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. 

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

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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.

Clerkenwell Design Week 2025 – let there be lights and

CDW – what's not to like?!  I keep telling people that this design festival is not just for people in the industry as there is so much to learn about innovations in flooring, upholstery, lighting, soundproofing, sanitary ware and more. If you are ever thinking of doing some home improvements this 3-day event is pack full of ideas.

Last Wednesday 21st I reached Clerkenwell shortly after midday and, after collecting my badge and lanyard from the booth outside Farringdon stsion, I headed at first to The Charterhouse, keen to see how this collection of historic buildings was being used.

The inner quadrangle contains some lovely ventilation made with layered roof tiles. 

Most of the exhibitors here were offering sanitaryware and other bathroom fittings and I was amused at the juxtaposition between that and the centures-old painting that looked down on them, including Sir Richard Sutton and his dog:

I went out into the gardens outside to admire Alex Chinnecks' A Week At The Knees – undulating brick façade, possibly the most recognisable and most photographed artwork here this year. Incidentally, Charterhouse is an English corruption/mis-pronunciation of Chartreuse which is where the Carthusian monks came from. 

At the junction of Goswell Road I noticed that The Hat & Feathers pub has been renovated. It has reopened for business this week. This reminds me that approx two years ago the gilded signage around the building had been removed revealing the name of a completely different type of business – I will endeavour to dig out the many pics I took of that. At the St john Street junction of Clerkenwell Rd there is a marvellous scale model (I think it was in the windows of Solus):

This echoes Jool's Holland's own model railway complex as used in the opening credits of Later on BBCTV and the marvellous scale models at Kings Cross Model Railway Club which I visited earlier this year but don't appear to have shared on Jane's London yet – that's another thing that's slipped through the net! As they say, 'life gets in the way' – when I find a parallel universe I will attend to my bulging To Do folder.

Lunchtime – to the showroom of Actiu International in Seward Street to see my friend Thomas who works there. I took the opportunity to partake of the food and drink on offer whilst I read their literature, and discovered that Actiu was one of the first companies to design specific office furniture, something that I think they should boast about rather than bury within their literature. I watched as people were clearly enjoying their outdoors-inside pod clad in eco plants.

The next two pics are simply a bit of compare and contrast – 1950's architecture on Old Street and tutti-frutti style surfaces in Cesar Ceramics on Gt Sutton Street...

... where branded bright pink tables lined the Street. The ventilation tile within the elegant exterior is one of many on what was built as Pollards shopfitters HQ on St John Street. 

Above, bottom left is within Wagstaff in Brewery Yard where I learned about sustainable fabrics, recycled plastics, natural textiles, Italian design and more. The chandeliers were within the old prison cells which, as per previous CDWs, is used to showcase light fittings. Here I enjoyed some interactive pieces courtesy of PixelArtworks – these next two pics are of me, you can make out my eyes and then see my arms. Great fun!

It was here I got talking to another attendee and we then visited a few other places together, including views from the roof of The Sessions House and a couple of church crypts, where the range of products and innovations, such as recycled floor coverings and sustainable yarns was almost too much to absorb.

We weren't the only people to find this pale pink vase rather amusing. I have paired it with a paint splattered wall that I saw in St John Street. Keeping to the phallic theme, near Cowcross Street there are what I think are repurposed cannons as bollards. Three of them are marked 'St Sepulchre Midd' which is the church on Holborn Viaduct (there are often free concerts), the parish then being in what was then Middlesex (c.1820s). 

I ended my day at EH Smith where I went to collect a brick that I will decorate and return by the end of June. You can do this too – just pop in ad pick up a brick yourself. The bricks come supplied in a neat fitted cardboard carrier. Here's my effort from 2023 which got through to the final but I didn't win the big prize to Venice – again, I really thought I'd written about this on here, but nope. You can see me on the extreme left of this pic and the awards evening. 

I stayed there until almost 10pm quaffing wine and chatting. Thanks EH Smith – an excellent end to an inspiring day!

Day 2 –  I hadn't planned to see more but, with a few free hours after a meeting in Smithfield, it seemed daft not to... 

Most of my time was spent around the junction of St John Street and Clerkenwell Rd. I popped into Ascot to learn about way marking and signage and then, as I was walking along Albermarle Way, I spotted a huge multi-tiled dome inside Jung's window so I popped in to investigate:

 

The dome is made up from 100s of light and control switches - there was a competition to guess how many tiles, but I didn't bother. A wonderful surprise is walking round to the other side of the sphere to see that is has a fabulous concave mirrored interior. I also liked all the coloured switches (see below) and the pun-tastic stickers. Oh, and the music playing in this space was all based on the the phrases and slogans on those stickers. An absolute delight and possibly my favourite showroom at the CDW2025. Lots of good chats.

Sophie suggested I visit Toto round the corner where she'd said a product was a bit over the top. Ah yes - the famous Japanese automated toilets. I watched incredulously as they demonstrated the nozzle jets, lights and flushing system activated by a hand-held remote control. Weird! Give me a dock leaf any day!  

I returned to Sophie for a debrief and more chats and a beer and a bit of bad singing and then continued along the street. But I didn't get far because nest door a man offered me a pulled pork bun outside Magscapes and this in turn led to a conversation with the owner/inventor Jerry about Clerkenwell Showrooms and so much more and the next thing I knew he was leading me up to the flat roof at the rear of the building to give me a better view of the three Ancient Lights signs that overlook the church gardens below. I'll be staying in touch with Jerry – he's given me a few ideas – watch this space.

I'll stop now!

Here's my experience of CDW2023 – I didn't write it up last year – good grief, I am sounding like a cracked record!