A visit to Harrow School

Let's try and keep this mostly pictoral. A tour of Harrow School buildings with The London Appreciation Society. 

Arrive Harrow-on-the-Hill station, turn right, buy a Tesco meal deal, pass 1970s shop with moulded cement brick façade on upper floor. 

There are few examples of these across London, such as in Portobello Road market which is now a Tesco store.

Up Petersborough Rd. Literally 'up' – it's a hill. The hill. Harrow Hill. Sat on a bench for a lunch munch and admired the view. Near the top, on the left, there's an in-wall GR post box. 

Most in-wall boxes I've spotted are Victorian era and much smaller in size. I wonder if this one was replaced because it wasn't big enough to cope with all the letters sent home by the boys who boarded here. At the junction with the high street there's a Capital Ring signpost and, round the corner, on the school side there's a milestone set within the wall. Love a milestone.

Opposite the milestone there is an acanthus pillar box:

As per the mark at the base, this is a replica. Nice though.

Joined the tour. We were first taken to the old schoolroom and I noticed that the naughty boys had carved their names into the exterior. 

Much of it is very well rendered. But this was merely a taster to the interior which is slathered in carvings, these having become a sort of rites of passage such that every boy in attendance here, including some very well known names such as Churchill and Byyon have literally made their mark here. Much of it is beautifully achieved, but other works are poorly-planned where the lads hadn't realised that their long name wouldn't fit into that space.

Almost every little space has been used, with some names running along edges and reveals:

Into the other buildings. I do love site-specific toilet signs. 

Then into the Speech Room...

The organist's shoes

... and across to Sir George Gilbert Scott's gorgeous multi-faith chapel:

An example of ensample, above, and a wall of memorial commemorating children who died whilst at school here, below, looking like a patchwork quilt or an oversized stonemason's swatch book

Stunning views back to central London from the gardens at the rear, hard to capture, better viewed in person.

By the time I returned to the main street the tour group dispersed so I went to investigate the village where West Street meets High Street near the old Kings Head Hotel. There are some wonderful old Georgian houses here giving it a very out-of-town countryside feel. Many shops retain their old façades shop fittings such as this one shown below, which used to be reTouch lighting store. I wonder what it was in the past – with the fittings and mirrored display areas I'd guess it was originally a drapery store or a tailors.

A bus came along with South Harrow on its blind so I headed back to Holloway the long way via the Piccadilly line. 

Delightful street art by Max Jaz Art in Holloway Road

Next time you are shopping in Holloway, look out for a series of hand-painted artworks between Boots and Lidl.

I think I first spotted them in mid-2024, yet whenever I point them out to Holloway locals, whether friends, other shoppers or people at the bus stop, it is rare that they have ever noticed them before.

I love the double trompe-l'oeil of the corner window with a view beyond. A lot of time and effort has gone into this. They are little works of art containing, I think, hidden messages or stories. 

I wonder if the figure with a light in their hand is supposed to be anyone in particular:

Bizarrely, the chevron tape seems to enhance this artwork. Max Jaz is clearly a cat lover as a feline friend is shown on almost every panel. 

The panel closest to Lidl shows two people sitting at a table. It's the only piece that is signed, on the blue jumper, on the trainers and as a squared-up underneath:

If you look closely, you can see it's romantic – there are flowers on the table and fireworks in the sky. The blond moustachioed male on the left is secreting a ring underneath the table, probably about to propose marriage to the redhead in yellow. One of these people is surely the artist.

I can't quite deduce the name on her necklace though – something like Smartina – my photo here is a bit blurred – whoops! I think we can deduce that the couple shown embracing in the first pair of pics (with a cat at their feet and an angel playing a guitar above their heads) are the same two people. 

The style is ver much like murals I have seen. Which makes me wonder, at what size does a painting on a wall become a mural? Or does a mural have to tell a story or multiple stories? 

Any further info about the artist and the stories behind these works is most welcome. 

Updates to previous posts – loss and regeneration

I have this morning added some updates to these old posts – click the links above the pics to read the articles and see the pics at larger size:

Scratched graffiti outside the Humanist Chapel in Rugby Street 

New life for Michli's old grocery store

Loss of another ghostsign in Holloway Road

Woodblock paving in Pentonville Road

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. 

Ringing in the changes

Brr-ring Brr-ring! 

Unlike the example shown above in Carey Street at the back of the Law Courts, most of the old red telephone boxes on our streets are no longer in use as communication devices. They stand empty and dirty with broken glass windows, used for other things.

However, here and there, some have been transformed into little libraries, coffee shops, art installations and mini-greenhouses, such as just up the road from me near Archway station, London N19, where two K6 kiosks contain plants – behind the bus stop here at the top of Holloway Rd and at the end of Hargrave Park, installed to replace a metal consruction that was there in 2019. 

Further afield, others are sport street art, with paintings designed to look like someone is trapped inside, such as a diver painted on the rear/park side of this one in Regent Square and a similar one in St John Street.

I've just returned to this, having started writing it a few weeks ago. I'm only now back on the case, having finally attended to a swathe of unread emails, one of which is from Londonist Substack about this very subject – thanks M@, I now need not continue this any further. 

I have a Jane's London Substack account myself you know. 

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

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