Boots and Shoes – a ghostsign in Trafalgar Road, Greenwich

On the North side of Trafalgar Rd there is this a shop at No.117 painted purple (or mauve or lilac) with some faded letters on the brickwork above. 

I took a couple of quick snaps simply to make a note of it, knowing that my phone camera isn't really good enough for deciphering this sort of thing. I'd expected that someone else had done the legwork already and I'd be able to find out more about what was written here whilst drinking a cup of tea on my sofa. But no. 

Caroline usually beats me to these things but all she's got is this pic on her Flickr photostream, with no explanation. Using her pic I have managed to decipher most of it. 

Here's a rough idea of how it might have looked using a random serif typeface that I have squidged* and stretched for visual effect :

A quick look at the old directories tells us that in 1904 this is where you would have found Hermann Kaiser, boot & shoe maker. I have not as yet ascertained if he was related to the Peter Kaiser shoe company established 1838 in Germany and still manufacturing today.

By 1918 this was the Popular Boot Stores and it had spread into a part of the next door building too. 

As ever, all additional information is most welcome, either via the comments or to jane@janeslondon.com

Another Greenwich ghostsign here.

*this is not a typographical term, and neither is 'stretched'!  

The historic topography of Royal Hill, Greenwich – repurposed railway lines and ghostsigns

I was wandering the lovely back streets of Greenwich last week, past the theatre and the fan museum (both marvellous, and I found myself in Royal Hill. I looked to see if the building that used to be home to a cheese shop run by a lovely guy I met on a plane coming back from Zakynthos in the late 1980s, was still there. The terrace of shops hasn't changed much, In my mind's eye I recalled that his shop was within the terrace, possibly next to the butcher. But when I got home and started doing a bit of research I discovered that The Cheese Board is at No.26 (corner of Circus Street) and Michael is still there, known locally as Mr Cheese! Had the shop been evident and open I'd obviously have popped in and asked if he has any Cornish Blue (yummy!). Perhaps it was early closing day. 

I continued up the street, admiring all the lovely houses, and stopped to look at the fab tiles on the Barley Mow pub at the corner of Point Hill, now a restaurant. 

Barley Mow pub, Royal Hill greengrocer, Royal Circus tea merchant

Realising that I was supposed to be meeting a friend in the Oxford Street in thirty minutes, I started making my way down the hill via Prior Street towards the station. I looked to the right and noticed that there appeared to be quite a wide angular gap between the houses here behind this tree, and I looked back and forth at that and at the twentieth century flats behind me, considering that there must have been a railway line here.

A couple walking their small friendly dog saw my quizzical face and asked if I was lost. I explained my thought process to them. Well, what a delightful interlude it turned out to be. John said yes, that he had wondered that too, but he hadn't been able to find out any info. The conversation progressed and I said I'd look into the things we discussed. I cave him my card and asked him to keep in touch. But I have decided to write it up here. Just shows how one bit of 'perhapsing' can evolve into a half a day of sleuthing! I do hope John is reading this. And I hope I have remembered his name correctly as I tend to forget what you'd call 'normal' names. His wife, who has lovely eyes, is called Della. Nice people. 

Here's the Google view of the area today – I was standing were the word Vina [Launderette] is:

As you can see, there are allotments here which are often a hint at old railway lines or sidings, indeed that's what John thought, that this was sidings. I thought it was more likely to be a connecting line from/to Lewisham, which was confirmed when I found this 1890's OS map available on Layers of London – many of the road names have changed and this isn't exactly the same proportion and crop as the pic above, but it's easy to make the comparison:

I had assumed the railway line then fed into into the eastbound service towards Maze Hill but, no, it ended at 'Greenwich Terminus' on Stockwell Street, site of the Ibis Hotel today. 

John also mentioned that he was intrigued by an old sign near the old Old Barley Mow pub which he wondered might have been a coal merchant. Ooh I thought... lets go and have a look! By this time I realised I was going to be even later for my appointment in central London but, luckily, I was meeting a friend who is as fascinated by these things as I am, so he'd understand! 

I turned to look back past the pub where there is a hand-painted ghostsign on a building that looks to be No.1 Point Hill, but is actually constructed in the back garden of No.1 King George Street. I took a few  photos:

There are multiple layers on this sign. Looking my the phone screen we found it was easy to make out CORN & COAL MERCHANTS through the middle but the names were hard to decipher. For instance, there's a name in a curve at the top that looks to begin 'J. S. PE..' and another name in a straight line over/under that. The last word at bottom right could be RAIL, perhaps making use of the adjacent railway line. 

Having googled, I'm surprised to discover that other ghostsigns fans haven't snapped any photos of this, especially as it has been clearly visible since at least 2008 when I first noticed it myself, although I must admit that I didn't photograph it back then. And I am pretty sure I noticed it back in the '90s when my friend had that cheese shop. All I can find is this listing on eBay. 

A quick look at the old directories leaves me struggling to find a reference to coal. The earliest reference I have to hand is South London Suburbs 1896 which shows Mr Samuel James Perren listed at 1-3 King George Street as a corn merchant. This correlates with the with what we can see here. This street links through to Croom's Hill, the other main road in this area, and it's interesting to read how many other traders and merchants were here in the 1890s, including a baker, an undertaker, a builder, music teacher, a decorator and a few dressmakers.

By 1911 Mr Walter Gibbins is at this address, also trading in corn. But barely anything is listed along the whole street during WW1 or the pre-WW2 years.

Until further information becomes available, I am going to conclude that either a coal merchant was here pre- the 1890s, or that the word we are seeing as 'coal' (middle left on the sign) is actually something else. Though it could simply be that it was usual for a corn merchant to also sell coal back then.

Any further info is most welcome via jane@janeslondon.com

For more of my ghostsigns observations, simply use the search box or click here.

Get up close to the Painted Hall ceiling at Greenwich ORNC – plus a tip for good cheap food

I can't recommend this enough.
The marvellous Painted Hall ceiling with the Old Royal Naval College buildings is being cleaned and conserved. Miles and miles of scaffolding have been erected within and guided tours are available so we can climb to the top and see the artwork up close.
The guided tour I went on last week was excellent – our guide explained so much about the history of the building and the meanings behind the imagery.
Absolutely fascinating and gorgeous too. It's a must-see.

See top right for some of the damage – it's hoped that the conservation work will last another 100 years before the next clean up

The quality of the wood carving is also amazing – see the hand bottom left and the head of a pollaxe at the centre 

My friend in the pics has written a much better account of this place. Click here.
Check out the availability for future tours here plus how to sponsor a section of the work.

And here's a good tip for where to eat in Greenwich – very close to the Painted Hall, at the far end of the Chapel building, there is a very good, and I mean very good, cafe/student refectory which is open to all and serves excellent choice of hot and cold food, yummy cakes and drinks all at normal prices. Being part of the university they aren't allowed to advertise so I told the friendly staff there that I'd give them a mention.
The unobtrusive entrance to the cafe is almost hidden at the at the eastern end of the ORNC complex opposite Park Row gate facing a building that has a strange frieze at the top depicting amongst many things a lion with a serpent's tail – see below (needs more research).
Map of the area

Dockers' Mistresses – something to come home to

OK, so you've been at sea and there's been nary a female in sight for months, perhaps even years.
So, how nice to come back and hook up with something curvy? After all she's been standing there waiting for you on the dockside all that time in the freezing cold, headless and naked from the waist up...!
I am talking bollards here.
Due to their shape, these bollards are affectionately known as 'dockers' mistresses' which is a wonderfully evocative description. I just love them – they appeal to my puerile sense of humour 'fnarr fnarr'. 
On our walk from the O2 to Greenwich along the Olympian Way (Thames Path) I spotted a fabulous row of metal ladies and they were not all exactly the same shape and they seemed to have individual qualities:

From top left going clockwise ending at the centre: starry, beached, chained, belted, tattoed, droopy, ropey, drippy and Brenda

And look at these colourful lovelies that I spotted waiting patiently along King's Lynn dockside:

Again, they are all slightly different. Photographed December 2015.

The Olympian Way, Greenwich, continued

Ok, so where was I?
We'd given up on the foreshore, walked around the O2, seen some dodgy art and attempted to understand the confusing development 'plans' for the area.
And so we walked westwards to Greenwich proper along the Olympian Way which is basically The Thames Path renamed. The environment changed as we walked. It feels like a war-torn wasteland near the O2. Then there are demolition and construction sites, holding areas for building materials,  various unkempt buildings, abandoned jetties and metal structures once used by lost-gone companies.
West of the golf driving range and the concrete works trees and greenery become abundant, though I suspect that the natural world is not going to be there for much longer... modern gated developments are closing in fast.

Just some nice patterns that I noticed on various walls and fences near the cement works.

The river meets the land near Morden Wharf Road. the willow trees and mossy banks are particularly lovely. And, dotted along the water's edge, we spotted some amusing signs in a seaside-style that hint at what we have now and what's to come; shown here are 'Beauty' and 'Foreshore forearmed'.

And this is what's coming... A Cruise Port. Does this mean lots of big liners docking here spilling out customers/visitors/residents by the day? The big pic at the top is an artist's impression on the blue hoardings that create a creepy tunnel for much of this stretch of path.  And, coming soon, a "New Release of River fronting Apartments". Note either a punctuation error (I suggest a hyphen is missing to make River-fronting and that would explain why only one word starts with a lower case letter), or this is written by someone who can't speak English properly. Either way, Barratt, who are the developers should have checked the sign before it went up. Attention to detail lacking – I wonder if this an omen for the kind of sub-standard buildings we might expect to see here? As you can see from the middle bottom pic, work has started. The last pic shows the forecourt/garden area outside the development sales office. Perhaps they'll set out more of these non-indigenous spiral trees in cubes to tie in with the high-rise homogeneous Lego-like cube homes?

 My final post about this area is yet to come... expect a much lighter subject matter (phew!).

More from Greenwich Peninsula

This follows on my last piece 

Just re-found these pics taken in August 2015 after an afternoon at the beer festival when we thought it would  be a good idea to walk back to Greenwich town in the rain. Pff! What's a bit of sky water?!

Around the Peninsula, including a high-rise tower of my own towers

This shows why I thought re-visiting the foreshore here was a good idea; OK even more plastic and modern detritus, but a decent beach with potted plants and the remains of an old brick floor.

A mooch around the meridian – Greenwich Peninsula and the O2

The plan was, as the tide was so low last weekend, to go and investigate the foreshore around the Greenwich Peninsula. But as we came off slip way we could see it was horribly slimy and muddy.

Jen, Brian and Malcolm ventured further along the water's edge for a bit but I decided it wasn't worth the effort as did Caroline and Liliana. We three waited by the mass of tide-swept rubbish which included far too many plastic bottles and hundreds of those shiny metal cream frothing capsules that are being used for other things these days.

We then walked clockwise around the O2 along The Olympian Way (part of the Thames Path) stopping to look at some of the "art" along the path. By which I mean most of it is rather confusing. These artworks, which are part of The Line, include some large mannequin arms that looked vaguely sexual, a sign with a big number on it, a section of a boat and an upside-down electricity pylon which, because as it's behind a fence in an area that looks like a wasteland/dump, I would have walked past without a second glance had Malcolm not pointed it out to me. Perhaps that's the point. I think it would have a better effect in a green field or in the middle of a London square. Oh, and the information plaques for most of these things are already broken/tarnished. Upkeep/maintenance lacking again.

Moving on... The view down onto the foreshore was lovely – sandy beaches, birds and grasses. Just don't turn round and look O2 and its adjacent buildings which, due to the high blue wire fence, resembles an American prison camp.
Intrigued about the plans for this area we ventured into the Now Gallery to see what we'd understood was supposed to be an exhibition showing how the peninsula will be developed in the future. The strapline is "Where Pioneers Live". That'll be the kind of pioneers who live in luxury apartments and use the Tesco Express and gym on the ground floor, rather than ones who have all their belongings on their back, clean their teeth with sticks and survive on baked beans and bad coffee.
Once inside the building we spent ages trying to work out what we were looking at. The 3D architectural forms that looked like jelly, wood and colourful perspex buildings looked like fun. I doubt that will happen in the UK. You only see that kind of vision in, say, Barcelona. Another white form  depicted the whole sweep of this swathe of land all the way to the City but I couldn't understand what it was intended to mean. It looked nice in a foyer kind of way, but why was it there? What was it supposed to be telling us? And how much had it cost to make?

We entered the viewing room and spent ages trying to get the interactive CGI film thing to work on the tablet (well done Malcolm!) but it had no sound and we spent all the time in there laughing and jeering at the over-sized badly-steered boats, the 2D buildings, the unsupported red walkways, the giant birds and the enormous trampoline! It was fun, but ultimately rather confusing.
I spoke about all this to the girl on the reception desk who explained that this open-to-the-public walk-in area on the ground floor was just about concepts, but if we wanted to know what was really being planned we'd need to make an appointment to go up to the first floor. Aha! So they are keeping it all under wraps. I'd say we can expect another maze of homogeneous high rise glass with a few "iconic" tall things thrown in for good measure.
Hmmm... we then investigated the interactive exhibits to the left of the desk which were supposed to explain the different districts within the peninsula. It was like a playground for adults. And most of it wasn't working.
So we wandered back out into reality and walked the Thames Path to Greenwich.
But I'll save that for another day...

The Old Royal Naval College and Christmas lights at Greenwich

The Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich is a fascinating place. Lots of interesting artefacts, art and information. Be sure to check out the Painted Hall.

On the way to take another consignment of my clay pipe jewellery to the ORNC gift shop last week I stopped to admire the Christmas decorations in Greenwich Market, on the Cutty Sark and the colour-changing dome on the entrance to the foot tunnel that joins Greenwich with the Island Gardens on The Isle of Dogs. 

Ah... lovely.

Find the jewellery display to the right of the till near the main door facing the Thames

A Forage on the Foreshore in Rotherhithe then a walk around Surrey Quays along the Thames Path to Greenwich

On Sunday 23rd August I met up with a group of friends for a Forage on The Foreshore. This time we met late morning outside The Angel pub at Rotherhithe with a plan to walk east towards.
The weather forecast had not been favourable and so we were not surprised that soon after we hit the foreshore the clouds broke. We managed to stay beachside for just over an hour before the rain set in and retired to The Mayflower for lunch where we assessed our finds including the usual bits of pottery, clay pipe, glass and metal fragments, plus an old leathermakers awl.
The sky cleared so we continued eastwards along the Thames Path to Greenwich...

Start point outside The Angel / lunch at The Mayflower / Old Salt Quay / Malcolm and Graham admiring the view 

A short stop at The Blacksmith's Arms for excellent coffee. It's a lovely old wood-panelled pub with multi-hinged hooks for coats and bags on the walls and under the bar (take note modern pub designers!) and a restaurant at the rear. I enjoyed chatting to Stuart/Stewart, one of the locals, at the bar. I also spotted a great old photograph of how the Surrey Quays area used to look in its docklands heyday – compare that with how it looks today. 

We then popped in to Surrey Docks Farm; I will post about that separately sometime soon.

Continuing along the Thames Path – there are a few bits of unlabelled metal chain and what look like discarded anchors here and there but nothing to explain them. A prime example is an old crane near Custom Reach House. Note the strange net curtaining in the cabin window! I could see no information about this one piece of preserved history and wonder if people actually know why it is there or what it used to be used for. It's the same on The Isle of Dogs.
Click here for info about the history of London's docks.

A few minutes along the path is Helsinki Gardens with its expensive modern riverside apartments. A pretty friendly cat was keen to enhance William Pye's Curlicue. But we had no idea why it was there or what its relevance was so thanks to Tom for doing the research.

There are many different types of dockers' mistresses along the path and you can clearly see why they are so affectionately called by by looking at some of the ones along this stretch! Others though, like the ones at South Dock Marina, look more like Wellington boots.
This is the only area along the route where signage is used to explain about the historical features left behind as hints of the past; the hydraulic lifting gear, the swing bridge (not shown here), the lock keeper's cottage,etc. I also noticed a couple of lovely old Victorian lamp posts.

Further along the signage stops. A Pair of gateposts just stand there with no explanation, ditto a badly repaired obelisk. These must, I am sure be remnants of long-ago dismantled wharves. And I often wonder if anyone else knows what those freestanding crumbling manmade constructions in the river were used for. Read on...

More unlabelled things as we advanced on Deptford.
A gridded orb sits on one of the stuctures. A wooden board is all that remains to explain it; the plaque that used to be screwed to it having been been removed. I photographed it years ago and can here tell you that it's called Circumsphere by Chris Marshall and Stephen Lewis and was erected in September 1998. The plaque read: "The [red] discs [on its surface] show the route of Sir Francis Drake's circum-navigational voyage around the earth which was completed at this waterfront in 1581." It went on to explain that it is mounted on a 'dolphin' which is the name given to many small mooring structures that sit by the River Thames and provided low tide moorings for ships, barges, tugs and liners. So there you go.
Faded, scratched, unkempt boards show an attempt at generic historical information near the old Royal [Navy] Dockyards buildings (now the Pepys Research Centre) and Convoys Wharf (at the time of writing, a huge empty fenced-off wasteland awaiting redevelopment).
We also spotted a signpost with six pointers on it each none of which have anything written on them. Who knows, perhaps this is also art. It's hard to tell. Ditto the set of raised stairs that Malcolm climbed "just cos they were there". 

And so to Paynes Wharf which in the past five years has been transformed into apartments and exhibition space. All that's been retained of the old wharf buildings are some of the boundary walls including the arched river frontage though I can't understand why 'they' decided to paint white the landward-facing side of the building opposite Twinkle Park (what a lovely name!). The charming cobbled street that leads down to Watergate Steps is still intact.   

These are older pics. The first two pics are mine taken in 2009. The archive pic (sorry, I can't now recall where I got this from) shows how the name along the top is not the same as it appears today.    

Left, the shell of the Princess of Wales pub in a back street.
The Dowell's Coals depot at Deptford Creek is now long along with this sign which used to sit on the gate at the junction of Creek Road and Norway Street. When I was there in 2009 the mouth of the creek was more visible from the Thames and there was a lot of mud and remnants of old piers and landings to be seen. I now wich I had photographed that. Now we've got 'swanky', 'luxury' apartments wrapped around keep fit centres, restaurants and supermarkets.
The last two pics show me on the throne (thanks to Meike). I can't recall who that fella with the small head is but he's holding a clay pipe.
And finally... Greenwich.

What a great day out. Thanks to all who came along!

More Info
Please note that finding specific info on the area for the above has proved difficult and I have as good as given up. Googling the streets and squares tends to results in lists from estate agents. Wikipedia gives a rough outline of the general area here. 

Brewfest - Bank Holiday Weekend August 2015

Yesterday I went to check out Meantime Brewing Company's Brewfest 2015 in the shadow of the O2 on the Greenwich Peninsula. The event continues today and tomorrow too and I recommend it. Even in the rain!
Going to a beer festival is a bit like a taking a test as much cross-referencing in the catalogue is required to read about the different beers. But it makes it more fun and you get to chat to the staff and swop feedback with other customers.
I tasted/tested/supped some lovely ales (avoiding lagers and stouts) and can report that of the ten I tried (calm down; these were little 1/3 pint glasses and I was with a friend!) my favourites were Rogue's Hazelnut Brown Nectar (from USA), and Schönramer Dunkel, St. Bernardus ABT and St. Bernardus Blanche (all German).
There are also spirits, cocktails and even alcoholic iced tea available plus a few tempting food stalls.
It was such a shame that the weather kept the punters away as earlier in the day we'd enjoyed lazing about on the grass and listening to the live music.

So, wet already, we went for a stroll in the rain around the Thames Path all the way to Greenwich....

Top: the event itself looking damp and grey
Middle: Pic1 in places The Thames Path around the O2 feels like a prison enclosure.  Pic2 the most 'interesting' cladding on the peninsula.  Pic3 a view of the Dangleway (prob not the best day to get a good view!).  Pic4 intrepid dome walkers on the roof of the O2 (again, prob not the best day for it!)
Bottom: Pic1 it's art Jim, but not as we know it. WTF is it supposed to be?!  Pic2 birds on the foreshore.  Pic3 why? do they?  Pic4 view to the Isle of Dogs 

Foraging and dangling... and a free potato

I have been out and about a lot this weekend.
On Saturday I visited Boston Manor and Brentford which I will write about soon.
And then yesterday I met up with a group of friends for another forage on the foreshore. This time we went to the stretch of beach at the foot of Ratcliffe Stairs, Limehouse.

It was a glorious day and we stayed there for hours collecting bits of old clay pipe, broken pottery, eroded wood, animal teeth, rusty metal etc, and even managed to catch a glimpse of The Red Arrows flying towards Central London for the VE Day commemorative celebrations.
After a pint and a sandwich at The Old Ship, six of us then went to Greenwich Peninsula to check out The Urban Village Fete at North Greenwich which we all felt was rather disappointing, so hurrah for the thrill of the Dangleway!!

Only one of our group had been on the £4.50 'ride' before [read his account here] but, for the rest of us it was huge fun – like a fairground ride. I have no idea what the in-built commentary was saying because we couldn't hear it above our squeals of excitement. Such a great view, and a perfect day weather-wise.
We landed (disembarked?) on the North side in an area once covered by the Royal Victoria Dock which now resembles... ooh... everywhere and nowhere because, apart from a few cranes and well-developed dockers' mistresses left around the edges of the quay, it could be anywhere bland and characterless in any city in the world really.
We found a nearby cafe with outdoor tables. My baked potato was so tasty that when I mentioned it to the waiter he gave me a free uncooked potato to take home. How sweet.
A lovely lovely day. Thanks all.

One gripe... for me, getting there necessitated a change from the DLR to the Jubilee Line at Canary Wharf. Despite these two relatively new stations having the same name and being shown on the tube map as an intersection, it's somehow necessary to exit to street level, hunt for scant signage/directionals, navigate escalators and pedestrian crossings etc, in order to make the connection. The only conclusion for this appalling bit of contemporary planning is that it's been designed to make us get lost and be distracted by the shops and restaurants. Bad bad bad.

Greenwich Foot Tunnel

On Saturday 23rd August I needed to go to the Old Royal Naval College to supplement my stock at the shop and, because I'd arrange that month's forage for later on that day in Wapping, I thought I'd walk there via the foot tunnel and the Thames Path.

I sat with an ice cream near the flower beds of soft grasses and watched the world go by for a while before setting off.

Sir Alexander Binnie's 1217ft foot tunnel was constructed in 1902 so that people living on the south side could get to work in the docks on the north side. It runs 50ft under the Thames and is accessed by a circular staircases around lifts (that's elevators to you guys across the pond!) within distinctive domed shafts.

And it's free.

Considering it was a Saturday and how busy Greenwich was that day (it was tourists a go go!) I'd assumed the tunnel would be rather busy. But as you can see by these pics it was fairly empty. I walked briskly through it, narrowly dodging a lunatic cyclist who either was unable to read all the No Cycling signs or was intent on flaunting the rules.

At the north side I met my friend Jen in Island Gardens and we admired the view as we waited for some other foragers to join us for the walk to Wapping.

The pic below is the view looking back at Greenwich just to the east of Island Gardens at the most southern point of the Isle of Dogs where the Thames Path  restarts along the wall at the river's edge. I've just about managed to get all the key Greenwich landmarks into the shot...

L-R: The Old Royal Naval College, University of Greenwich, Naval College Gardens, the National Maritime Museum (hidden by trees), the entrance to the foot tunnel, The Cutty Sark, Greenwich Park and the Royal Observatory and Planetarium

Coming soon... another way to sub-navigate the Thames on foot...

Montague Burton, The Tailor of Taste

Back in the 1930s almost every decent high street in the UK had a branch of Burton selling menswear. So popular were they that it's said that pre-1950 25% of British men were wearing their clothes.

The company's large statement stores featured lots of lovely Art Deco motifs as well as the company's distinctive logo. A few buildings are still occupied by Burton, as at Tottenham Court Road Station, but most have long gone. Some details still remain on the old stores – iron grilles at foot level, doorway mosaics, faux temple columns and, as in Streatham (and Belfast), elephants' heads, a popular motif in that era.

Commemorative date stamps can be found on some of the buildings in the granite footings; it was only a few months ago that I noticed that McDonald's near the Nag's Head junction of Holloway was originally a Burton branch, s opened in 1929 by members of Montague's family. Odd that I hadn't spotted the marks when I was writing about the shop next door. More date stamps here.

This reminds me that back in the late1980s I bought a Burton's three-piece wool de-mob suit (often called a Full Monty) in dark brown with a light grey chalk stripe from Black Out II in Endell Street, WC2, an excellent vintage shop that I am glad to report is still trading today.
I made a few alterations to the jacket and trousers because the original owner must've been short and, er, squat. I took down and steamed out the turn-ups, added pleats to the trousers' waist, and moved the buttons on the jacket. I wore the it 'Kim Wilde style' with white shirt and sparkly jewellery. Though I did hear that it caused some blokes to assume I was a lesbian (idiots, but in most cases – phew!).
The suit had Burton's labels inside the pockets of the jacket and waistcoat (both lined in lovely thick cotton twill) plus the original owner's name written in ink, a name I cannot now recall and it never occurred to me to take photographs of the labels despite the fact that I liked to show this detail to friends or anyone who was interested.  

I don't recall when I got rid of it – I expect I gave it to a charity shop in the '90s. Back then I assumed suits like this must have been fairly commonplace, so I didn't consider it to be anything special. The most sensible thing would have been to have at least sold it back to the shop where I'd bought it – duh!
Obviously, I am now I am a little annoyed with myself because, having searched the web for reference of the same to include here, I can't find a similar suit, or a pic of the label. 
You'll just have to make do with this snap of me wearing the suit at a wedding – it's the only photo I can find of it.
Ah well.

Jewellery week

Oops I am a bit late with this one as the week is almost over, but there's still plenty to see and do.
Like it says here, this event is in its fifth year and there are lots of things going on all over London.
Of particular mention (because I will be there!) is a jewellery-specific market tomorrow in Greenwich (Friday 15th June) where designer makers will be selling  direct to the public underneath a canopy of over-sized tiaras.
Hope to see you there.

Some jewellery-related details in London, included a beer, some tobacco, a silver fox and a diamond ring! 

A lovely day Greenwich

On Monday morning I went to Greenwich to display some of my clay pipe jewellery in Bullfrogs shop window in Church Street.
A friend came to meet me there and we went for lunch in a nearby restaurant where I bumped into another friend's daughter who, unbeknownst to me, is studying at Greenwich Univerisity. Lucky girl to be in such a great location, and what a nice surprise to see her, as I don't think I'd set eyes on her since she was about 15.
It was a glorious day so after lunch I went for a wander...

In the park I admired the construction of a labyrinth of metal poles that will become the controversial Olympic equestrian venue. Outside the Royal Maritime Museum I spotted the oversized ship in a bottle that was previously on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square. I went inside the museum and was a bit disappointed. I was engrossed in the gallery with the pics of the then and now stretches of Wapping and Bermondsey, but leaving that room I couldn't find anything else to inspire me. Did I miss a trick somewhere? If so, the signage is appalling. And I had hoped there would be more and larger maps and charts for sale in the shop... but I digress; this is supposed to be about nice things...
A raspberry ripple ice cream and then to The Painted Hall, 'the finest dining hall in Europe', no less. I had been there before for a Christmas do a few years back (actually, it was the company my lunch friend works for) but, although we all had that 'wow' moment when we entered the room, we then became preoccupied with all the food and drink. But mainly the drink. The hall is like an OTT set for a bizarre film; you feel as if you are actually in a painting. Every inch is covered with fantastic images and trompe l'oiel.
Then I popped into the beautiful Old Royal Naval College Chapel and admired its repetitive yet soothing interior. There was just time to pop into the ORNC museum. I just love the big relief map in the centre of the main room. In fact the whole of that room is jam-packed with so many interesting and interactive and informative things. It was closing in ten minutes; that's the third time that's happened to me!
So to the Cutty Sark. I like what they've done. I like the way the glass surround evokes the sea. I like the reflections it creates. It was closed so I couldn't go inside but I notice that the roof of the shop area is practically the same as the new roof at the Kings Cross Station, which is almost the same as The Great Court at the British Museum. couldn't they have designed something different?
I admired the view across to The Isle of Dogs and thought about walking through the foot tunnel. I noticed that the tide was low and I could see shingle on the other side beckoning me, but I had the wrong shoes on. So I got on the DLR and headed home instead.
What a nice day.