at the Maiden Lane end, so VB would have been where the rear of the Civil Service Store was later built by 1882.
DeleteNot in too bad a condition for being 175 or so years old. Thank you for the link.
ReplyDelete