Is this the oldest building on Oxford Street?

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. 

HMV, Oxford Street – Art Deco, glass bricks, Vitrolite and curved glass

A while ago I pulled together this collection of shops that still retain horizontal curved glass. I mused that there must have been other businesses making use of this innovative non-reflective window design and an anonymous contributor sent me a link to the image below at 363 HMV Oxford Street which clearly shows that the shop also had curved windows – look closely where the two men are looking into the windows on the left side and you'll make out some horizontal lines:

What a lovely image. HMV (The Gramophone Company) opened a shop here in 1921, but I suspect this façade was installed a few years later – perhaps someone can enlighten me as to the age of that vehicle.

As the wording across the store shows, they sold a variety goods, no doubt displayed on beautiful chromed and polished counters.

The shop interior has since been pulled apart, indeed gutted, but the elegant Vitrolite and glass brick exterior has survived virtually intact above street level. 

In 2018 the shop looked like this (here follows a series of screen grabs from googlemaps):

By 2012, with the demise of CD and DVD sales, HMV had left the building and Foot Locker moved in removing the neon letters 'HIS MASTER'S VOICE' and the iconic image of little Nipper the dog listening to a wind-up gramophone player :

HMV's signage was reinstated in 2013 when the record company returned to the site and reinstalled their branding. Here is it in until 2014 showing the neon around the dog:

But it was all gone again by 2022 when, for a short while, it became home to a US candy outlet.

In November 2023 I was walking past and happened to notice that the interior was empty apart from a team of shop fitters busy with ladders and power tools. Posters across exterior at street level announced that HMV was coming back. Whoopee!

My photo above shows that a new sign was partially in place. I hoped that Nipper and the old neon letters had been saved and would be somehow be reinstalled as part of the design.

Nope. Here it is this year, and they've even covered up their own building this time with something that looks horribly cheap and temporary:

An opportunity missed. I'm disappointed to say the least. 

Oh well. 

Let's get back to the street level window glass... here's that marvellous old black and white pic again...

I wondered if there was any more visual reference from the pre-WW2 years and found this next pic on RIBA's site here which clearly shows curved glass. 

RIBA has captioned and credited this image as 363 Oxford Street, but I am very doubtful that this is the same location because, comparing the first image with this one two images, it's clear that the façade is different – the large open plate glass windows on the upper floor rather than glass bricks, no flat areas of black Vitrolite, and the arrangement of street level windows is shown to be flush with the street rather than angled as in the first pic. 

I therefore deduce that RIBA's image is a totally different HMV store. It could be another large central London store, but might be somewhere else in the country. Any ideas?

Another thing of interest on the 363 Oxford Street store is this plaque commemorating Sir George Martin and The Beatles:

 

London Lumiere – a review

Malcolm and I decided to spend two evenings taking in as much of this event as possible.

Friday 15th January
We first went to see the installation at Oxford Circus. It was marvellous and we admired the colour-changing mesh for perhaps ten minutes and then moved off to find new things, thinking that everything would be up to that standard. But no. I think we peaked too early...

We looked for something at Liberty's. We spotted a crowd of people at a window and could make out what we think was a dress in a window. The pic shown here isn't mine; it's one from their website that was at Granary Square (see also KX later on). So we moved on to Brown Hart Gardens where some cute little bird boxes edged the upper level, but that was it. Did we miss something better?
In Grosvenor Square lots of people were queuing to get inside the square at each of the four corners. Peering over the hedges it didn't look very busy in there and from what we could see it didn't look worth the scrum, so we gave up and went to see what everyone was crowding around on the south east corner; an illuminated old telephone box containing fish. This looked good (see pic above from Lumiere website) but, again, being a small installation it was hard to get anywhere near it. Shame.

And so to Piccadilly. A Tracy Emin-style neon script saying something supposed to be clever was on each end of Piccadilly Arcade. Hmmm. We moved swiftly past and stopped to watch the colourful projection on the Bafta building. The short looped animation was good and showed famous actors and relevant motifs about them and their films, but apart from Tilda Swinton and only a few others it was really hard to make out who the people were as we were too close to view it properly even though we rammed ourselves up against the shops on the opposite side of the road. For instance, just who is that woman above left? Basically, the thing was too big. We, and the people around us, all agreed it was better to see what was going on if you watched it through a camera screen to get a better/smaller image. I thought the light well below my feet was also worthy of a pic.

I did like the lovely lanterns and flying fish kites at the eastern end of Piccadilly. Simple, mesmerising, effective and easy to see from a distance. It was this kind of thing that always made the parade at the end of The Mayor's Thames Festival such a delight.
We really enjoyed being able to walk in the road, as at Oxford Circus and Regent Street.
The loud trumpeting of an elephant pervaded the air. And above Air Street (see what I did there?!) there was an animated CGI projection of an elephant's arse swaying left and right.

We walked through to Regents Street to view the front of the elephant. The street was rammed with people watching it. I stood and wondered what the point of it was. This was a recurring thought over both evenings. I mean, what relevance did an elephant have in that place? It wasn't even a real elephant. Had it not been there in that position on that night would anyone have given it a second thought?
We forgot to look in at St James Square and somehow bypassed the light flowers at Leicester Square and headed for Trafalgar Square.

Here, the letters from the top of Centrepoint, which is being renovated at the moment, were placed against the wall of the National Gallery. Watching the people, I noticed the thing to do here was stand against it and either take a selfie or get a friend to take a shot. It's all about the me me me these days. Intrigued how all these these idiots would get would be themselves as silhouettes against the bright light (pic1) I attempted to do better myself (pic2), but found it more effective to use the lights properly (pic3).
The fountains in the square also had installations:

One was filled with empty plastic water bottles; rubbish as art. The other had two rings of light strings and some chicken wire mesh that I couldn't see the point of. Both looked as if someone had thought, quick, quick, we need to think of something for Trafalgar Square...!
At Coutts Bank, just around the corner in the Strand, there were some neon dogs that looked like bows. We couldn't see them; again, the installation was small and the crowd blocked the view. I wasn't bow-wowed.
Enough for one night. A beer in the Nellie Dean to warm up and discuss the above and then home.

Saturday 16th January
We met at Victoria and walked down to see the projection on Westminster Abbey.

WOW!  A lot of work had gone into this. Very clever. The front façade changed by the second and the sculptures of the people around the door had been carefully coloured in and then accurately projected onto the building to marvellous effect. Really beautiful. I was actually inspired; for I think that was the point of all this
And so we made our way to Kings Cross. The tube station was closed (due to over-crowding?) so we exited at Euston and mooched along with the crowds. At KX the first thing we encountered was the birdcage, a permanent feature, which had been given a simple rainbow light treatment. On the rear of the German Gymnasium (now yet another eatery; I liked it when it was an art space) there was a projection consisting of series of moving dots that on closer inspection were people in the gym. A nice idea, but it seemed to be lacking something.

There were lots of people there and it took a while to access Granary Square, but we felt it wasn't what has been reported as 'crowded'. I suspect this was just on the tube, in the station and in the narrow access sections and pathways.
A large-scale animation was being projected onto what is now St Martin's School of Art. This was like the one when Madness played Our House on Buckingham Palace for Queenie's birthday except that it had no relevance to art, Kings Cross, or much to do with London except a few tube stations and hints about Hyde Park. It was circus-themed with hybrid 2D animals and birds performing tricks. I felt it was kooky French(?) humour mixed with Peter Blake and I got bored with it about half-way thorough. Again, what was the point? Was it promoting? What was it trying to achieve?
Between the art school and Waitrose was a strange satellite dish thing; it moved around, it spun slowly, it reflected lights. The roof there is angled and so I think a lot of its impact may have been lost in that placement. The music was oooooh-aaaa and it evoked sci-fi films and having stood there for what seemed ages, we rather hoped that an alien might appear, or that lasers would shoot out from it and decapitate people. Now that would be art, and we had our cameras at the ready. But no.
Later we read that the thing reacted to movement around it. Well, had they made that clear on site perhaps people might have moved about instead of just gazing gormlessly at it waiting for something to happen.

At the northernmost point there was a neon art installation of a person diving. Hmm. Seen better. Move on. And then we found that colour-changing dress (like the one at Liberty's, mentioned above). We could only see the straps of it due to the amount of people there.
Inside St Martin's was a lovely installation – a light tunnel made from recycled plastic bottles filled with water. This really appealed to me, both artistically and ethically, and I felt I'd finally found something with a message and a function. Truly inspirational. We didn't bother queueing to walk through the tunnel as it looked so nice from the outside. Again, it was selfies-a-go-go, so I joined in.
On the walk back to the station we bypassed the colourful lights being reflected onto people though they did look good and would have been better placed in a larger environment. It reminded me of a a rave party (not that I have been to any) or that Indian festival where everyone throws paint powder, But the path was too congested so descended the stairs to he new foot tunnel that leads to the tube station.

And I like it. I think this one will remain. Seems daft if it doesn't stay cos the softly-changing coloured lights are all embedded behind white walls. Looking straight at a wall it just looks white, but look along it and see vertical panels of colour. Ooh – a vast improvement from those horrid little off-white bathroom-style mini tiles they have put everywhere else in Kings Cross tube station; they were poorly installed and have become so mucky so quickly.
And so our two evenings ended.

Conclusion
So, in no particular order, my favourite things were Westminster Abbey, the flying fish, the mesh at Oxford Circus, the bottle tunnel, KX tunnel, and being able to get up close to the Centrepoint lights.
Did I feel enLIGHTened by all this? Yes and no, but mainly no. Ultimately I was more impressed looking up at the beautifully-designed ceiling at Kings Cross station.

Jane's Advent Calendar – 25th December

A little enamel sign I spotted in Savoy Street, WC2.

Ah... Oxford Street... today it will be blissfully and unusually quiet.
For an alternative Christmas morning treat, why not take a wander into Central London and stand in the middle of this major shopping thoroughfare with nary a car or person in sight.   

Oxford Street Gillette ghostsign RIP

You may recall that back in 2012 I wrote about an old hand-painted Gillette advertisement I spotted on Oxford Street, created by Harvey & Sons of Fleet Street (as shown in the bottom right corner).
Walking past last week I noticed that the 1884 building it was painted on has been demolished taking with it the ghostsign and all those chimney pots. The building to the right of it has been demolished as well.
Sigh.

Close up of the old sign, with before (March 2012) and after (March 2014) pics of the street

Another ghost sign loss

Hanway Street and Oxford Street renovation

I recently went to check out the Veno's Lightning Cough Cure ghostsign that has been revealed due to some renovations on the triangular site bordered by Hanway St at the eastern end of Oxford Street.
It is, at the moment, possible to stand on the southern side of Oxford Street and see almost straight through to Tottenham Court Road, as there is now almost nothing left but a few propped up facades.
I have great memories of Hanway Street. It was my favourite road for late night bars in the 1990s. I fondly recall that a few after work drinks in Bradley's would transmogrify into a 3am taxi after the Mia Seville/Titos/Troy Club bar crawl and then more drinking and dancing at Costa Dorada. And I fondly recall The Angus Steak House – a place I never went inside but found great amusement when the backlight on the G was not working for a few days.

I am now wondering how and why that Veno's sign was placed on that site in the first instance –  it looks to me as if the building that abuts it was built in the same period so surely it would have blocked the ad? Also, I am guessing there must have been boarding down the middle of the sign to bridge the gap between the chimney breasts. Perhaps the building next door was constructed later than the sign was painted? but that doesn't make sense because the ad does not appear to be as old as either of the fascias. Oh, I dunno. My head hurts.

On the corner of Soho Street, where the lovely angled corner and cupola of Walton's Old Queen's Head 1880 used to be, a sort of fantasy building being constructed. It looks like a lot of shower curtains with a Christmas tree attached to the top (see second pic, above). Need I say more?!
I am just hoping that two of the oldest buildings in Oxford St, on the same side of the street nearer Tott Ct Rd Station, which were both tagged by an insensitive street 'artist', are listed and won't also be lost.

Gillette ghost sign; hidden in plain sight

Earlier today I was in near Oxford Circus and looked up and saw what I thought must be a recently uncovered Gillette ghost sign.
Excited, I took lots of photos, one of which is below and a close up here where you can make out the signwriter's name.
But I just checked on Flickr and it seems the sign has been visible since at least July 2009 when Maggie snapped it... so how have I not spotted it myself until now?!
As a friend says, 'sometimes things are hidden in plain sight'... they are right under our noses or in this case, above our heads. The same would apply to the Gillette ghost sign in Queensway and the one for Creamed Barley above Mornington Crescent tube station.
I have spotted faded Gillette ads all over London; in Whitechapel, New Cross, Dalston, Clapham, Kilburn, Kensal Green, Stoke Newington, Tottenham, Acton, Peckham, Willesden and Grays Inn Road (see them here), and I know of others, so there are probably many more out there to discover, either hidden under new advertising panels or in hiding plain sight.

100 Club threatened with closure

News in Evening Standard and the NME that the 1oo club in Oxford Street, which has been staging gigs since 1964, may be closed down in a few months. I am sure a campaign is being set up as I write this in an attempt to save it.

This eastern of Oxford Street has become an absolute no-go area at the moment due to the rape and devastation being caused by the implementation of Crossrail – shops and businesses in this stretch must be suffering. Adjacent to No.100 there is now a great big hole where the whole block between Dean Street and Great Chapel Street has been demolished. It's not looking good.

The image is of the old Alfred Marks clock above the door.

Museum of London's Galleries of Modern London opening soon

I am a friend of the Museum of London and last night I went to the private view of the new Galleries of Modern London in advance of the official opening (this Thursday 28th May).

It was all a bit too much as there is so much to see; it's all laid out and arranged so well. The interactive screens and 'touch tables' are really informative and impressive.

I especially liked a room papered with Booth's poverty map where you can zoom in on different areas on the screen at the rear, a long blue 'touch table' depicting the river where you can find out about today's Capital Concerns, a wonderfully ornate Selfridges lift dating from 1928, a replica Victorian street with a tobacconist containing some full length clay pipes, and the sign that bloke used to cart up and down Oxford Street.

Also good was the use of projected films showing actors as part of the exhibits as in the Pleasure Garden and the Lyons Tea House. In the main foyer there is a film showing London today on a large screen; airports, markets, city, houses, parks. I could have watched it for hours.

So, to sum up, it's brilliant, go and check it out when these galleries are open... it's free!!!!

Malcolm McLaren RIP

Malcolm died of cancer on 8th April 2010, aged 64.

As I write this I am listening to 'Waltz Darling' the wonderful album he made in the 80s with the Bootzilla Orchestra. It mixed together all sorts of different musical styles and time signatures. Something's jumping, jumping in my shirt... aah!

I remember a bizarre programme he did for TV over 10 years ago about Oxford Street* and its history which I'd like to see again. His version of Madame Butterfly is genius, though I don't know what this video has got to so with the lyrics. Very 80s!
Like him or loathe him, Malcolm was always coming up with new ideas and shaping a lot of what we now take for granted.

Except for the 2 generic King's Road pics the references should be fairly obvious:

Top row: Museum Street; The Rainbow; St Pancras Church; King's Road.

Middle row: Opera House; coal hole cover; Dog and Duck, Frith St; 100 Club.

Bottom row: Coal hole cover; Bayswater, King's Road; Willesden.

*This reminds me that I still haven't been along Oxford Street with my camera and done a definitive Jane's London version of it... what I need is a day when the shops aren't open... I miss those Sundays when everything except the corner shops was closed. I think we need that day off to recharge. And early closing one night a week too. Now it's all spend spend spend, buy buy buy!