Update – the double clocks at 296 Holloway Road have been removed

Photo: Jane Amelia Parker, 13 August 2008

Two years ago I write a post about the deterioration of the double clocks at 296 Holloway Road, see here.
Last week I noticed that they are not there any more, by which I mean they have been completely removed.
All that is visible is the outlines of some breeze blocks covered in magnolia coloured paint.
I am saddened at this – these Victorian clocks were a landmark feature of this stretch of road and Islington Archaeology and History Society had been campaigning for their restoration.

Photo: Jane Amelia Parker, 27 July 2017

The white parts were cracked but surely these areas could have been replaced with a modern counterpart because the metal sections including the hands were still intact – what has happened to those elements? Where are they now?  They must have been very heavy to remove.
And how and when did this removal happen?  The work must've been done in a hurry, or even overnight, because almost every other day I walk up or down the Holloway Road, especially this particular section, planning my guided walks and scanning for changes and details, and I did not see any scaffolding there.

Islington Tribune

Does anyone have any news about this?
Did anyone see a scaffold or any workmen in action, or know where the clocks have ended up?

Eversholt Street

This is a mixed bag abou the northern end of Eversholt Street, NW1, near Mornington Crescent Station.

Working along and down row by row of the pics:
A Google street view of the top section of the road shows Leverton & Sons sign on the right. A few years back it was re-painted. It's an appalling renovation. enough said.
Until approx 15 years ago the opposite side of the road was, just like Parkway a little further north, a parade of useful, independent shops which included a great tapas bar and the cafe shown here with the red sign.
Sandwiches etc belied its basic name and plastic sign because inside was marvellous. A friendly and hardworking Italian family ran this place for decades. It had fixed high back wood and padded seating which fitted in four groups of six people and they served up the most delicious fare including the best toasted ciabattas and focaccia I have ever tasted. Everyone I took inside loved it and requested to make a return visit. And the coffee was excellent, being as it was made my the grandfather who had been a barista for decades. They probably weren't even called baristas when he started out.
Sandwiches etc started to lose trade when Costas and Starbucks etc opened outlets along nearby Camden High Street. This was the same period as when the big supermarket chains began opening up mini/local versions everywhere which also helped  to change the face of this lower end of Camden Town completely. At that time I was an occasional freelance at a publishing company just around the corner within Greater London House/Carreras Building and rather than just nip around the corner to Sandwiches etc where a cappuccino was a mere 90p and would still be frothy after running back with it across the road and up two flights of stairs, work colleagues would instead march up the high street to one of the new places where they paid twice the price for lukewarm milky water. When I tried to tell them about the café they looked at me like I was the mad one.
The shop has since stood empty all this time. So sad on many levels.
The last pic on the middle row shows a faded old advertisement for George Clarke & Sons breakfast food above MC station which I expect many people have never noticed. It is, as they say, hiding in plain sight, though would have been very bright and visible to people on buses and trams heading southwards back in the day. Traffic today now flows only on the opposite direction.
The bottom pic shows a long tiled step in front of a shop near the café. I am wondering if this was the tapas bar, though in my mind that was further south. Any feedback welcome.
And finally the magnificent old post office at the junction opposite the station. No longer in use as such.
That'll do!

More Camden ghostsigns here including the Leverton one.

Two closed pubs in Smithfield

Walking around Smithfield last month I was saddened to see that two of the characterful pubs I used to sometimes drink in are closed and awaiting development.

I hope there is hope for The Hope on the corner of Cowcross Street

The Smithfield Tavern in Charterhouse Street

In the last decade many of the pubs in this once vibrant meat market district have either been closed completely or have been gutted and remodelled resulting in the loss of all the old fittings including etched glass and carved wood. Let's hope these two establishments will be revived with their historical details intact.

Shopicide – memories of W. Burrows & Sons, a charming old fish shop in Acton

What is the word for destroying and 'modernising' something and replacing all that was historical, handmade and interesting with nothing of any style or class? I've decided on 'shopicide'.

In January 2009 I took these pics of the old fish & chip restaurant and fishmongers at the northern end of East Acton Lane near Savoy Circus (named after a cinema and a roundabout, both long gone).

As you can see, the shop frontage was lovely with a hand-painted sign by Brilliant Signs Ltd of W12 (Permenart) and the little panels in the windows had decorative glass panels and ventilation inserts. Along the bottom there were lovely hand-fired green tiles with five fish motifs at regular intervals. For some reason I only took photos of three of them:

The shop was clearly closed for business. Peering in through the window I could see the lovely old wooden seating was still intact. However, some kind of renovation was underway – there were paint pots on the counter which was covered in a cloth. I assumed they were merely doing a bit of decorating. 

I haven't visited the area since ten and so, last weekend when I was in the vicinity, I took a short detour to go and check out what has become of the place.
But, oh dear, what a disaster – everything shown above has gone. And I mean everything. I didn't get out of the car to take photos because it was just too much to take in. Instead, I googled it when I got home and these streetview screengrabs show that absolutely nothing is left of the old shop:

How is this allowed to happen? I have tried searching for other images of the old shop but the only pics I can find are my own – there must be some in an archive somewhere...?

Sad face.

Jane's Advent Calendar – 11th December

Hand-painted tea rooms sign at 11 Museum Street, St Giles, Bloomsbury, March 2008 

October 2015

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

Old pub buildings

Some my earliest posts on Jane's London were about old pubs. I was, and still am, fascinated by pubs that have the old name still visible somewhere, yet now have a new name (why?!) or have converted into residential or a completely different business use.
The Gentle Author wrote recently about what he calls 'dead pubs' (see here and here) and this has provoked me to revisit my file of what I call 'ghost pubs' (see explanation at the foot of this post*).
So here are some more... I have been careful not to repeat the ones that I collected for Time Out in 2008, or those mentioned on Spitalfields Life.
This collection is restricted to pubs that were, at the time I took the photo, something other than a pub, yet the original name was still there.

(Some of these may have changed use again since the photos were taken):
Top row:
The Alexandra Coffee Tavern, Hornsey Road – was a locksmiths, now empty
The Rising Sun, Wapping High Street / Garnet Street – wine bar – check out the clay pipe smoker
The Crown, Borough High Street – London Institute of Technology and Research
The Old King Lud, Ludgate Circus – bank and café 
Middle row:
The York, Kennington Road – dental surgery
The Black Horse – St Pancras Way – flats
The Knights of St Johns Tavern, St John's Wood – florist
The Elephant and Castle, Vauxhall – "coffee" shop
Bottom row:
The Blomfontein, Gt Chapel St, Soho – café restaurant
The Unicorn, Hoxton High Street – pizzas
The Round House, Wardour Street – club/disco
Jack Straws Castle, Hampstead – fitness club

All of these photos can be found here.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

*There is a difference of opinion about the use of the word 'ghost' in this way. 
'Ghost signs' are seen my many as being restricted just to faded brick ads, but I believe any old name, sign, advertisement etc, that is still visible but but no longer relevant is a ghost from the past – I include old shop fascias, signs, reliefs and ads. But I do not includes those signs that have been tarted up or re-painted as in the case of a few in Covent Garden, WC2.

Holloway Road Then and Now (3)

Today's post concerns two major junctions in central Holloway.

The pair of images above shows the change at the southern corner of Parkhurst Road at the Nags Head junction. The black and white image of the old market arcade is from the mid-1970s. When I moved to Holloway in the late 80s the market building was mostly boarded up and it continued to sit empty and semi-derelict for years until it was demolished in the 1990s to make way for a [carpet] shop with student accommodation above. This replacement building with its bright machined bricks has a half-hearted attempt at architectural detailing including a raised band above the 4th floor and semi-circular shapes at the very top, perhaps a vague attempt to echo the high window arches that were a feature of the old Holloway Arcade.

Look at the difference almost a century has made to the southern corner of Tufnell Park Road (opposite the Odeon). In Edwardian times Holloway Road, specifically the Nags Head area, was in its heyday with shops all along the eastern side and houses along the western side running all the way down to Holloway Road station. Now most of this stretch has also been replaced by shops and cafes as shown on the right.

See all the posts in this series here

Architecture in the City

I have just been made aware of what looks to be a wonderful exhibition in the City of London.
Maps, models, photos and more... ooh!
This is only running until 9th September so be sure to check it out if you are in the Cannon Street area as it's open at weekends too.
Here's Ian Visits' review.
And here are some of my pictures which illustrate the ever-changing architectural landscape of that immediate area:

It's closing time

Today is the last day of the London 2012 Olympics and tonight we get to watch the Closing Ceremony.
I'll leave it at that and just show a collection of images of places in London that have closed without any ceremonies at all. Some have since been demolished, and some have completely changed their identity, whilst others are still waiting to hear about their future.
You may well recognise some of them:

Spots V Stripes

Hello, my names's Jane, and I'm in Stripes. Or is it... I'm a Stripe?. Oh I dunno.

Whatever it is, it's a Cadbury's thing in conjunction with the Olympic Games.

Last week I went to a games evening thing organised by phd where we tried to break some Guinness world records. These consisted of daft things like making a bed, stacking coins with one hand, clicking windows closed on a PC, chucking teabags in cups etc.

I didn't win any prizes on the night... I was too busy trying to break the red wine drinking record.

Thanks guys, it was a fun night... see a short vid of the evening here.

More info about getting involved here.

Three coal hole covers, a spotty dog in Mayfair, spotlights (Baron menswear RIP) and chocolate in Piccadilly, chewing gum outside the Astoria (RIP boo hoo) and the base of the Gherkin.

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!

Matt Monro, Born Free, in Shoreditch

Yesterday morning Matt Monro's daughter Michele was on BBC Breakfast talking about the book she has written about her father.

Matt Monro had the most amazing singing voice; apparently Frank Sinatra said of him, “If I had to choose three of the finest male vocalists in the singing business, Matt would be one of them”.
But Sian Williams likened him to Michael Bublé. That'll be Bublé as in bubble; as in full of air.
Silly woman; has she got something wrong with her ears?

Matt was born in Shoreditch in 1930 as Terence Edward Parsons, so here's a Shoreditch montage.

The lion cub isn't in Shoreditch; it's in N4. It's a ref to Born Free.