Better Hearth, 109 Holloway Road – layers of history revealed (and lost)

Better Hearth is a company selling just that, all things to make your fireplace area more attractive and cost-efficient. The shop's header board is an etched semi-transparent sign that allows us to see an older sign behind it for R.E. Wilson 

Better Hearth have preserved the history here by attaching their own sign on spindles such that the old carved board can be seen if you go up close to the shop and look upwards. Nice. 

In November 2009, I was at Islington Museum Reference Library on St John Street looking for information about something else in Holloway Road and in amongst the weighty pile of old photos they gave me to look through I discovered this drawing.

It shows the plans for this clever installation – if there was a date on it I didn't see it or make a note of it. Later that week, I returned to the shop for a closer inspection and noticed that the door number at the left side included a real treat – a hand-written pencil mark at the bottom left corner showed that the sign was made in April 1912:

Fab!  But less than two years later, sometime in mid-2011, this numbered side panel and its twin on the right hand side were painted black all the way to the edges. Such a shame. But at least we can still see most of it, especially as many other companies uncover signs and then quickly cover them again (as per some of these) or, worse, they slap paint directly over them. I've written about two other reveals along this section of Holloway Road – Williams Pie & Eel shop and the leather shop at 229. I also recall that approx 2010 my sister and I found an old carved shop sign adorning the wall of a South American restaurant a few doors at approx 239. I'm sure we took photos. The owners were very proud of it having uncovered it during their refit, but a year later the restaurant had closed and I never again saw that sign 

Back to R.E. Wilson – Robert Emilius Wilson, watchmaker, is listed at this address in the 1882 directory but I cannot confirm if it the business was actually started here. By 1912 he has commissioned a new sign which would have had a sheet of glass over the top, crisply hand-painted on the rear to give a smooth street-facing frontage. Jewellers' windows were often some of the best, most opulent, shop fronts as per my montage of images in this old post.  

The reason I am writing about all this now, rather than +10 years ago when I saw the change to the number boards, is that last month I was walking past and saw that the modern sign had been removed along with half of the old sign and this allowed a better look at the carved elements and part of the internal mechanism for the awning:

Here are some close-ups:

Better Hearth's own sign has since been reinstalled. 

I cannot tell how long Mr Wilson the watchmaker was here. By 1939 the shop is listed as H.V. Barrett Ltd, photographers. Better Hearth, a family-run business, has been trading since 1976 and it's just occurred to me that, rather than just walking past and speculating, or sitting and writing, I really should pop in for a chat – if the people at BH took time to preserve the old sign in the first instance, they may well have more information about the shop's history. 

The shops around The Royal Exchange – Searle & Co, cigars and stale pastries

Wandering around The Royal Exchange in The City of London on a quiet Sunday afternoon I happened to notice what might be the tiniest light well I have ever seen. I'd say its approx 40cm x 30cm. It is one of many interesting details around this island of commerce... 

But before I show you some nice things, let's consider the window display next door at No.31 where unsold pies and pastries were festering and going stale in the window. Ugh. 

I have often mused what happens to all the unsold produce of this kind. How do companies calculate how many units they should make so as not be left with so many unsold? It's clear by this demonstration that they clearly have their sums wrong. Bad calculations like this mean the fresh unit price is often too high being. I personally think it's outrageous to charge over £3 for one of these little snacks. I've since seen another branch of Chango also displaying produce that's past its use-by date. For the life of me I cannot understand why they think this is a good idea. It looks lazy and ugly. They should bake less pies, give the unsold ones to the homeless and display photos in the window when the shops are closed. 

Now I've got that off my chest, let's look at the old hand-painted door numbers around The Royal Exchange at shoulder level, some dating from at least 100 years ago:

Number 33, is today another bun shop (but with no unsold produce in the window) at it still sports the signage and fittings from when this used to be Botterill's cigar shop. The company had been trading from here and at 70 Cheapside since at least 1852 under the name of G. Botterill. I think fair to assume that H is the son. This small shop interior has many authentic fittings:

It was still a cigar shop until October 2016 as shown here when it was J. Redford & Co. 

Around the corner, in Cornhill, there are two lovely hand-painted number nines:  

Then, on the East side of the block, Mount Blanc and Aspinal site within shops that retain some nice windows and fittings, but no numbers:

But my favourite shop here is Searle & Co at No.1, on the Cornhill side, where a host of fabulous fittings are still in place – punched metal, polished brass, buffed granite, carved wood, parquet flooring, bronze window frames, and more. Much of this probably dates back to at least the 1880s when this was owned by James Murray & Co, a watch and clock maker. By 1910, Frederick Clarke, also a watchmaker, was here before Searle & Co who arrived took on the shop in 1933. 

Walter Henry Searle and family had been trading in the City of London since 1893. Sadly, the company closed in 2021 and the stock was sold at auction. Since then the shop has remained empty, as shown in my photos – more info here on Fellows site which includes some interestng history and stories about Searles. Peering inside the shop it's possible to see some of the display cabinets mentioned in that link and an elegantly-designed safe made by Milners: 

Let's see what evolves. As with the cigar store, this company has long been a fixture at this site, so it's sad to see them go. It'll probably be turned into another pastries shop.

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