Gray's Inn Road – strange backward-facing houses, a water trough and another laundry (with fancy tiles)

I was walking from Russell Square to Kings Cross today and, as I passed by these houses that end at Heathcote Street, I thought it was high time that I shared my idea that surely they face the wrong way. 

I mean to say, the front doors face Mecklenburgh Street, yet the walled back gardens abut Grays Inn Road here. I've only seen the like in two other London locations: off Liverpool Rd in N7 and near Kensington High Street station, but those aren't along big main roads. Explanations welcome.

On the Gray's Inn Rd side there's a nice old water trough planted with flowers. It's listed on Historic England's site but they make no mention of its inscriptions. 

The street side says 'DRINKING FOUNTAIN & WATER TROUGH' – the drinking fountain element (for humans) would have been that protrusion at end. The west-facing pavement side commemorates HTW and MWW, whoever they were back in 1885. 

The north-facing end is hard to decipher. It's degraded, and a circular stud has obliterated some of the letters – I can make out what looks like: ... RICHARD'S MA... / REGARDETH THE LIFE / ...ST HIS BEAST ...?! – see the comments section for more. 

I continued my journey northwards towards Kings Cross station and glanced across the street to check on Nos.332-336 at the corner of Britannia Street which sports the a bizarre mix of tiles which look like they belong in a 1960's kitchen, strangely affixed to a pair of buildings that are surely Victorian. Again, I thought, surely it's about time I looked into why this building sports this mad patchwork. 

As I took these snaps a man stopped to talk to me, intrigued that someone else was also interested in this façade. Jonathan told me works in the ENT Ear Institute next door and that this building was until recently part of their complex. Indeed, this is evident by the spayed out names on the door where only UCL is now visible. He said this corner site, which actually continues further along Britannia Street, through a series of later building extensions, was known to the as 'the cottage'. 

We looked at the mix of different building styles at street level. I pointed out the slabs of grey stone at low level below the large plate glass windows which include large ventilation panels. I suggested that this might have previously been a grocer shop or a butcher's. It wasn't until I was heading home on the bus that it occurred to me that it might have been a laundry.

Well, bash me over the head with a packet of Persil, it turns out this was an outlet for Western Laundries Ltd, a company I wrote about only a few days ago here (this Grays Inn location is shown the middle of the 1939 listing within that link). John Richard Western is here by 1910 and I suspect at that time the store sported the bright blue tiles we see at other locations. 

I'm guessing that these fancy repeat pattern tiles were added at a time when this branch was offering self-service coin-operated machines as well as a laundry collection service. I'd love to hear from anyone who recalls this shop when it functioned as a laundry.
As to what/who was here before the launderette, I'm thinking the pair of houses might have initially been associated with St Jude's church which was sited next door between this building and what was then called the Throat and Ear Hospital at 330-332. By 1882 the corner shop was Wellen & Co's fancy repository and in 1899 Joseph Thomas Roe is selling fruit from here.

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:

. 

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

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.

Deciphering a ghostsign in Petherton Road – Laundries and Landaulettes

Earlier week Sam Roberts contacted me to see if I could help with an enquiry he'd received about a faded sign near to the southern tip of Clissold Park.

Pic: Adam Broude

Adam Broude wanted to know if anyone had further info about a faded sign at the western end of Leconfield Road, near Newington Green, London N5. He'd managed to decipher a few words including 'General' and  'Landaulettes' so, having stood on that same spot a few weeks back, pondering the same, I thought I best get sleuthing.
I consulted a few old directories and it's clear we have two signs here; one for a company providing laundry and shirt mending facilities and a second one advertising upmarket vehicles for hire. Landaulettes are coupé versions landaus often used by dignitaries etc.
As for deciphering the sign, the best I can see and guess at, so far, is:

PETHERTON 
LAUNDRY 
SHIRT & COLLAR DRESSERS 
(and?) 
GENERAL LA... [probably LAUNDRY] ..... 
(under the satellite dish, only odd letters distinguishable)... HIRE (?)
LANDAULETTES, SALOONS 
& TOURING (?) CARS 
(a scrolly shape) then possibly LON[don?] 

Collar dressers were people who repaired shirts by mending or attaching new collars and cuffs. The 1882 directory shows Robert Ramsey, collar dresser, at 138 Petherton Rd, at the northern end of the street, so the relevance to this sign is doubtful.
By 1895 Ramsey has gone but another laundry has opened at the corner of Leconfield Road owned by William Charles Crooks, perfectly positioned to be relevant to this ghostsign. He was still trading from the same address until at least 1915 (I have no directories for the 1920s to hand). Around the corner, the 'London Shirt and Collar Dressing Company, laundry' is listed at 16 Green Lanes. There is a possibility that these two premises might have been part of the same company, one being a shop on the main drag and the other the actual laundry where the work was carried out.
By 1939, the laundry at the corner of Leconfield Rd has gone and another one has opened at No.128 (today=Mala) run by S&L Morris. Again, due to the distance from the ghostsign, I don't think this is the answer.
As regards car hire, I suggest the sign is for a motor company that would have been at 116 Petherton Rd which, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was a bicycle depot that later expanded to motorised vehicles. Today we can see a ghostsign for Barnes Motors at that address. In 1939, The Petherton Motor Works were at that location, though there are no laundries listed in the vicinity at that time.
Therefore I think the cars are the key to the date of the sign. Landaus were fashionable vehicles in the late 1920s/ early 1930s and this ties up with the laundry. 
Any further info is most welcome.

*I am still waiting to hear back from him re what he did with all this research and any feedback from his customer customer

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.