Dover Street Market in Burberry's, Haymarket

The 3-sided clock – where did it go?

In 1912 Burberry moved into its headquarters at 18-22 Haymarket. When they moved out in 2007 I was concerned what might happen to the building and watched the site avidly as the changes took place.
First the lovely clock disappeared. Then the hoardings went up with signs on them saying something about a market. Ooh, I thought; a market. Ah, but yeah, but no.  
The new occupant is Dover Street Market which moved from its previous location in... in Dover Street, to here. Isn't that a bit confusing?  
Last month I finally found the time to take a peek inside:

It's great to see so much of the old Burberry store over above and around the concessions within. The selling spaces wrap around the original central staircase, which, if my memory serves me correctly, is octagonal. It has lovely wooden handrails and the woodblock and parquet floor have been lovingly stripped down to enhance the grain etc. I also like the way nails on the floor have been hammered in as a kind of feature to show where the carpet used to be, ditto sections of the floor that are light or dark depending on when and for how long it saw daylight. Oh, and check out the lovely circular windows on the stairs and the original skylights within the ground floor ceiling.
A single lift runs down the centre of the staircase but even though there are doors on every one of the five(?) floors, on the day I was there they didn't seem to be working, so I suppose that's how rich people stay thin.
On the top floor there is a tea and cakes shop but I can't tell you if it's worth putting the salopettes and crampons on for as I couldn't see a menu or price list.
Some of the concessions/designers' spaces and display cases are really imaginative, more cleverly designed than the stock within; I saw a lot of simple cotton things that looked like pillowslips with added holes for arms, some scrumpled things that would have your Nan reaching for an iron, some very expensive basic T-shirts and lots of find 'em everywhere lately deconstructed patchwork shirts.
To clarify; Dover Street Market is no longer in Dover Street. Dover Street Market is a company and has moved to Haymarket, which was once a market for hay.
It must be really confusing for visitors to London. Consider if you asked someone to meet you at Covent Garden Market and you waited for them at Nine Elms whilst they wandered around the Apple Market (which no longer sells apples), or for Billingsgate they go to an events location near Cannon Street whilst you stand like a prawn in the East End* .

And, as far as I can ascertain, St James Market, Piccadilly, was also moved from its earlier location at the top of Haymarket to St James' Churchyard.
Any more? I am sure there must be.
But back to Burberry's – where is the clock? I was hoping Burberry had taken it with them to their new offices at Horseferry House but I can't see it in any of these pics. I had a look on their site for more info and notice the clock is not on the building in the pics from 1913. Hmmm.

*Try it for yourself – an online search for Billingsgate Market will show that it's either a fish market in Poplar, or one of the 25 Wards of the City of London

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?

Gone but not forgotten

This is a sad time of year and my heart goes out to any of you who have lost someone recently.
So many people fade away from our lives around the Christmas period and into the new year. Do they hold on for us to be able to have one more festive season?

A selection of images of London funeral parlours and headstones, plus a couple of snuffers (for extinguishing lamp lighters)

This was set up before David Bowie left us. Ashes To Ashes, funk to funky. RIP Starman.

Don't forget that the clocks go back tonight

An extra hour!!!
Use it wisely.

Here are some London clocks. How many do you recognise?

Accentuate the positive – three more nice things along the No.19 bus route

Big and beautiful x3:

 Clocked at Highbury

 Inspired in Upper Street

 Feeling perky in Shaftesbury Avenue

Three nice things – a series by Jane's London

What's the time Mr Wolf? Damaged clock faces in Holloway Road

Directly above No.296 Holloway Road, just north of the tube station, there are two angled clock faces under a lovely old eight-sided windowed cupola. It harks back to a time in the 1890s when this area of Holloway was affectionately known as the Oxford Street of the North and lined mostly with outfitters' shops.
For over a hundred years these two clock faces remained intact, albeit telling the wrong times, but over the past few years both have suddenly deteriorated.

Top left: the 1970s. Top right: March 2006
Bottom: two pics from November 2010

Top: March 2013. Bottom: February 2014

Friday 29th August 2015

As you can see from the pics above, chunks started falling out of the right hand one sometime after March 2013. But the speed of this deterioration confuses me – if you assess the earlier pics you'll see that there were no cracks on that face, so how did the breakage occur? Note also how the left hand clock was still completely intact 18 months ago.
This week I noticed with sadness that the pair are now in a terrible state with practically all of the central white areas on both clocks empty apart from one little triangular piece hanging on in there.
Some people tell me they think this is just general wear and tear over time. Perhaps the seal around the circles had reached the end of its lifespan? But, to me, it seems odd to me that these sections would break and fall off in such a short space of time. I wonder if this damage could have been caused on purpose, either by people who have got up inside the cupola and damaged the clock faces by hand, or they have been used as some kind of target practice from a vantage point somewhere across the road, in which case, it's vandalism.
Let's hope the clocks can be restored; it can't be that difficult.

Read more about it here in the Islington Tribune.

The title of this post refers back to a post I wrote last year about children's playground games.

Nicholls & Clarke, Norton Folgate

I have always admired the clock on the imposing building that used to be the home of Nicholls & Clarke sanitaryware and ironmongery on Norton Folgate, and had been meaning to find out more about the company.
Lo and behold The Gentle Author posted this piece about it the other day which includes some lovely images of colourful bathrooms. See here for more about the company.
This ties in beautifully with some snaps I took in the Ladies' toilet in The Duke Of Sussex, Waterloo (Waterloo!)

Pastel yellow tiles, pale blue pipes and borders, turquoise toilet seats, pale pink accessories and navy blue skirtings – lovely!

More info about the Norton Folgate area can be found by searching the  Spitalfields Life site.

Jane's Connect. What links these pics?

Here's a little quiz for Christmas, though unlike these cards it has got nothing to do with the time of year or Christmas at all.
All of the above are in central London and are linked in some way. Can you identify the link?

12 clues; some quickly identifiable, others a bit tougher (but you only get four clues on Only Connect).

Wreaths and round things

A couple of weeks ago I joined a group of blogging friends for one of Flor Unikon's Christmas wreath making classes.
As you can see, my wreath was far from traditional and looked good enough to eat. I gave it to Tom TOLTOL as a housewarming present.

The photographs above were taken with a Samsung Alpha courtesy of Three who organised the evevning. I didn't really get to test out all the phone's capabilities as it was hard to press the keys with sappy fingers. Perhaps I should have made it so messy that they wouldn't have wanted it back. Damn! Opportunity missed there!

A lovely evening. Thanks.

To follow the circular theme, I have put together a group of round things in London that please me...

The Tottenham Court Road emporiums

More proof that you should be looking rather than just bowling along when you pop out for that sandwich at lunchtime.
These pics are from a short middle section of TCR near Goodge Street Station. I have yet to find out the original purposes of the buildings in this top collection of pics. All help welcome.

Top row: The large green dome on the top of the building on the south corner of Chenies Street is topped with a fabulous gold weather vane featuring a lion. Art Deco Glenn House opposite Goodge Street Station is solidly built and features a a ornate clock.

Middle row: First two pics above the Scientologists shop (shop? what is it? a lure? a trap?) – Goddards sign and an ornate frieze. The building that now houses Paperchase sports some colourful gold and blue faux capitals. 

Bottom row: The first image shows the corner of Goodge Street in 2008. The corner building has recently been demolished, as shown in the second pic. Pics 3 and 4 show some of the details on the gothic building which at the time of writing houses EAT sandwich shop.

On the northern corner of Goodge Street, sits a building that is absolutely festooned with ornamentation – friezes of fruit, birds, mythological beasts, windows in all shapes and sizes, and two green conical spires both topped with identical golden spheres and weathervanes of what look like mer-boys. 

Only the a large letter 'C' on the bowled corner window hints at the original owner although this seems a bit of a contradiction seeing how much of a show-off he seems to be in other respects. The 'C' stands for Catesby's Furniture Store and was 'the home of cork lino'. Edward Catesby looks to have been doing rather well for himself. I am told he was a descendant of the gunpowder plotters who tried to blow up James I's parliament.
The architects' initials HAW (Henry A. Whitburn) and the date (1904) can be made out either side of the dragon at the very top. 

Look up, see more!

Something fishy

Last night I spent another great evening at The Underground Cookery School.
Last time I was there we made pasta and casserole; this time we were butchering chicken and filleting sea bass. Some of the other girls were a bit squeamish about dealing with dead, gutted beasts; others managed to pulverise the poor creatures. But I was in my element, sharp knife in hand learning how to slice the flesh cleanly off the fish's spine and remove the little bones. And it tasted lovely too.
Here are some fishy things in and around the streets of London:

And here's a link to an old post about fishing practices.

New places for 2014

Here are some news

(a sentence that would normally be grammatically incorrect; but, in this instance it's OK):

Top row: Newman Street, New Cross, Camberwell New Road, Great Newport Street.

Middle row: Highbury New Park, New Oxford Street, Newcomen Street , Stoke Newington.

Bottom row: New Square, Newgate Street, Newell Street, New Kings Road

Cally Festival, Sunday 16th September

Another bit of self promotion, but also a good excuse to put some pics on here of a neglected, and now misunderstood and much-maligned, area of north London.
Starting at Kings Cross, Caledonian Road runs due north for over a mile (I must check that!) all the way to Holloway. In the past the street was well-used by cattle-drovers taking their stock to market in the area that is now Caledonian Park. The park/market area was originally just a stop-over for the herds on their way to Smithfield Market. And in later years there was a thriving antiques and bric-a-brac market there. Only the clocktower, and the shells of former pubs are left these days to hint at the history.
The Cally is a real mix – on the east side there's the Thornhill and Barnsbury Estates with their carefully-designed terraces and managed squares and gardens, including a road once lived in by a recent PM, then on the western side council estates were erected thus creating a real mix of cultures; a "them and us" situation – almost a Regent Street 'divide' of the north. A recent BBC programme about the road only glanced upon the diverse history and, in my view, spent too much time talking about the current dodgy landlords and prostitutes at the KX end.
I travel up and down the Cally almost every week spotting old bits of history here and there and some of my observations are shown below.
But to the point... this Sunday the whole area is coming together for the Cally Festival – a pop-up street celebration of the area's diverse offerings, which will include art, craft, music, dance and more.
The stretch of the road between Offord and Bridgeman Roads will be closed to traffic for the day and, judging by last year, it should be good... I hope to see you there... come and find me at my Amelia Parker stall.

Oddities of The Strand

On Saturday I joined the engaging Peter Berthoud on another of his interesting walks.
You may recall I spent Christmas Day in central London with him... well this time he showed a group of about 15 around his oddities of The Strand, most of which I never knew about, or had any idea they existed.
I won't give anything away here, but on the walk we saw and learned about bananas, a tunnel, a church, a Bob Dylan video and a royal barge... we even saw some magic! And we ended the tour having a couple of beers in one of my favourite pubs.
Here's a direct link to his walks – be sure to check out Peter's quirky pricing structure!
Below are some of my own observations in and around the same area plus a pic of one of my own strands(!).

The coal hole is in Surrey Street at the side of the now disused Aldwych Station. After the walk a couple of us were taken by another member of the group to see a shooting range that is directly underneath it – this is the view looking up.

The 'Trafalgar Sun' art installation

Here's a way to cheer up January....
On Monday 23rd giant ball of light, equivalent to that of 60,000 lightbulbs (or is it 260,000?), will be installed high above Trafalgar Square designed to brighten us up from dawn until dusk.
Weather permitting, it should look amazing at dawn break when the light effect will be at its most intense.
Sadly, I won't be around to see it this so please do get snapping and send me some links or photos.
Update:
Here's a video of the construction of the event
and here's another one of the 'sun' itself

Mixed up with images of Trafalgar Square:
Top row: Brixton, Albert Embankment, Cornhill, 
Middle row: Liberty's, Albert Bridge, Marylebone
Bottom row: Tottenham Court Road

The times they are a-changing

The clocks go back this weekend. Summer is officially over.

On the plus side, you can stay out an hour longer when you are out partying on Saturday night, or revel in that extra hour in bed on Sunday morning. I have even heard that some people use the extra hour wisely and DO something!

On the negative side: it'll start getting dark in the late afternoon, which I don't like, although I do like autumnal days – chilly, bright, beautiful afternoons somewhere like Hampstead Heath are just lovely. Preferably with a dog.

Time waits for no man (or woman). Time is on my side (no it isn't). Where did all the good times go?

Here are some London clocks:

See them all and more here.

Gaby's Deli under threat

To be honest I have been wondering, what with the sad demise of so many independent London establishments over the years, how Gaby's, one of my favourite cheap eat venues has managed to cling on.

For decades I have enjoyed going in there for meze plates large and small, salt beef sandwiches and kebabs (not all on the same plate!) washed down with good cheap wine, whilst looking at the celebrity photos and endorsements and favourable restaurant reviews pinned to the walls. Back in the '90s I often worked at a company who occupied the upstairs floors, so the sandwich run was quick and easy as well as tasty.

But I am sad to report that Gaby's Deli is under threat after Westminster Council has given consent for the site to be redeveloped.

The council has some bizarre idea that redevelopment "will improve the look and feel of the St Martin's Court area, and this will outweigh the loss of the existing retail units".

Aaargh! By this, I assume they mean, homogenise the area by bringing in Starbucks et al.

Why change such a curiously interesting little pocket of London? The little courts that join Charing Cross Road to St Martin's Lane are really special and are home to some wonderful little bespoke shops and restaurants. Tourists love London history; they don't want to come here and see the same bland high street shops they have at home or at Westfield.

Rent hikes mean we've already lost most of the old bookshops along nearby Charing Cross Road. And, just further north, a great swathe of the St Giles area has been raped by plastic high rise buildings that still have empty shop spaces on the ground floor. To evict well-used, well-loved, flourishing businesses like Gaby's makes no sense at all. This whitewash must stop.

Gaby's planned eviction date is 1st May 2012. Join the Facebook campaign here.

Here are some details and observations, all to be found a stone's throw from Gaby's:

Happy Birthday Bob Dylan

Mr Zimmerman turns 70 today. Wow!
Probably one of the most hardest working musicians around (he was doing 100 shows a year in the 90's and noughties), he is still touring worldwide and next month he headlines at the Feis in Finsbury Park. What a truly gifted and amazingly prolific man he is.
I am reminded of that [urban myth?] story about how in the 80s he was supposed to have knocked on a door in Crouch End thinking it was Dave Stewart's house but he'd got his road names wrong and it belonged to a plumber called Dave whose mother drank tea with Bob whilst they waited for 'Dave' to come home. More here. (In my less than humble opinion, I think the best thing Mr Stewart ever did was Vegas, his collaboration with Terry Hall, who, in my eyes, can do no wrong.)
So I thought I'd put a collection of Crouch End images together.
Crouch End = the end of the Crouch river. I do like that if you use pre-emptive text it's Crotch End.
In the past Crotch End was the site of the first gold rush in England. Later it became a busy Victorian suburb. These days it's almost impossible to go to up there without bumping into a minor TV celeb or actor pushing a baby buggy.

Jerry Sadowitz is painful

And that's a bloody compliment!

I went to see his stand-up show last Friday night at the Leicester Square Theatre.

He was relentless... clever and ironic and offensive and intelligent and blasphemous and very funny indeed. I ached... I was exhausted from all the laughing and the concentration needed to keep up with him.

I think it was Billy Connolly who said that the only type of person who it's safe to offend these days is a white heterosexual man. I pretty sure Jerry doesn't agree with that!

He's playing again soon.

Here are just some of the subjects he covers:

Top row: Cockspur Street, Haggerston, Holloway Road, South Tottenham

Middle row: Upper Street, Westminster, Rivington Street, Goswell Road

Bottom row: Crouch End, Holloway Road, Stamford Hill, West Smithfield

Shelter's Vertical Rush

For those of you feeling fit (note I didn't say 'us') you might like to take part in a charity event organised by Shelter whereby you can run up to the top of Tower 42 in the City of London.

Starting at 7.30am on 3rd March, eight waves of runners will set off every hour.

Check the site here for more info.