Ding Dong Doorways and Doulton – Delightful Distractions in Kensington

I went to the The Design Centre on yesterday afternoon. I like it there. But this time, my enjoyment was spoiled by screaming kids at every turn, meaning I couldn't hear myself read. Yeah yeah, I know it's school holidays, but some parents were allowing their sprogs to charge about the place like it was a playground, treating the exhibits as interactive toys. A small Habitat pod exhibition on the ground floor contains a bed with a duvet. I tried to read the the info board in there whilst two adults stood and waited as their charges had a pillow fight and screamed at high pitch. I fear this is what the Museum of London will become. Sorry, I mean The London Museum, henceforth to be known as 'The House of Splat'. 

I gave up and headed out into Kensington High Street and investigated the nearby charity shops* before deciding to wander the streets that form the lower part of my Agatha Christie walking tour. I made my way down to Marloes Rd, passing the revamped St Mary's Hospital site, and turned left into Lexham Gardens. At the far corner there is a passageway leading to Cornwall Gardens.

There is a tree at the centre of this path that has the most enormous leaves, bigger than your head. I can't now recall the name, and I'm pretty sure it's not an indigenous species, but the leaves look gorgeous in the Autumn when they turn marvellous shades of pink, orange and yellow. I continued into Cornwall Gardens and headed south via Grenville Place, looking left and right at the mews. 

Then across Cromwell Road and directly into Ashburn Place with The Millennium Hotel ahead on the left. As I passed the side of the wall I noticed what looks like a face in the render:

Surely this is no accident?!  I had hoped that retrospective Google Streetview of this wall might show what this was, but I can find nothing on there. Perhaps this was a bit of street art/graffiti that was swiftly overpainted by the hotel...?

I turned right into Harrington Gardens. This wasn't my intended route, but this road serves me something new every time I walk along it. I managed to keep my phone in my pocket until the end of the end of the road when I noticed that the houses along the south side seem to have all had some kind competition 'my tiled threshold is better than yours' thing. Each one spectacularly different to the next and all splendid in their own way.

Most are small tiles but one of them sports slices of grey marble.
They also boast some excellent coloured glass in the porches. 

Round the corner, the first/corner house in Collingham Gdns has a lovely symmetrical mosaic pattern.

Turning southwards, I nipped briefly into Wetherby Gdns when I spotted the ghosts of the original doorbells in a gatepost. 

Collingham Gardens becomes Bolton Gardens and here I noticed something I've not seen on houses anywhere else – there are fancy metal ventilation grilles on the ground floor adjacent to the front doors. The second pic is one of a few Thomas Crapper manhole cover plates that I spotted along the way, this one is in Cresswell Place: 

I continued my detour and took a wander around The Boltons, a sort of elliptical shaped arrangement of large houses surrounding a church and private gardens. I counted twelve large vehicles idling with chauffeurs within, and about about the same number of drivers standing or leaning by gates waiting for moneyed clients to exit these large properties. It's all very sterile. Exacerbated by these houses all being painted exactly the same shade of bright dazzling white, which, to my eye, looks completely wrong, and fake. I dread to think what the insides of these houses look like as I very much doubt any of them retain much of their original C19th features. I think I'd be gutted, just like the interiors.

I turned into Priory Walk. There are two properties along here which sport 'Ancient Lights' signs. This tells us that c1870s this area, being ripe for property development, was a cause for planning concern and we might well have had taller blocks on narrower streets. 

One sign is high up on the back of 5 Harley Gdns, the other is a street level adjacent to the side entrance of 86 Drayon Gardens. (possibly the lowest sign of this type?):

Staying in Drayton Gardens there are  a couple of lovely mosaic thresholds. The one at No.90 is HUGE, flanked by beautiful fired tiles on the walls on the porch, and the other is chequered:

Enough. I was hungry. I headed back to Brompton Rd to get a bus to Sth Ken tube station but got distracted by the blue Doulton tiles on The Duke of Clarence. I should have taken a pic of the whole building because I hadn't realised until now that it has only recently been restored – see here to see how the pub used to look when it was slathered in paint. Hurrah!

The delightful Dove Mews behind the pub was yet another, albeit short detour, and then, as I waited for a bus on Old Brompton Rd, I noticed an old hand-painted street name peeping out from underneath the metal one near the corner with Creswell Gardens. It shows how it used to be called Moreton Terrace. 

What I haven't mentioned or shown here are all the lovely coal hole cover plates that I 'collected' along the way. I'll write up separately. Try not to get too excited... LOL!

*In Oxfam I had found and purchased a book about arsenic poisoning – 'The Inheritor's Powder' by Sandra Hempel.  I used to occasionally work with Sandra when I freelanced for publishing houses. I haven't seen here for +15 years and had no idea she'd written any books. I started it on the way home last night and continued it today, such that I have read the whole thing already. It's fascinating and engaging. 

Big, beautiful boot scrapers

I've been wandering around and properly investigating the St. James's area a lot these past few years, yet until earlier this week I hadn't noticed some superb metalwork within the entrance to 50 St. James's Street. Considering that I have quite a large photographic collection of London boot scrapers, I was confused how I'd managed to miss this enormous pair of decorated beauties either side of the door. 

A sign near the entrance says that the building is being renovated. There are remnants of scaffold pole footers and the whole thing needs a wash and brush up. The boot scrapers are sublime. I have never before seen any so opulently decorated. The lanterns at the top of the street level posts are no longer in place, hence why they are cropped out of my phots here, but their gas feeds are still evident below their three-legged struts. I had an inkling that building this would have originally been one of the area's many gentlemen's clubs as per White's, Boodle's, Brook's etc. But what was it more recently? I needed to do some delving.

Well, it turns out that for over 12 years this site has been behind scaffolding or under wraps of some kind which is evidence by looking at Google's retrospective street views. In 2012 the site shows that the building looked like the image above. 

A quick bit of googling and Wikipedia tells us that this is an 1827 Grade II listed building that was has been a gentleman's club (yes!*), a bridge club in the 1920s and then various casinos or gaming institutes. There are plans to convert the building for use as either a hotel or as residential properties. However, the written timeline in that Wiki link doesn't seem to correlate with the google streetview which clearly show that scaffolding was in place by August 2014 so I am a bit confused when the squatters were there.     

This 2012 image show the lovely gas-fired lamps beautifully silhouetted. I suspect that the lanterns were removed for safety reasons during the building works and I am hoping that, going forward, they will be reinstated, complete with the gas feed as per other lamps in this area, rather than retrofitted with LEDs.

* had I applied my brain I could have worked that this was William Crockford 's club – he was an interesting character to say the least!

Sekforde Street doorways and fanlights

Walking down Sekforde Street again recently, I stopped to admire the lovely coloured glass fanlights above the doors at numbers 31 and 32. 

Ooh. Nice. 

This little street offers an amazing diversity of Georgian doorstep gorgeousness and the following eight examples are all from the northern half of the street...

I wonder if the people who drink at the Sekforde Arms have ever noticed these delightful doors, let alone the impressive façade of The Finsbury Bank For Savings.

Circles of delight in WC2

Last week whilst ambling from Piccadilly to Holborn via Long Acre, admiring the architecture and generally enjoing the sunshine, I happened upon this lovely hexagonal mark in the doorway of one of the businesses opposite Freemasons Hall.

It reads, 20 Great Queen Street, Covent Garden. 

Cool huh?! 

It appeals to me on many levels; geometry, typography and graphic design.

I am not sure who installed it/ how long it's been there.

It is set into the very front of the metal strip that runs across the doorway of No.20, to the left of Walker Slater menswear shop (at No.19) shown here  from Google Streeview:

 

Saloons – Everyone's gone to the pub or the hairdresser

Here in the UK, some restrictions as regards social distancing have been lifted – pubs with outdoor table space are open again and hairdressers are busy attacking our lockdown barnets*

It occured to me that both are historically linked by the word 'saloon' so I've pulled some pics together in my old montage-stylee showing a selection of lovely signage across London.

Most of these are pub signs but, as you can see, some are on hairdressers and barbers. Perhaps you recognise some of them or know of some other beauties...?

The separate rooms for saloon, lounge, public, private, snug and offsales is a thing of the past these days, harking back to a Victorian era of class and gender segregation. However, a few pubs in London still have the original walls/dividers and others have reinstated them. This latter section includes The Princess Louise in Holborn, the Fitzroy Tavern in Charlotte Street and the Angel at Rotherhithe. 

Never mind sitting outside a pub; that's just not for me. I am looking forward to getting back inside; to stand at a bar or sit on a barstool; to read a newspaper in a comfy chair by a real fire; to talk to barstaff and locals... sigh.

Barnet Fair = hair (London Cockney rhyming slang)

Update re doorway mosiac in Caledonian Road

A while back I wrote about this doorway in N1.
I completely forgot about it until I was looking in the directories for something else along The Cally and found that for at least 1915-39 this was a branch of Frost or Frosts or Frost's*.
This local grocery chain was not as common as say Lipton's, Sainsbury's or Home & Colonial Stores but they did employ the ubiquitous Victorian script style for their 'logo', as per Boots and CocaCola.
I discoved the name Frost at the Cally Rd location – er, why hadn't I checked theis before?
This reminded me of the lovely old shops I photographed Wandsworth which includes this one:

Doorway mosaic, 114 St John's Hill, Wandsworth

Further sleuthing... here's the full list of their shops in 1939:

And I found an old pic of how one of their stores might have looked – I am guessing c1910:

Frost's Stores, location unknown

*My [pedantic?] eye for detail has spotted that the possessive apostophe and/or plural name isn't consistent. As you can see from the 1939 directory, above, they are listed as 'S. Frost & Co. Ltd., provision merchants, yet for the specific Wandsworth entry in the same directory they are shown as 'provision dealers'. I am not about to check them all...!

Clapham Junction Area – Observations in Wandsworth Rd, Northcote Rd, Battersea Rise etc

One Sunday a few weeks back I met up with a small group of London Historians for a tour of HMP Wandsworth. The pic shows us standing outside its small but jam-packed excellent museum which is open by appointment only.
The tour didn't start until noon. It was a clear, though chilly, day so I headed to Clapham Junction early to check up on a few things.
I exited the station via Old Brighton Yard which affords excellent views across London from the covered pedestrian bridge above the platforms. Note that you need a ticket to access this space; it's not a right of way.
I then turned right and walked westward along St John's Hill towards Wandsworth because I wanted to check up on a couple of old ghostsigns and shop fronts that I know from years ago when I used to work occasionally in the area.

Whoopee! The Peterkin Custard and the H.J. Golding hand-painted signs at the junction of Plough Road are still intact, as is the Frosts Stores doorway mosiac at No. 114 (now Denner Cashmere). Denner's shop also retains its lovely spindle window posts etc.

After the tour of the prison which, by the way, was excellent, a few of us went for a quick pint in a nearby pub full of children with colouring pens (go figure) and then, realising the light was fading fast, I marched across the common and over the railway bridge to get to the southern end of Northcote Road for a Battersea update.

Northcote Road was mostly built in 1896 as is evident by some date stamps at the top of buildings. The street also boasts a lot of blue enamel vitreous metal street signs. On the corner of Salcoat Road the A. H. Dunn / Hovis baker's sign still looks the same as it did when I last took a photo of it ten years ago – the same graffiti tags remain. Also shown here between Nos 88+90 is the best reminder of the lovely tiled dividers that would have been between all the shops along this stretch

And then I crossed over Battersea Rise into St John's Road and noticed a palpable change in environment. The Rise seems to split two kinds of shopping areas; the yummy mummies with their lattes and buggies on one side and a regular high street on the northern side with all the ubiquitous names.

The former Woolworths shop with its identifiable Art Deco 1930s frontage still stands but is now home to Woolworths. Waitrose seem to have moved into quite a few old Woolworth properties such as at Angel, Islington.

Marks and Spencer, opposite, retains its pillars and and cureved windows. Also late Deco I think. This shop front is very similar to my local one at Nags Head, Holloway, tho mine doesn't have the lovely mosaic floor.

The impressive Arding & Hobbs building sites diagonally opposite Clapham Junction Station and its distinctive cupola is visible for miles around.

This is the entrance to the building on the corner of Lavender Hill and Ilminster Gardens. As you can see the ribbed metal pillars ar very similar to those at M&S. I just love the curves and lines within this doorway.

I used to shop at A&H/Allders in the 90s and early 00s but it was clear to me then that the shop really needed to play catch-up with other stores of its kind. The company went into liquidation in 2005 and the building now is home to the Debenhams chain.
I really must go back in the Spring for a proper poke about.
More info on the SW11 area in this draft document written in 2013 by English Heritage.
If you are interested in becoming a member of London Historians please do mention that you heard about it here, from me. Thanks

Boot Scrapers in Cromwell Road

Spotted opposite The Natural History Museum, four doorways in a row all with stumps rather than full boot scrapers.
Culled for the war effort perhaps?

Or, here's another more creative idea ... perhaps this is how they grow and what we see here are new buds...? !!

Have a drink in a real London pub – The King & Queen, Fitzroiva

The homogenisation of London isn't just happening to the architecture, it's also happening to pubs as breweries rip out and refit in an attempt to blandify* our social environments.
Pubs used to be the social hub of an area, where people gathered to relax after work, meet friends and sing songs together in a place that felt like a home from home. But, sadly, pubs are closing down at an alarming rate these days and the landlords of our once-loved drinking holes and are calling "final orders" for the last time.
So a big "hurrah!" for the independently run King and Queen in Fitzrovia, run by friendly staff who know and understand every beer and whisky they sell.

Some pics mine, some from K&Q's website

As you can see from the pics above, this building is a one-off gem with it's witch's hat roof and weathervane atop a turret, and decorative architectural details. Note especially the mosaic floor in the side door (now only access to ladies toilet from within), the carved relief sign, those curved windows and some lovely woodwork and glass.

All power to K&Q's beer-pulling elbow.

The pub sits just around the corner from the BT Tower and across the road from the GradeII listed Georgian-Victorian workhouse building. 

I heard recently that another of my old favourites, the Duke of Sussex at Waterloo, near the corner of Lower Marsh, has been refitted and is now another gastropub. Yawn. It used to be great in there with a real mix of people enjoying each others' company plus fun friendly nights at the weekends. Go google yourself because I refuse to link to it now. I doubt they have they kept their colourful toilets.

*one of my own words. See also Dubaiification.

Divide And Rule – Inspired by Mr Trump

This side is mine mine MINE!

To trump: to expel noxious hot air from an orifice

Ideas about a tiled doorway at The Hot Wok, 265 Caledonian Road, N1

You are probably already aware that I like to find nice old tiles or mosaics especially with the original company name embedded within them. Here is a link to a particularly good collection I put together earlier this year.
This post is about a tiled doorway in Caledonian Road

The lovely green and cream tiles in this particular entrance are approx 100 years old and are in stark contrast to the fast food outlet that these days occupies the ground floor here.
The mosaic doorway has been as good as vandalised by subsequent owners; the first word having been obliterated, but in a half-arsed way. Surely it would have been easier just to have covered the whole thing?!
I know that a while back this shop was a butcher's but I am pretty sure this was not the primary owner.
I have been looking at this today trying to work out what name could have been on the top line. It's clearly a short name of only four or five letters ending in "ts".... but where is the possessive apostrophe? Surely a family name as in Evan's Stores or similar would make better sense?
But hold the front page!  I may be onto something here!!
I was just about to ask for ideas but just as I wrote the above and studied the shape of the first letter I had a "Eureka!" moment...
I believe it starts with a "B" and so it's very possible that this could be an old Boot's the Chemist Store.
See below for ref of Boots old logo and signage; it's a strong possibility. But I was wrong. That's not a B, it's an F – I subsequently looked further into this and found out it was a Frost's grocery store

As well as photos of old ghostsigns I also old tins which include the ones shown here illustrating how Boots changed adapted their logo using 'Chemists' or 'Drug Co Ltd' within the underscore.

Hmmm... I'm now thinking the shop doorway name doesn't have an underscore under the first word and I might be totally wrong here.
What do you think? Could it be a Boots Store? Do you have other ideas or, better still, some facts... please do get in touch.

I have a collection of other mosaic obliterations. I will collect them together and save them for another day. UPDATE: It's a Frosts store... Frosts was a small chain of grocery shops

The London Apprentice / 333 Mother Bar, Old Street, Hoxton

I was just having a tidy up and found this pic I snapped a few months ago of the original tiled entrance of this Hoxton venue.

The sinuous organic feel of the letterform dates it to the Art Nouveau era (approx 1890-1910). A bit of sleuthing confirms that the building was completed in 1895, however, I am finding it hard to marry up any of the external architectural features within these images – perhaps at some point it was rebuilt and only the floor was retained...?!  Doubt it.

Lots more wordy doorway mosaics here. Or just click on the relevant tags below or to the left

Black Cap Yard, Camden

The Black Cap public house in Camden High Street now stands empty awaiting a new future since it closed in April 2015.
The pub opened in the mid-18th century as The Mother Black Cap; a reference to a local witch. A bust of her still sits at the top of the building overlooking the street.

Pre-closure, the bust on near the roof and how the pub looks like right now

In the late 1960s the pub began to put on drags acts and so it became probably the most popular gay pub in this area.
I never went inside. I always meant to. Too late now.

Remnants of the old painted sign in the alley pointing to the yard at the rear, the No.171 doorway mosaic and the handwritten note pasted in the window

twitter: WeAreTheBlackCap

More doorway mosaics – patterns and motifs

Last month I put together a collection of mosaic floors depicting company names. This time it's a collection of patterns of mainly flora and fauna:

The thistle in the top row reminds me that this was also the logo/emblem of David Greig, the first high street grocery chain in the UK – I plan to collect all my DG images into a specific blog post sometime soon. The third image on the fourth row was on Wigmore Street near the end of Marylebone Lane but was removed/destroyed approx 2011 (sad face).

The shops of Fortis Green Road, Muswell Hill

Ooh I do love an old shop front, especially if it still retains its original curved window and tiled entrance. London has lost most of these beautiful old shops – only solitary examples remain here and there hinting at how the whole terrace might have looked 100 years ago.
Often the best examples of this kind are found outside London, say in seaside towns that lost favour at the end of the last century such as Leigh-On-Sea, Walton-On-Thames, Margate or Southsea, all of which have more recently become appreciated (as have their house prices).
However, some really good examples of early 20th century shopping streets can be found in Muswell Hill, London N10 and, in particular along the southern end of Fortis Green Road.

Some of the lovely old tiles are still visible. However, some of them have been painted over as shown in the middle row. Why oh why?

Walking north from the Art Deco cinema at the junction of Muswell Hill Broadway up to Queen's Avenue notice how almost every doorway on both sides of Fortis Green Road still retains its original curved window and tiled entrances leading to the upstairs apartments.
Also, be sure to stop and admire New Century Barbers on the corner of First Avenue, which also retains some fabulous period features and signs, and has a lot of archive photos of the local area.

Doorway Mosaics – shops and pubs

I am always on the look out for signs of original shop or pub names.
Often I spot these hints of the past embedded in the masonry near the top of a building or on hand-painted signs.
The ones that cheer me the most are the often intricate floor mosaics that can be found in the entrances.

Only a few of these are actually still relevant to the business that sits above them today

A walk along Kings Road (part 5) leapfrog and Peter Jones

Short and sweet is this section of the walk (see previous posts for parts 1-4)

Walking East, Allister Botwell's "Two Pupils" (2002) can be found in a pedestrian side turn off Kings Road that leads to the new Duke of York Square. The leapfrogging boy and the seated girl are a reference to the Royal Military Asylum which occupied the site 1803–1909 and was opened by the 'Grand Old' Duke of York (the same fella from the nursery rhyme).
And finally we arrive at Peter Jones. Turn into Cadogan Gardens just before the store and admire the gorgeous tiled floor in the entrance there. I suspect all the entrances once had the same or similar designs, only it seems odd for there to have only have ever been this one. The building is not a uniform shape – I love the soft curves, especially at the corner.
That'll do!

Jane's Advent Calendar – 21st December

Sort of the same as yesterday really, but a bit different.
Soho, London W1.

Jane's Advent Calendar – 20th December

A lovely doorway mosaic in Maddox Street, London W1 clearly showing No.20 on the right and No.22 on the left. I just love the numbers and the elegant shape of the ampersand.
I was intending to link to a past post/collection of ampersands, but it appears I haven't done that yet. How strange. It's now on the list!

Jane's Advent Calendar – 19th December

Landseer House, 19 Charing Cross Road, London WC2.
I am not sure if the name of this building relates to Edwin Landseer who painted The Monarch of the Glen and sculpted the lions at the base of Nelson's Column in nearby Trafalgar Square.
This stretch of the road south from Leicester Square Station, is littered with fine examples of statement/personalised architectural details – be sure to look up next time you are there.