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

Another tiled shop front has gone – Express Dairies, 300 Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill

There seems to be a tile removal epidemic... as if it's not bad enough painting over tiles as per here and here and here, at least the paint can one day be removed to reveal the fired ceramics beneath. 

But in many places I am seeing lovely old tiles on old butcher shops, bakeries and dairies completely removed and replaced, as here in Notting Hill where a lovely shop front for a branch of Express Dairies that used to look like this....

... now looks like this (1st August 2024):

I discovered this latest bit of blandification yesterday whilst leading my Notting Hill Ghostsigns guided walk, this shop being one of the places I talk about along the route. It has for the past year it so been standing empty, waiting for a new occupant. Its intact exterior was unusual as I have not seen the like elsewhere in London, so I was stunned to see that so much of the shop's century-old façade hade been revamped. 

I say 'revamped' because, if you look closely, you'll see that they (whoever they is/are) have removed all the original features, excluding the tiles on the wall to the right, and replaced them with modern versions of the same proportion. I cannot believe that these alterations have been achieved by anyone who lives locally or has a link to the area, especially as there are other restored shops and businesses in this are such as the green tiles at Mary’s Living and Giving and the Electric Cinema. 

The bizarre fakery installed here echoes the shape and size of the window frames and the door, and includes panels of blue tiles which I assume have been affixed directly on top of the old ones. Compare and contrast 2022 with 2024 here:

I mean, what's the point?! It's not even a decent pastiche! Perhaps this is all down to Health and Safety – I have been told in the past, when other shops of a similar style have been gutted or over-panelled, that cracked tiles are unhygienic. If so, this tells us that this will be a food outlet of some kind. But this is the exterior, not the interior.  

These next pics contrast the depth, colour and variation within the old artisan/hand-made deep blue tiles on the left, with the flat blue panels installed in 2024, right:

These pics better highlight how the shape and style of the original front door has been echoed in its modern replacement. It's a wonder that they didn't also include a little plastic 'beware of the dog' badge as per the old one. I am hoping that the terrazzo threshold still remains under that sheet of cardboard. 

But, if like-for-like was the brief or intention here, why not use modern products that better resemble the 1920's originals? There are many companies today making very good brushed aluminium frames, and joiners who can produce good quality bespoke wooden doors. Why use such bland products that will not last ten years, let alone a century? Because it's cheaper, but only in the short term.

This next group of pics shows how good the shop looked a few years ago. Note the mechanism for the retractable sun blind/awning which ran across the whole front of the shop (also removed as part of the revamp), the ED logo in white and gold within glass panels and the Jazz Age geometrics of the ventilation grille at low level.

This, to me, is such a great loss as I am unaware of any other Express Dairy shops that still retain their original logos and tiles – please do let me know if you have any further information.

Bermondsey Beach – little things mean a lot

I was recently in Bermondsey for a River Thames event and, as mudlarking guide, I was there to share a bit of local history and provide a kind of Show & Tell with the attendees, explaining to them the dos and don'ts of access to the foreshore and what we might hope to find on the surface in this area.

Bottom left: a little bit of broken cardboard that happened to make the shape of J (for Jane)!

As I explained to the group, unless you have, like I do, a permit purchased from the Port Of London Authority which allows you to scratch the surface, you can do little more than walk the dog or enjoy the peaceful atmosphere. You cannot dig. Even if you do have a permit (and the PLA are not allocating any new ones at the moment) you can only disturb the very top couple of inches. But, quite frankly, you don't need to dig as it's simply a matter of getting your eye in and, if all you are picking up are broken bits of shell and pottery sherds, that's fine. But please be selective. Many people take bag loads of found items home with them and then don't know what to do with it all. Hence, it ends up in household rubbish and then in landfill which is a shame. Better for it to stay as part of the River Thames. Therefore, I always encourage people who join me for my foreshore forages to choose just three items to take home with them and leave the rest behind to be covered by the next tide. As with all unusual finds, if you do find something that you think might be an artefact of historical interest, simply contact the lovely people at Portable Antiquities Scheme who will advise you. 

Here are some little gems that picked up at Bermondsey, some of pieces are tiny, less than 1cm across, and we found them simply sat on the higher drier parts of the beach looking carefully around our legs. All the blue and white crockery was in an area less than 2 metres square. It's not that someone dumped it there, it's because the tide dropped it there being as it was all of similar weight. This is evident on curved stretches as the tide copes with different obstacles and the beach changes from a swathe of sand to small shingles, then a heap of bricks and masonry, then a muddy section and back to shingle again. 

The seven fragments top left are single-sided, late Georgian through to twentieth century as are the six little pieces in the top middle pic which are two-sided (the flip side shown top right). And I do love bit of tide-worn glass, or sea glass as some people call it. I don't know what that B stands for (it's probably from a beer bottle) but holding up the fragment to the light made it look like a cola ice lolly, especially against the beach!

I found quite a few bits of intriguing pottery, some glazed on both sides (top left and centre) plus some lovely little pieces of semi-precious stone, marble, flint some of which have holes worn within them or are pleasing shapes shuch as the ling tubular bit of flint and the Shard-shaped triangle which I had meant to hold up against the London skyline to replace the building on the Southbank, but completely forgot to do that!

Bottom left, above, shows a collection of stones with layered rocks and sediments some of which resemble fancy cakes or cuts of meat. As a gauge of size, the largest piece is approx 35mm long. A larger version of the 'roulade' is here to better illustrate the food idea. One of the pieces looks at first like it is glazed, especially as the pattern within the stone resembles a map of Cyprus! And the collection bottom right is simply about colours and textures; a selection of alabaster, coral, brick and stone. I also collected a few fragments of clay pipe (not shown here) which I will soon turn into items of wearable jewellery etc.   

Finally, some Health and Safety advice about accessing the foreshore – despite any historical images you might have seen showing people paddling in the Thames or sitting on deckchairs on its beaches, the Thames is not akin to a day out the seaside. If you do venture down there be sure to wear sensible, preferably waterproof, shoes or boots and access only via staircases that are clearly managed and maintained. However, note that these steps can be very slippery due to algae or silt. And on the foreshore, if a surface looks dodgy or slippery then it probably is; don't stand on it or you might sink into soft ground. Be sure to stay close to the access steps because when the tide starts coming in again it will come in fast and you really don't want to get stranded or swept away in the current. And, if you do want to pick anything up, please remember that the water is not clean; wear gloves, use sanitiser. 

Old shops in St Pauls Road, Highbury and Islington

I am often to be seen walking from Holloway to Canonbury and back, and this means I use the stretch of St Paul's Rd between the two terraces of shops at the western end which still displays some hints of a bygone age or two. The shops on the right hand side adjacent to the Hen and Chickens pub are clearly older and I will return to them another day, but it's north/left side I'm going to talk about here. It starts with a single shop, No.306a, an large add-on to No.306 which is the first of six paired premises. The shops at street level have angled entrances each side of a door that leads to residential accommodation above. The door numbers are beautifully incised into the street-facing fabric of the building in a clear sans serif letterform at each side of the arches with a flower motif above them. 

First, let's look at No.296, today a barber/hairdresser. Above the shop door there two small signs in the glass advertising Ogden's St. Bruno, a tobacco product that is still available today:

In the 1930s this was a tobacconist shop managed by the wonderfully-named Samuel Brilliant. On the subject of names, at No.298 in the 1910s, there was a confectionery shop run by the perfectly-named Miss Eliza Sweetland. I wonder if she was led into this line of work by nominative determinism?!

Two doors along at No.290 is Sawyer & Gray. As far as I can make out this café and homewares shop (no wifi or laptops, hurrah!) took its name from a name that was uncovered about ten years ago. Indeed, today's S&G was established in 2012. But the Sawyer and Gray of 1939 was a confectionery shop (Miss Sweetland no longer in evidence). It's really nice to see old signage revitalised like this.  

And now to a location past just the bus stop and the cobbled access to the rear. At No.276 today you'll find Firezza Pizzeria. Thick layers of green paint are currently being removed to reveal shiny ultramarine blue tiles. And this suggests it was once a laundry:

A quick look at the old Kelly's directories confirms my hunch. This was indeed a Western's Laundry shop. This blue-tiled exterior being the usual style for Western's and for Sunlight Soap – see more here. Customers' sheets and shirts were collected by vans at the rear via that cobbled side access and then taken to the large facility in Drayton Park which I waffle about on YouTube here(!).  The 1915 directory tells me that this site was previously Isendure Laundry Ltd, an independendent local business that looks to have been subsumed into the Western's umbrella by the 1930s. 

I really hope if they manage to clean off all the green paint and retain the blue tiles, not just for their specific historic value but for logic's sake. I mean, what is the point of painting tiles?! Tiles are washed by rain, or easily wiped. 

Next door to the old laundry, at a site recently vacated by St Paul, there was a dairy/grocery store, no doubt also making good use of that cobbled side access. Throughout bygone centuries, Islington was well-renowned for the quality of its milk – that's a story you've probably heard me tell many times if you've been on my walking tours. 

In 1915 the dairy at No.274 was run by a woman called Mrs David Davies. At some time in the 1920s it had become part of United Dairies, a company famous for pioneering pasteurised milk. 

As you can see by my dodgy pics, taken through the window, the shop interior still retains much of its interwar United Dairies tiled walls -clean white wth geometric stripes in two tones of green.  The exterior still retains the panelled sections in the window glass, but the minty-green tiles and air vents at low level have been covered (or replaced?) by wooden panels. This view from 2008 shows those elements still in place when it was a chemist's shop. The archive pic above right shows a UD shop in New Eltham, dated 1933, and this gives us a sense of how this St Paul's Rd store would have originally appeared. How lovely.

A blue-tiled laundry in Northcote Rd, Battersea

Northcote Road is just south of Clapham Junction on the other side of Lavender Hill. At No.138, now Head South Hair & Beauty Salon, I spotted a fabulous example of what I believe is an old Sunlight Laundry.

Ooh lovely – I really like the letters arranged vertically by the door. But it's evident that the company name has been removed from the low level panel at the front of the shop – note how the tiles are of a leter and lesser quality

This shop looks remarkably similar to the Sunlight Laundry in Pimlico Road and other blue-tiled shops such as at the top of Middle Lane in Crouch End and at the junction of Essex Road and Gaskin Road near Islington Green.  Lovely, aren't they?
Find out more about the history of Sunlight Soap and the company that made it here.
Northcote Road is an interesting street mostly built in the late 1890s – there are many other lovely shops both new and long-established as well as some lovely hints of old shop fronts – I will put together a montage for a subsequent post.

Archway Blues and Greens

Archway has suffered from bad press. And more here.

A couple of weeks ago I took a couple of colourful snaps

Archway Tower... under renovation

The Co-operative Store, Junction Road

That's it!

The Sunlight Laundry

How on earth had I never seen this before?

Because, dear reader, I don't tend to use this part of Pimlico Road preferring, when heading to Victoria Station, to cut down Ebury Road.
Approaching from the west, the blue tiles caught my eye at first so I stopped to take a few snaps wondering what the original shop might have been.
Well, wonder no more Jane, because on the outside of the shop's eastern wall is a huge metal sign for the Sunlight Laundry alongside the original painted metal downpipe complete with a fancy hopper.
This old launderette at No.24 comprised one of the part of the ground floor of the block of Peabody's Coleshill flats. The sign and the blue tiles are in excellent condition.
I am assuming the name Sunlight ties in with the lemon soap of the same name which also can be seen on a few faded wall ads in London.
Sunlight has been making soap since 1884 and is now a part of Unliver.