A house in Tudor Street, a ghostsign in Primrose Hill and a bit of Fleet Street history

This is about  a ghostsign that I have been trying to pin down for years, yet every time I end up going round in circles and I get nowhere, so I am posting it all here in the hope someone else can fill in the blanks.

24 Tudor Street, at the junction of Whitefriars Street, EC4, is a late Georgian 5-bay house, surely one of the oldest buildings in the vicinity (excluding Temple). It has, for over 140 years, been split into three businesses at street level, a barber, a store and a cafe, with, offices/residential above (tbc).

Google's aerial view shows how the old house backs onto a narrow street called Primrose Hill* no doubt named after flowers that once grew in its garden:

On the back of the house, high up on the right as you enter Primrose Hill from Whitefriars Street, there is a faded hand-painted advertisement for a company whose name appears to end in WERS. 

The major company adjacent to this sign from the 1890s was RT Tanner & Co, paper merchants, with large premises at 39-40 Hutton Street and 40-42 Salisbury Court. But the letters WERS do do tally with that company or any other businesses here for that matter. I'm wondering if it's a 1920's sign for a short-lived company as I have no immediate access to records for that period. 

The modern red bricks is Hutton Street (the rear of 22 Tudor Street) and the magnificent 1920's building is Northcliffe House built as the Daily Mail's HQ – surely a better example of this style of architecture than the M&S store that everyone's been banging on about (!).

Aware that a sign on a wall does not necessarily signify that the ad is for something within that actual building, I also searched in vain for possible candidates in adjacent Salisbury Court, an area layered in history but currently undergoing a large rebuilding project. Nothing.

Ah well, I will try again another day – do let me know if you have any ideas. 

I'd also like to find out the original owner of the house at 24 Tudor Street. The 1841 directory there are only two businesses listed in Tudor Street – William Farmer at No.2, a merchant (dealing in what?) and George Crouch, a bookseller and printer at No.5. However, the entry for Whitefriars, is more illuminating and suggests to me that the house might have been connected to one of the companies trading out of either of the two wharfs which would have been directly between the house and the river. 

I will update this info when I find out more.

Before returning to Whitefriars Street I walked through to Dorset Rise to marvel at the 1980's Neo Deco/Modernist Revival of the Travelodge – these days I am really heartened when I see this style whereas decades ago I would have derided it. This is the same reaction that what we call Art Deco would have garnered in its day, creating the Shards and Cheesegraters of their time.

Back to Whitefriars Street. As I crossed into Ashentree Court, I noticed a bespoke low relief in the pavement and an information panel in the window at the rear of Northcliffe House's most recent extension

This is the first of many panels telling the story of the building as well as technological and engineering processes behind the printing machinery housed here. It's hard to imagine today that this area was once a thriving, noisy environment, especially at night. All gone by 2000 by which time the newspapers had moved to Kensington and Canary Wharf. 

Here are some of the panels. Rubbish pics, so best you go and read them yourself next time you are walking through.

Ashentree Court merges into Magpie Alley where there's lots more info about Fleet Street imprinted onto the white-tiled walls – I spot something interesting every time. 

Exit onto Bouverie Street and turn left up towards Fleet Street, passing the Salisbury Court construction and 2021's large bizarre painted sundial where three panels tell more info about the heritage of Fleet Street and not just the newspapers.

View from the Fleet Street end of Bouverie Street looking down towards the Thames

That'll do!

*Confusing street names – the better-known Primrose Hill can be found just north of Regents Park. There's also another Hampton Court at the northern end end of Upper Street, Whetstone Park in Holborn and Cyprus is near London Airport.

Youth by William Dudeney – a lovely statue near Gough Square

Outside the door of  Pemberton House, 6 East Harding Street, between Gunpowder Square and Gough Square, there is a lovely sculptural piece of a young man casually perched on one knee.

I can find no marks on it at all; no date, no signature. The chunky athletic build is typical of the 1930s – rather Eric Gill-ish or Edward Bainbridge Copnall-like, or he might even be a Jacob Epstein creation. 

I had occasionally made attempts to find out more, specifically to ascertain who sculpted this piece and to clarify whether this building was constructed in the 1930s or the 1950s, made all the more confusing seeing as there is no mention of 'Pemberton' House' in the 1939 directory shown here, although it might have already been a whole block by then and perhaps the name of Pemberton House might have been later applied when it was converted and repurposed to recognise Pemberton Row at the end of E Harding St. 

A sculpted panel at the top of the building showing a representation of the printing industry bears the dates 1476-1956, though this doesn't actually confirm that 1956 is the date of the building – especially as the strip containing those dates looks to be a later addition. 

I wondered if it the building might have been constructed by Eyre & Spottiswoode, an interesting18th century printing company that, as you can see, also had a club in the same block/building. Whether the club was for all members of staff of just for the directors, I don't know. It might well have been a sports facility and this would tie in with this young man's athletic features. 

So back to the young man – it turns out that until today, I hade been searching using the wrong keywords, not using the name 'Pemberton' – basically, I hadn't looked very hard because all the info I needed is on Chris's excellent Ornamental Passions and has been there since 2012! 

He is called 'Youth' and was carved by William Dudeney, commissioned in 1955 by The Starmer Group, a company started by this man, that by the mid-1950s had acquired this site as their HQ, though this doesn't clarify when the building was constructed or when the name Pemberton was applied to it.

I am therefore assuming the name change happened quite recently when the block was converted to residential use. Any further info welcome. Incidentally, a furnished one bedroom flat starts at about £530 per week, which seems cheap to me considering the location. 

Read about another of William Dudeney's printer-related sculptures here  – and notice how one of the figures in that group is holding a printing block that containing Dudeney's name (with letters reversed) – clever. 

Little letters at low level

Has anyone else ever spotted this on the streets of this fair city?

Only, I have showed the image above to many London historians, guides and friends, and, despite the letters shown, which sit on a half inch metal rod just off the pavement, only a couple of people have ever worked out what it means and therefore where it might be. 

And when I explain what it stands for, almost everyone says something like "oh, my god, how have I never noticed that myself?!"

Here's a wider view. It's street-facing, in front of a very well-known historic establishment:

Have you got it yet?

It's Ye Old Cheshire Cheese, 145 Fleet Street, EC4. See it on a reprospective Google Streetview here.

These boots are made for walking

One Saturday morning last month I joined one of Walk London's free Winter Wanders Weekend Walks.

The tour I'd chosen was St Paul's - The Secret Corners of the City and Hidden Alleyways and Courtyards. On arriving at the statue of Queen Anne outside St Paul's Cathedral I was amazed to see more than 100 people. I thought, "oh gawd, no" and inwardly cringed. But, phew, there were two Westminster tour guides there so the pack split in half and off we went on two non-clashing routes.
I was pleased to see that more than half the group were Londoners just like me who were there to learn more about our fair city. And we weren't disappointed because June our guide was bubbling over with facts and information, all easily heard at the back through her portable public address system.
I hope there will be similar weekends happening again sometime soon. Meanwhile, get your walking shoes on and go on one of their recommended unguided walks outside the Central zone. See the Walk London site here.

Stonecutter Street – AKA Treecutter Street

Earlier this year I was on my way to one of the monthly London Historians get togethers in the Hoop & Grapes on Farringdon Street when I stopped in my tracks at the end of Stonecutter Street.
A whole row of trees, I think there were eight of them, had been hacked down to thigh level in the name of progress.

The stumps ranged in diameter from 8 inches at the Shoe Lane end of the road to about 30 inches at the Farringdon Street end. Thirty inches – that's an OLD tree, that is. So sad. And I very much doubt that the development going up behind the blue hoardings will 'live' to be as old as the some of those bigger trees.
The stumps have probably been removed completely by now.

The area, bordered by Holborn Circus, Fetter Lane, Fleet St and Farringdon Street is full of evocative street names such as Printer Street, Wine Office Court, and, of course Stonecutter Street and Shoe Lane, all hinting at the trades that used to be predominant in those roads. But over the past 20 years or so I have watched as the whole area has changed considerably – it now bears scant resemblance to how I remember it when part of my first job as a junior in an advertising and design company back in the 80s was to deliver packages containing finished artwork to the newspapers and magazines in the vicinity.

A stone cutter's throw away, hidden amongst the modern buildings you can find Dr Johnson's House and Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub where Johnson and Boswell would have enjoyed a few chats, drinks and smokes. I wonder what they would have to say about the rush of change that has happened in the past two decades?