Ugly Beautiful

I can't believe I haven't put photos like these on here already; I started this all this photo-archiving stuff in the first place because I wanted to put together a booklet of images of the Holloway Road for my friends to prove to them that there was more to the area than an A road and some shops and pubs (I never did get around to doing that... I got distracted, as you can tell). So, on a gloriously beautiful February morning in 2007 I set out to take photos of all the things I knew were there, such as the ghost signs, the Odeon, Islington Central Library, old pub names and other bits of architectural interest. But in the process I noticed that many buildings I'd chosen to ignore before, that, on a dull day, look like they ought to be consigned to the wrecking ball, can look great when viewed from the right angle when the sun comes out.

Here's a selection taken all over London, more of which can be found on Flickr.

Polythene growth

Most plastic is grown outside of London these days but occasionally you can spot a parasitic polythene variety blossoming on a tree in a built-up area.

The main and bottom left hand images here clearly show healthy buds forming in the Holloway area.

Harvesting season begins in spring when young birds peck at the buds causing them to burst open. A particularly fruitful tree in Brick Lane is shown bottom right.

Top right shows a delightful picture of a rare polythene tree monkey. These animals usually live in dark vertical tunnels or cuddle together in large groups on wasteland. Often, when they are hungry or as in this case, extremely empty, they are known to climb up into the trees in search of food. Sometimes, weak and shivery, they may get stuck in the tree for months having become too scared to let go. Sometimes they wither and die as shown by the distressing picture middle right.

I am a Londonist

I have just had my first posting on Londonist on the subject of gasometers. Many thanks to Matt Brown* for contacting me and talking me through the process (*no, that's not a shade of paint, and I am sure he's heard that one before!).

I've got plenty more ideas for future posts, so keep checking in. I just knew 2009 was going to a good year!

Click here to see all my Urban Sightseeing posts

Out with the old and in with the new

Here's hoping 2009's going to be a good year, no matter what Gordon throws at us.

These images illustrate how the process of construction and demolition can sometimes produce some wonderful patterns and textures. To see more of these please go to my Flickr set.

A seasonal christmas card quiz

Here's my 12 loosely-themed (London) pubs of Christmas, 2008.

If you can recognise any of them then please do get in touch with me at the address above left.

Eat, drink and get merry!

If anyone would like to buy some of these Christmas cards, then please do get in touch.

Inside reads, Eat, drink and get merry.

Pointing the way to go

Every now and then I find an old sign with a strangely-shaped pointing hand on it. Some of these manicules are very odd indeed. A friend pointed out(!) to me that one of the ones below looks like a pair of long johns!

More bootscrapers of central London

Well, I thought I'd seen more or less every kind of boot scraper there could be, but walking through Temple, St. James' and Belgravia during the past week I have found lots more really good ones. Some of the Temple ones, shown here in the top two rows, are so simple and understated; almost like they are only half there as they disappear into walls. Along Whitehall I found a pair either side of the doorway to The Parliamentary Counsel that, unusually, face the street rather than each other. But then again, if they were perpendicular to the wall then people would trip over them. There must have been H&S reps even in those days! I am particularly fond (fond? bootscraperspotteritis setting in here) of the curved corner versions, and the really simple straight ones like the dark one on the bottom row, which can be found just off Belgrave Square.

More coal holes

I have found some more good ones over the past few months. And all fairly central. One even has a key hole in it which, I suppose, means it wasn't self-locking like a lot of the others. I must find out how the coalmen opened and lifted these lids, especially the self-locking ones. Perhaps they had huge magnets or special crowbar-type things? If anyone knows please do let me know.

See my constantly-expanding collection of London coal hole cover plates here.

Click here to read Yelfy's research about Hayward Brothers.

And here are some wonderfully different and colourful coal holes from the North of England.

Comments are now enabled under each posting

What a muppet I have been. Thanks to Nick pointing out that I hadn't enabled comments I have this morning been through and clicked all the relevant boxes. Thanks Nick.

Overheard on a 254 bus to Aldgate

There I was sitting on the bus admiring the view when I overheard the fella behind me say to his girlfriend(?) "Ooh look Ghost Pubs... that's the Nag's Head". How amazing! They were reading my article in Time Out and commenting on it less than a yard away from me. I couldn't contain my excitement and said "Excuse me, I wrote that; that's me!". And then we chatted about the general subject all the way along Mare Street to when they got off at Bethnal Green tube. Really nice people. I hope they get in touch.

Street Art

I thought I'd better include on here a collection of some of my favourite pieces of street art. It's especially important as the image here top left is my most viewed photo on Flickr. I did speak to the artist who creates these wonderful stick people in Dalston Lane just after he'd finished creating this family group. He saw me taking the photo and came over to ask if I liked it. Well, yes! I have been kicking myself ever since that I didn't ask his name. The piece has been 95% obliterated now. I haven't discovered who does most of the others except the ones by Anthony Lister who kindly signs his macarbre cartoon faces. And as for the four on the bottom row, I am sure everyone has spotted one of these vividly-coloured Bortusk Leer designs somewhere in London as there are loads of them around. Just keep 'em peeled...

Time Out 20th November 2008

So here it is... a scan of page 12 of this week's Time Out.

I must admit it brought a huge smile to my face.

Hope they contact me to do more.

Time Out – The Big Smoke

Fire!!!!

I have just realised that in amongst my photos of London's interesting metal things there are quite a few that are to do with fire, such as badges, bells and hydrant markers.

See these on Flickr

Doors and windows

This collection of fixing and furniture for doors and windows is starting to look really lovely as a group of thumbnails. Hand-shape door knockers and lion door knobs. I particularly like the little window shutter devices, most of which I found around the Spitalfields area. Shown below are some that depict little people and another one that, to me, looks like a parrot!

Time Out feature

This week I have been contacted by Peter Watts at Time Out who wants to run a feature in the Big Smoke section of the magazine using some of my pub pictures. How exciting! It's a strand I'd dropped for a while in favour of other things but now my mind is buzzing remembering all the buildings I've seen and haven't snapped. It's gonna be hard to choose just ten different ones for him to use. Watch this space....

62 more London ghost signs

Here are lots more. As there are so many of them this time around please visit my Flickr set for more info.

Coal holes

Here is my collection so far. All of them are different.

To get a closer look at each one please go to Flickr

Click here to read Yelfy's research about Hayward Brothers.

Boot scrapers – ooh, the diversity

There may be hundreds of different kinds of boot scrapers out there but, so far, I can only identify six different ways of fixing them.
Reading clockwise from top left:
Recessed; Step-mounted; Gate post; Free-standing; Railings-mounted flush; Railings mounted proud.
The free-standing and railings-mounted types seem to have been more favoured in the central London area. Islington, however, is littered with the gate-mounted types which seems a better idea to me, keeping the mud and mess further from the front door.
The two pics at bottom left show that many houses or establishments had two or more outside the door. Shown here is a row of houses on Bedford Square, each house having one each side of the door and, just around the corner in Bloomsbury Street near the British Museum, two side-by-side which have another matching pair sitting opposite them across the path.

I have also noticed that there aren't many large houses or mansions with boot scrapers. Perhaps the people who lived there didn't need them as they didn't travel around on foot and used carriages instead.... but what about the servants? I will keep looking.

Boot scrapers

A short while ago I was invited to join the 'Boot Scrapers of London' group on Flickr. I had noticed lots of them in and around Central London but thought they were all too similar and I had enough things to photograph as it was! But I joined the group pool anyway, and now I have gone boot scraper mad having discovered that there are so many different types out there. All of these have been taken on three occasions in the first 2 weeks of August 2008 in Camden, Covent Garden, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury and Canonbury.
To see any of the individual photos at a larger size please go to my Boot scrapers set at Flickr.

More doorway mosaics

Here are some more in north and central London.

Some are beautiful and others have been sadly neglected and/or mistreated. The triangular one in the second row has been carefully preserved for decades as the last remnant of a shop that was bombed out in WW2.

Doorway mosaics with letters or words

All but one of the above are in central London.

Despite my comment in an earlier posting that contemporary companies are no good at this type of thing, Fopp seems to have proved me wrong!

Doorway mosaics of Upper Street, N1

Here are some close-up shots of three of my favourite shop doorways in Upper Street, Islington, London, N1. Full images of these can be found in my last posting on this subject.

More Islington ghost signs

More Streetname signs

Here are some more street name signs; all different.

Row 1: St John's Way, N19, used to be St John's Road (what was the point of THAT?!); the top end of St, Pancras Way, NW1, used to be known as Kings Road; a painted sign for Southampton Road, NW5, showing the use of red paint for the postcode; Aquinas Street, SE1, shows where the lettering was once painted in black and then over-painted in white.

Row 2: Both the Willoughby Road and Rosslyn Mews signs show how substitute tiles were used for various letters (Qs for Os and number tiles for word spaces). Perhaps they just ran out of the correct letter tiles? Intriguing. For more of these see http://rodcorp.typepad.com/rodcorp/2004/07/london_street_s.html; Moxon St, High Barnet, EN5, shows that years ago there were no postcodes being used at all and one can assume that at the time this was put up it was the only Moxon Street in the general area, indeed there are only five streets by that name in Great Britain even now; one of two signs here for Bloomsbury Square, WC1, this one has a partially rusty surround and fixings but I cannot decide whether it is an old sign (maybe 1920s or 30s) or a new sign has been put into an old mounting.

Row3: Wild Court, WC2, shows two different hand-painted signs, one with 'Borough of Holborn' in a sans typeface and the other with a serif face which makes it interesting for us now but I can never fathom why back then they didn't just accurately touch-up what was there rather than paint a new design almost over the top like a dodgy shadow; a hand-painted sign in Roupell St, SE1; a lovely metal sign in Hayles street, SE11, though I now wonder if it was blue enamel and has been painted over, so I must go and have a second look; a lovely cast metal sign for Bloomsbury Square, WC1.

Doorway mosaics

Here are some of the pictures I have taken of the wonderful mosaic floors that can still be found at the entrances to old pubs and shops. Modern efforts at this kind of thing aren't ever up to this standard.

More photos like these can be found at www.flickr.com/photos/janepbr