Update on Toby Ale signage

Almost two years ago I wrote about the renovation of an old Charringtons pub in Swinton Street, Kings Cross, WC1, and its lovely old Toby Ale tiled motifs.
Well I am happy to report that the new owners of The Kings Cross Arms which is now a hotel and restaurant have given the place a wash and brush up and the panels are still perfectly intact. Each is flanked by some of those ubiquitous filament lamps though the shadows/ghosts of older lamps looks to have proved hard to remove. It is now called The House of Toby – named after the plaque – how lovely – phew!
The other news on this subject is that I now do not have all the original images of the montage that I put together in that last piece on the subject. I lost most of this collection when my AppleMac crashed last year – I had collected my labelled photos into a folder on my desktop and had neglected to copy it over elsewhere to an external HD, a USB stick or to my web archive.
Tomorrow, tomorrow etc.
Another annoying thing is that I hadn't even captioned the 12 images in that montage so I now can't identify/remember the locations (d'oh!).
It wasn't the only collection to bite the dust – I also lost Woolworths stores, David Greig shops, Burtons Deco motifs, an A-Z of ghostsigns across London (by street), ditto pubs signs and the like. Oh, and ditto lots of written research that I had compiled for my guided walks etc. And archive images, and boot scrapers and coal hole covers and date stamps and and
Oh well; live and learn. None has died. In a way it all felt quite cathartic.
Shall I start again? Nah!

The Duchess of Kent

The pics below show an old Charringtons pub today standing empty on the corner of Carnegie Street and Charlotte Terrace between Barnard Park and Regent's Canal in Islington. Note the 1930s Georgian-esque architecture and their red Courage Best cockerel on the front.

Pubs of this type, faced in beige tiles at ground level, often also had panels for Toby Ale on them but I can see no evidence of that here. Instead we have some marvellous faded hanging portraits of the Duchess.

The sign faces east and west and seems to have faded to the same degree on both sides. I like it.

The Duchess appears to be strangely popular in Islington as there are are two more pubs bearing her name – one at 444 Liverpool Rd, and another at 72 Prebend Street where she can be seen sporting a marvellous wide-brimmed, feathered hat as shown here.

UPDATE – she could be an Irish connection – I read recently that The Duchhess Of Kent was the name of a ship that returned a famous Irish politician to these isles in the 19th century... I need to dig out more info and will update this when I find out more