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. 

The blue tiled laundry shops of Sunlight, Westerns and Loud & Westerns

I've written a few times about shops that used to be laundries/dry cleaners, evident by blue tiled exteriors, often featuring and promoting Lever Bros' Sunlight Soap. Having spotted quite a few of these across London and written about some of them here I think it's time to share them as a comprehensive collection. 

There are two companies here, Westerns Laundry in North London and Loud & Western in South and West London. Both used and advertised Sunlight products.

More info about the history of these companies further down, but, first, here is an A-Z (by area/borough) of the old shops still retain some blue tiled exteriors: 

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BRIXTON

100 Brixton Hill, SW2

Now split into two shops, the corner section still retains its blue tiles:

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CAMDEN

62 Chetwynd Road, NW5
This is still a laundry but, for some daft reason, the blue tiles have been overpainted with blue paint!

124 Fortess Road, NW5
Much of the exterior was still intact until 2015. Pic here is from Google 2009:

The shop's exterior was then remodelled, keeping only the black and white floor tiles at the left side :

Today (2024), the laundry's blue tiles can be glimpsed under the grey paint at low level: 

Note also the loss of the little street sign that identified this as Fortess Mews.

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CHISWICK

19 Devonshire Rd, W4

This corner shop still looking good in 2024

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CLAPHAM

14 Blandfield Road, SW12

A column of blue tiles at the left side is all that remains:

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CROUCH END

Middle Lane, N8

A superb example. It even has a hand-pained sign on the side:

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FULHAM

594 Fulham Road, SW6

I recall seeing blue tiles either side of the door in the early 2000s but when I returned with my camera few years later they'd gone. Here's how it looks in 2004. The image here is from Google Streeview's retrospective facility showing it in 2008:

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HAMMERSMITH

47A Goldhawk Road, W12

Hot Pot's column of blue tiles, shown here, was gone by 2016:

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ISLINGTON

334-336 Grays Inn Road, Kings Cross

Click here for more

41 Essex Road, N1 

Lots of blue tiles still in place at the corner of Gaskin Street: 

84 Holloway Road, N7
The first pic shows how it looked in early 2018 when the blue tiles were briefly revealed, having been covered in black and white paint for many years:

For a short while lettering in the bottom panel was also visible:

I'm guessing it said something like 'Expert cleaning service' – but by mid-2019 the whole shopfront was again over-painted: 

276 St Paul's Road, Highbury & Islington, N1
Read more here

120 Junction Road, Archway, N19

Only the black and white tiles remain, but it used to look like this Getty image:

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PIMLICO

22 Pimlico Road, SW1
See more here

44 Churton Street, SW1
This is how it looked in 2024:

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In the 1950s it looked like this:

 This still taken from old movie footage on YouTube – at 13:56 (as shown here) with an alternative view at 16:28. (Thanks to 'anonymous' for letting me know about this via the comments section here)

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STREATHAM

111 Mitcham Lane, SW16

The tiled pilasters are gradually becoming visible, hidden for at least 15 years under layers of paint: 

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WANDSWORTH

138 Northcote Road, Battersea, SW11
See more here

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GENERIC INFO about Westerns Laundry / Loud & Western
This is a work in progress – I will be updating and amending as and when I source more/better info.

It's proving hard to ascertain which came first, Westerns or Loud & Western – it's a chicken and egg conundrum. 

But it's fair to assume that John Richard Western is connected to both companies. By 1910, there were laundry outlets in his name at 160A and 674 Holloway Road with sixteen other outlets across North London, as shown in this snippet from Kelly's 1910 directory: 

It's interesting to note that this does not make clear which sites were laundries vs high street shops. 

Question is, who was Mr Western? Did he start the laundry as his own idea, or was it set up by Sunlight/LeverBros in his name. If so, what was their relationship? See more about him in the The Laundries section below. As regards Mr Loud of Loud & Western, he might have been a director on the board of Lever Bros, or perhaps Loud is an acronym or similar. 

It's worth noting that there is nothing listed in the name of Western within in Kelly's 1899 directory which also shows that there were no laundry outlets along the whole length of Holloway Rd at in that year. This is very strange seeing as ten years earlier there had been a choice of independent laundry services along the two mile street including The Caledonian Laundry, a local company (see black and white Getty Images pic in the Islington section above). Therefore, it's fair to assume that Westerns and Loud&Western began trading in 1900/1901 when they also swallowed up the Caledonian Laundry shops et al.

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THE LAUNDRIES

North London – Westerns, Drayton Park, N7

In the 1900s, certainly by 1910, John Western is living at No.12 Drayton Park, here at the corner of Horsell Rd, with The New River Laundry at the rear of his house and No.14. I can find no info about this business – it doesn't appear to be an official branch of the New River Company. 
Incidentally, further along the street there was also another laundry company, The Clissold Laundry, situated at the corner of Arvon Road here which in previous years been called The Drayton Park Laundry.  There are many natural springs and water courses in this area so, historically, this would have been the ideal location for this kind of business. 

By the early 1930s, Western's Laundry has moved to a large purpose-built facility, further along the street, at 34 Drayton Park. 

Here's a short video of me in Drayton Park back in 2020.

South and West London – Loud & Western, various locations:

63 Broughton Rd, Fulham

Peterborough Rd, Fulham

125 Acre Lane, Brixton

Grace's Guide tells us the Broughton Road site was secured in 1901, as confirmed by that year's Kelly's directory which lists the premises as 'Sunlight Laundry'.  

However, it's strange that this Broughton Road is excluded from the 1910 directory (snippet below) which shows Loud & Western at 490A, 91 and 327 Kings Road as well as twelve other outlets across South and West London:

 

As the businesses boomed, more outlets opened...

Westerns Laundries Ltd. London 1939:

Note that the first inclusion here is for 18 Drayton Park, indicating that this was the HQ/Head Office – Mr Western has evidently moved house again, to a larger property a few doors along from his previous house at No.12, and I suggest it would have looked like this house at No.30.  

The 1939 listings shows all their sites at that time, although they are not identified as outlets/shops vs laundries. Having checked out these addresses, I've noticed that a couple of them are residential properties, specifically Green Street and Balls Pond Road – these might have been area manager's offices. Some of the other locations are not shopping streets (for instance, Barnsbury Rd, Ivor Place, Ferdinand St, Old Hill, Provost St and Weedington Rd) and these I think were probably laundries in addition to the Drayton Park site.

The image below shows a Westerns Laundry in Turnpike Lane. It is not listed in the 1939 London directory shown above, because this area was still classed as The Suburbs at that time. The image is from a marvellous book called A Nation of Shopkeepers by Bill Evans and Andrew Lawson, published 1981. 

Loud & Western Ltd. London 1939:

It's interesting to see the order that the address are listed here – I suspect it's chronological, reflecting the order that the sites were added, Broughton Rd being the first in 1901. Note also that the Acre Lane (laundry) site is shown near the end, reflecting its recent construction. Then the Peterborough Road facility is next in the list (another Art Deco era building) – it is here specified as 'Float iron dept' and I wonder if this might be the 1934 (patent?) application for a laundry wringing machine – as advertised in the window of the Churton Street shop shown in the film still above.  

There are some lovely memories and images of Fulham's Loud & Western laundry sites here on Facebook 

1960s onwards

Sunlight Laundries (Loud & Western) Ltd was incorporated in 1963. By 1995, it was part of Sunlight Service Group Properties Ltd.

Further information is proving hard to source, hindered because online searches for Westerns Laundries, or similar, take me to the restaurant that now occupies less than half of the building in Drayton Park, which was founded here in May 2017. I'll keep searching. 

In the meantime, here's the front of a postcard showing one of the Holloway Road shops – it which looks to be from the 1930s:

And, from the same address, a 1958 price list. 

Interesting to note that there is no mention of Sunlight on these leaflets, even though the colours used on the one below are on-brand with the soap.

Sunlight Soap

I can find no listings in the Kelly's directories for outlets called 'Sunlight Laundry' or similar, except in the very early days at Broughton Road (see above) suggesting the laundry side of Lever Bros' company was franchised from the beginning. 

Ghostsigns – there are some faded hand-painted signs to be found...

Sunlight Soap
– Conewood Road, Highbury Grove, N5 – see also my short YouTube video

– Millfields Rd / Chippendale St, Lower Clapton, E5

– 83 Upper Clapton Road

– Park Lane / Denmark Street, Tottenham E17.

– Chalford Rd / Clive Rd, SE21

Westerns

– Crouch End, as shown above in the Haringey section

– Finsbury Park – this sign 'SAME DAY CLEANERS' is at the rear of the bank building at the corner of St Thomas's Rd, opposite the station.  

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The following ideas need further investigation – any help welcome:

– Sunlight Square, Bethnal Green – I wonder if there was a factory/laundry here?

– ditto Sunlight Close in South Wimbledon

x

More manholes with woodblock infills, hiding in plain view on London's main roads

This collection of manhole covers with remnants of wood blocks within them are specifically grouped together because they are all on streets I know well, so it's surprising it's taken me decades to notice them until now (September 2023). 

First, here is an excellent example in Holloway Road, ten minutes' walk from my home. I often lead guided tours here pointing out all the hints of late Victorian history when the street was often referred to as The Oxford Street of the North. Yet, although I often mention trams and old forms of transport, I hadn't actually spotted this fabulous example of wood blocks in the middle of the road. It can be found between The Coronet/Waitrose and Holloway tube station, slap bang in the middle of the road. Basically, I have been walking past it about three times a week for thirty years (doh!):

It's the second Holloway one I have discovered (see first entry in here) and, convinced that there surely must be more in the vicinity, I am now often to be seen scouring the road like a demented idiot who has lost something.  

Next, to Kentish Town... a short walk from Holloway and an area I also thought I knew well as regards little details etc, yet, although I'd found one wood-filled manhole cover by a yellow line in the southern end of this street, it turns out that there is another one, almost opposite Islip Street. This had eluded me until someone messaged me about it:

Then to Pentonville Road... outside Joseph Grimaldi Park I found another one having glimpsed it from the top deck of a number 73 bus, as this is what I do from buses now; I play a new game I have invented: Manholehunter. On the day I went to photograph it, the street was extremely trafficated* so I had to stop the slow-moving cars to be able to stand over it and get a decent shot. The driver of one car looked at me very quizzically then parked round the corner to come back and see what I was so interested in. He chatted for a while, and I told him to look up Jane's London but I haven't heard from him since. Perhaps he's reading this now. I hope so! Due to the traffic that day I am here accompanying my photo with a street view pic from Google streetview (the name of the road isn't actually painted on the Tarmac!):

Update March 2026:  no surprise to discover that it's since been covered in tarmac:

And so to Clerkenwell Rd... I wrote before about a fine example at the end of Leather Lane. Well, I'm sorry to report that since that stretch of road was resurfaced, the manhole has completely gone. But, on the bright side, I found another one a little further east, almost at the junction of Hatton Garden, by the zebra crossing. At first glance it looks like it's all tarmac-filled. But that's not the case – the tarmac has eroded around the edges, and little glimpses of wood can be seen, although that might not be immediately evident here:

And finally (for now!), this next one is just south of Angel Islington, on the west side of St John Street by the pedestrian crossing, just before the junction with Rosebery Ave and Sadlers Wells:

See you with more of these soon, no doubt.

For the full list of all my sightings thus far, please click here. Do let me know if you find any more. 

*Trafficated – a word a that my mate Mick used/invented by accident back in the 1990s – I have been implementing it ever since. 

Holloway Road, The Oxford Street of The North*

I moved to Holloway over three decades ago. Back then there was a good selection of shops – well-known high street names mixed in with a healthy range of independent local businesses, a market that was a different each day of the week, another outdoor/carboot market in the school playground at the weekend, and a couple of department stores.

Within two years, in July 1990, Jones Bros department store closed, later to be replaced by a Waitrose. Then, a few years later, Next shut up shop here, as did Mark One, River Island, Ravel, Shelly's shoes and other well-known names. And since that, for whatever reason, there has been a drip, drip effect. It's sad, but it's not all bad.

Marks and Spencer, a fixture of the area since the later Victorian heyday* closed a few years ago (behind the tree in this pic), even though it was understandable seeing as it was rarely busy in there. Yet the company has opened up other stores in nearby Archway and Finsbury Park, and Lidl successfully filled this N7 space. See an old post about M&S here.

New Look disappeared during the pandemic and a few months ago I noticed that Barclays Bank had gone, having been at the corner of Parkhurst Road for over 140yrs (see pic further down). Just last week the Clarks factory outlet store on Seven Sisters Road closed its doors for the last time.

Of the independent traders and small businesses that have gone, I was saddened to see Rolls and Rems fabric shop and Michael’s greengrocer, both well-known traders on Seven Sisters Rd for +20yrs of trading, close their doors, adding their names to the long list of bygone businesses that I recall from the 1990s. 

Despite these losses, I am often to be heard saying that Holloway has everything you need – we still have Selbys department store which is marvellous, yet I am sure that only a tiny percentage of people who live near here have never been inside to see what's on offer (it might be due to the often poor advertising in the windows along Holloway Road which often makes it look like a sale outlet) – I was in there last week chatting to a member of staff discussing how sad it was to see so devoid of shoppers despite the excellent range of products available.  

On the ground floor, for instance, there are lots of well-known fashion names such as Whistles, White Stuff, Seasalt, Benetton and Barbour, plus a major cosmetic brands, quality accessories, lingerie and menswear inc Levis etc. Oh, and lots of shoes, such that I'd say it's the best shoe shop in Holloway, yet hardly anyone seems to know it's all in there. The next floor is a one stop shop for home and haberdashery. I have given up looking anywhere else for bed linen, furnishings and kitchenware because other stores miles away in Oxford St or in retail parks. just don't have the same choice.  Next time you are in the area heading for Morrisons, walk through Selbys and exit via the rear door in the precinct. 

We also have Argos, many supermarkets, lots of fresh food outlets, plus our fair share of pound stores, charity shops, market stalls and more – we have this past year seen a more shops leave the area, probably exacerbated by a mix of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic.  

I am now wondering which business is the oldest here after Selbys which started as a drapery store in 1895 and Drivers and Norris which can trace its history back to 1852. I am pretty sure, since the closure of some of the shops mentioned above that these two companies are unusual vis their history in N7. My guess as to the 3rd-longest trading outlet here would be Boots the Chemist or possibly NatWest. 

The Great Britain as a nation of shopkeepers era has definitely passed us by now, by which I mean, just like many shopping areas of this kind, we have a wonderful diversity offering products and services from around the world, be it German burgers, Turkish barbershops, or Chinese groceries. 

As such, I wonder if today there are any independent businesses that can claim to have been trading here for 20 years or more. The ones that spring to mind, and I need to check this, are food outlets such The Holy Chinese takeaway and Crystals kebab restaurant, both opposite the Odeon on Holloway Road, and I do know that the EyeValue opticians has been in Holloway since 2001. Perhaps some of the barbers and hairdressers can also claim a medal here, and possibly Holloway Stationers and Book Shop opposite Selbys. 

I have a plan to look further into this and go into the shops to talk to the owners and ask for more info. That would be nice thing to do, so watch this space.

More posts about Holloway here.

Please do check in again for an update, or add you own thoughts, suggestions and memories below. Alternatively, send me an email: jane@janeslondon.com

Pics are all screen grabs from Google Streetview here – to see previous years, as shown above, use the retrospective facility via the small inset window (tab at top left when viewing on a large screen). 

* The area was often referred to as "The Oxford Street of The North"* – if you want to find out more about that late Victorian shopping heyday, or the Art Deco era, please join me for a guided walk via janeslondonwalks.com.