Dr Johnson's Apostrophes or Apost'rophes

Dr Johnson's House in Gough Square sits within one of a handful of old Georgian courtyards north of Fleet Street. It saddens me that many of the old alleys I recall from as recently as the 1990s have been bulldozed and redeveloped, replaced with high rise office developments. Gough Square is only one of a few tiny spaces that still hint at this area's rich history, and it's thanks to Samuel Johnson. 

The great lexicographer spent many years of his life producing a dictionary in which the phonetic pronunciations were also supplied but, whenever I pop in to attend events and talks, I cannot fathom why the curators have created these curious information boards, headed up with words that contain rogue apostrophes:

The apostrophes here serve no purpose as they are not inserted between the cojoined words and neither do they demote missing letters. As the explanation for Be'dchamber says, it is a conjunction of Bed and Chamber, so why put that apostrophe after the first E unless the original words had been Bedded or Bend or Behead?

Ah, the Withdra Wing Room, or perhaps this denotes that it used to be the Withdra Owing Room. Then we have the Pa'rlour which I like to pronounce Pah-relour, often spoken out loud, with confused looks from anyone else in the room even when I point to the sign. Pah-relour sounds like a card game in the round that you might play in the parlour. Or perhaps the Pa'rlour here was used only by Sam's Pa and his mother used the Ma'rlour...?!

The nonsense continues below ground...

Why not L'oo? (the ooh). They could also added LAVAT'ORY, DU'NNY and RE'STROOM...?

To my mind, these additional marks are unhelpful, meaningless, and at totally at odds with what Dr Johnson was trying to achieve. Does anyone know the thinking behind this nonsense? I have asked a couple of people who help out there but no one has a decent explanation. All I get in return are pleasant shrugs. 

If Samuel was to time-travel to today and pop in and see these signs I wonder what he'd have to say. He'd probably turn tail and head to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese for a pint of ale and a chinwag with his mates though I think they'd be sorely displeased that they can't spark up a tobacco pipe in there any more. It's far too clean and sanitised these days, such that it looks more like a pastiche/recreation of an oldey worldey pubbe. To my mind, there should be a rule in this particular pub that at least one person on every table should be filling the place with smoke in order to constantly evoke the atmosphere of Dr Johnson's era.

Update March 2026: Visiting the building again recently I found Dr Johnson's dictionary open in a cabinet, so I took these snaps which show that he wasn't at all consistent with these punctuation marks, and this will be why the words in the rooms are also so bizarre....

For instance, Do-er seems logical, Dog-teeth and Dog-trick are hyphenated after the 'dog' bit, but then we have Do'gbolt. Eh?

This is then followed by Do'ggeral and Do'ggish before changing pattern again when we get to Doghe'arted...! 

Yet Dogma'tical (etc) makes sense. I dunno. The man was a pioneer in this respect. He had no precedent to follow. 

Incidentally, if you haven't already noticed it, look out for this protective metalwork low down on the Fleet Street side of the pub which bears the initials of the pub, YOCC:

Stuff the no smoking rules – I personally think it ought to be compulsory inside this pub that at least one person at each table should be smoking a pipe at all times. 

Two queens, two phoenixes and a couple of castles

Earlier this week I alluded to the re-naming of streets, something that became necessary as London expanded, such that a rendezvous arranged in Church Street could mean one person waiting in Hackney whilst the other was stood checking their fob watch in Soho.

This Georgian map illustrates my point. I had taken a quick snap during a visit to The London Archives merely as reference, hence the shadow coming in from the left. Apologies, but I forgot to note the cartographer and the exact year. 

When I viewed on a larger screen I spotted Phenix Street at the middle left exactly where I'd expect it to be – today we have the Phoenix Theatre there backing on to Phoenix Gardens (Hog Lane later covered by Charing Cross Road): 

But, confusingly, there's another Phenix Street north of St Giles Church and these two streets don't look like they would have ever been connected:

Either side of the northern Phenix Street you'll see Church Street, an extension of Church Lane, and Castle Street which has a twin at the bottom of the map, though I am not sure which castle these alluded to. I then started noticing other doubles.

To make it clearer, I've added some colour-coded rings:

In addition to this, the map shows King Street (today Neal Street) which had a counterpart northeast of this area, near Bloomsbury Square (off the map, today approx Southampton Row). There's another King Street still in existence adjacent to Covent Garden market. 

Many of these streets were less than 5mins walk apart. It suggests to me that the people who lived north of St Giles's church rarely ventured south and vice-versa.

A quick glance at today's A-Z shows we now have only x12 King Streets in Greater London and just x6 Queen Streets. There are x18 Church Streets (a mere x3 Chapel Streets) and only two Castle Streets but neither of those is in the central zone. As for Phenix Street, one one remains and it's the one shown above off CharX Rd, albeit alternatively-spelled.

A scratched doorway in Rugby Street

Have you ever noticed that the brickwork either side of the entrance to 20 Rugby Street, WC1N 3QZ* is slathered in gouges and grooves at approx elbow height?

I have often wondered who did this and why, especially as there aren't any initials. It occurred to me that this is similar to school walls where kids don't want to actually be identified for the damage caused.

As you can see, No.20 is a small red brick building and appears to be an infill/addition to No.18, backing on to the rear of 54 Lamb's Conduit Street. The aerial satellite view shows that the door leads to a large space at the rear that wraps around No.18.

When this building was constructed its address would have been 19 Chapel Street (there were lots of Chapel Streets and Church Streets in London, something I will address in my next post). Most of the properties along this street were residential with only three listed in the business directory, one of which was this building, shown in the late Victorian era as The Church of Humanity. Founded in Bloomsbury in the 1850s it was the first proper home for the London Positivist Society and included a library and a school (aha!) so, I think my hunch about schoolchildren making these marks is probably on the money.

Those pesky kids! The Church of Humanity closed in 1932.

Update March 2026: sorting through a bulging folder of photos files last week, I found these pics that show the interior of the Humanist chapel. But I cannot find any reference of where I sourced them from. they look to be snaps from a book. I will credit them as and when I have more info.

If intriguing graffiti is your thing, then you'll also like these marks off Horse Guards' Parade.

*How come so many postcodes have Qs and/or Zs in them?

Patchwork platforms and utter filth on the London Underground

From delightfully intriguing glazed tiles in my last post to shoddy in less than a mile... 

Holborn station is the next station along the Piccadilly line from Russell Square, but it no longer retains any Edwardian era Leslie Green designs having been upgraded in 1933 when it became an interchange with the Central Line and then, in the 1980s, the platforms were remodelled to reflect the antiquities at the nearby British Museum. 

As I stepped off a westbound train last week I noticed that the larger segment of a black tile has been replaced with a grey one:

Why? Surely black tiles aren't in short supply or difficult to source?! 

Worse... a few metres along there's this horrid patchwork mess:

Eurgh! If these yellow stripes were installed as a H&S non-slip zone, then why does it not continue all the way along the platform?!  

Plus, it's filthy. I occasionally see London TfL promo about how they keep the network clean. Hmm, do they? Really?  

At the risk of coming across a bit Daily Mail Handbags At Dawn, here are the dirty walls along the Central line platforms at Oxford Circus where (and it wouldn't have taken a genius to work this out) small tiles = more grout = more places for muck to cling:

I suppose TfL's logic was that sheets of small squares are easier to apply around curved walls. But they seem to have overlooked how these products will be maintained going forward.

Similar examples can be found across the network, mostly in the central zone, such as at Kings Cross where a contingent of fools decided to wipe away any historic value by replacing the lovely pale yellow tiles with black and ultramarine borders. Here's how one section of the interconnecting tunnels used to look in December 2008 just after some old ads were revealed that had been hidden under multiple layers of paper and paste:

A few months later this was all gone. 

And... don't get me started about the products used along The Elizabeth Line – read about more filth here! 

On the tiles at Russell Square tube station

In yesterday's post I mentioned that I have spotted maker's marks on tiled walls. For instance, above street level, Doulton of Lambeth employed various impressions as per this collection I pulled together almost 12 years ago (I have since found many more) but, until last week I had never seen anything similar on the Underground network.

I use Russell Square station quite often. It is a Lesley Green design, one of many that opened c1906 with ox-blood exteriors and beautifully-tiled and colour-coded connecting tunnels and platforms. I suspect it's because I get distracted by the gorgeous colours and the lovely hand-painted letters that I hadn't noticed this maker's mark:

The image on the left shows the exit tunnel from the westbound platform, but viewed as if coming from the lift. As you can see, there is an impression within a single tile on the left hand side. Here's a close-up:

G. Woolliscroft & Co was a floor tile maker, but there doesn't appear to be any remains of the Melville Road premises where these tiles would have been made. I wonder if Woolliscroft produced the tiles that line all other stations along the Piccadilly Line. If so, it was a huge commission! Seems more likely that quite a few companies in the Staffordshire Potteries area would have been working together on this project, with some companies making the tiles and others adding the colours, doing the glazing and firing. 

Hold the front page!!!! - Dougrose has written this piece about the tile makers although, annoyingly he doesn't identify where any marks tiles can be found, so I will henceforth be keeping my eyes peeled for more evidence – let me know if you see any.

The subterranean passage below Albertopolis

Heading to The Royal College of Music last week, it was a bit wet and windy* above ground so I made use of the pedestrian tunnel that links South Kensington station to approx mid-way up Exhibition Road. 

The tunnel is accessed directly from the station's ticket hall. At the station end there is there's a sharp right turn. On previous occasions I have been busy dodging groups of tourists and noisy schoolkids, but this time I happened to notice a brass marker set within the floor ahead of me:

Hmmm... interesting... I hadn't seen this name before. However, I have spotted a couple of Aberdeen Adamant signs in my travels such as the one below (where was this?!) – there also a similar one in Crouch end near the YMCA). 

I've paired it here with a pic from Borough High Street in Southwark, where embedded brass letters are gradually disappearing.

Back to the tunnel... I tried a quick online search for Roadamant but so far have found nothing. The address, 65 London Wall, is at the time of writing shrouded in scaffolding and plastic. Fingers crossed that the gorgeous substantial Art Nouveau railings that surround this huge building will be retained after renovations are complete. When/if I find out more information about the company I will add it here.

Along the same dog-leg section of the passage, just a few metres ahead, there is another company name embedded into the floor, bearing the name of Wilkes & Co.

Again, as per Roadamant and Nettlefolds from my last post, this is also name I have never noticed before. Devonshire Square is adjacent to Petticoat Lane market and today the site is mostly high rise glass-covered buildings.

Turning left into the main long stretch of the tunnel, the same Wilkes & Co markers are repeated at intervals. Then, at the entrance to The Natural History Museum gardens, another version is included which shows more information:

I've discovered that Wilke's Metal Flooring Co Ld (not Ltd., how nice!) seemed to work in conjunction with, or be one and the same as The Eureka Flooring Company, being as both companies were based in Devonshire Square and are shown a contractors for the grooved and channelled flooring installed at ground level within stable buildings that were at 63 Clerkenwell Road shown here in 2008 but demolished and replaced a few years later. Again, more information about this company needed. 

The quality of the tiles along the tunnel is impressive. I kept my eye out for maker's marks on them but, although I am pretty sure there must be at least one bit of evidence along there, I didn't manage to spot anything that day. Mind you, I only started looking from half way and I suspect any marks might be at the station end. I will check next time I am there.

Something I did notice, however, was the strange indentations within the skirtings. These are approx 40 paces apart, say 32 metres. They are an irregular elliptical shape and look to have been infilled. I mused that they possibly be access points for some kind of chain/pulley system or cables. Or, possibly, these are holes left where brackets were removed, leading me to wonder if, due to the size and shape of this tunnel, it might have been created for vehicles of some kind. A niggle in my brain told me I had read about that somewhere. 

Well, whoop-de-doo – it turns out that Ian has already written about this subway here, although he hasn't made reference to Roadamant or the elliptical recesses.

Any further info is most welcome. 

*Fun with words. This is windy as in the weather, not as per a country lane which, on a blustery day, could be described as a windy windy lane or a windy winding lane. I am reminded of Windy Miller who lived in a windmill – Camberwick Green's opening credits feature a little character winding a handle to show each page of information. This should not be confused with winding a baby.

The names behind the letters on 161-167 Euston Road

I have lost count how many times I have looked at the building at the corner of on Euston Road and Upper Woburn Place, today occupied by Prezzo and Barry's Bootcamp, and wondered what on earth the letter N in the metalwork signifies. It's been on my To Do list for decades, so here goes... 

Here is the view from Eversholt Street with the portico of St Pancras New Church on the left:

Having just searched my archives for some pics of the details, it appears I have never taken a photo of this building, so all the images here are screen shots from Google Streetview. This is probably because I usually question the Ns when I have just gone past on a bus, having missed hundreds of photo opportunities. 

The next image shows the Ns within the fancy the metalwork, painted light grey-green. There is also a scripty B above the door to the restaurant at the corner:

The B is for Barclays Bank – I have seen Barclays Bs on other buildings, such as not far from here at 236-240 Pentonville Road where a second door has a letter T above it denoting Telephones/Telegraph office. They might well have had one of those 'You can telephone from here' signs outside. Barclays and the Post Office often occupied the same spaces. Coincidentally, here in Euston Road there is a huge telephone exchange next door constructed in the early 1930s (one of many exchanges in this area).

The view above, from the church across Upper Woburn Place, shows how impressive this building is. The elegant design continues on all three sides. At the corner of Endsleigh Gardens there is a similar corner door to the Barclays bank entrance but the embellishment contains no letter and has been painted black. A semi-circle of fancy metalwork is still in place:

At street level along Endsleigh Gdns there are elegant columned supports between which would have been, I am sure, display windows, today infilled with smaller windows:

At the western end the access for delivery vehicles is now also mostly blocked.

So, what do the Ns signify? 

Well, it turns out this was a company called Nettlefold & Sons, ironmongers. The company's address is shown as 163 Euston Road, today the entrance to Barry's Bootcamp, although I think Nettlefold's showroom and offices would have been accessed by the rear corner door.

Nettlefolds was founded at 54 High Holborn in 1823. They became famous for the quality of their screws used for boat and bridge building, manufactured in Smethwick. Almost 100 years later, in 1928, they moved to this Euston Road address which, I assume, due to its Beaux Arts style, was already constructed when the Nettlefolds arrived. 

The entrance to No163 later became access to the post office and Euston telegraph exchange next door. The 1939 directory shows that this door was also used by a Scottish life assurance company and Asprey & Co, goldsmiths.

N is for Nettlefolds. 

The strange this is, considering I have a bulging folder of photos of ironmongers' and founders' marks on coal hole plates, railings and bridges, I had never before heard of Nettlefolds until today, nor seen evidence of their work, probably because they made component parts often hidden from view.

More info can be found about Nettlefolds here, courtesy of Graces Guide and here.

Also, see the comments section below for how the company was absorbed into GKN – thanks Anonymous! 

Finding elements of the Nativity in London's streets

Wandering around Mayfair on Monday looking at Christmas decs, I noticed there is a gated cul-de-sac on the western side of Davies Street called Three Kings Yard. How very Christmassy. I mused at why this might have been given this name. 

I haven't done a deep dive into the whys and hows, I just did a quick bit of basic googling which says what I sort of expected, that the name probably comes from a pub or inn that was here in the 18th-century. It's Christmas Eve and I'm too lazy right now to double-check through the old directories and maps, but reference to a pub makes sense, as per the one off Clerkenwell Green that used to be fab and quirky but has since been sanitised, and the other one in West Kensington.

It got me wondering about other Nativity-related street names in London...

Mary Street is not far from Angel, Islington, but Joseph Street is in Bow and Jerusalem Passage is in Clerkenwell. Sheep Lane in E8 is miles away from Shepherds Bush and/or Shepherds Market, and you need to go all the way to Enfield to find Donkey Lane. The Three Kings from Leyton Orient might have travelled from Star Street in Paddington to Jesus Green in E2, but they wouldn't find a Pret a Manger there. There are lots of roads beginning with Gold but, unlike Bolton, we don't have a Myrrh Street here and, as for Frankincense, the nearest we have is Frank St in Canning Town.

I'll stop now!  

Wishing you health, wealth and happiness for he coming year, Jane

Cecil Beaton's Fashionable World at NPG – it's all in the details

I finally found time to see the excellent Cecil Beaton show at The National Portrait Gallery. Ooh it's lovely. 

We often think of him merely for his 1950's voluminous satin concoctions, as shown above, and his award-winning designs for My Fair Lady (1964), but there was much more to the man than that, as shown in these next examples in which he used picture frames, cracked mirrors, clever lighting and strong shadows, even a mattress, to marvellous and moody effect:

Here are a couple of pics of the man himself, in his youth with his fellow Bright Young Things, dressed up as a couple of trend-setting 1920's ladies, and captured in oil paint:

Cecil Beaton is created some extraordinary portraits of film stars and celebrities. The NPG has chosen to feature his image of Elizabeth Taylor, a lady he was not too fond of, for much of their merchandising (not shown here) but, to my mind it's the way he captured Gary Cooper, Katherine Hepburn, Joan Crawford and John Wayne that better shows off his talents:

There are also lots of photos of Audrey Hepburn at the show. One image in particular fascinated me because, due to the excess of makeup she is wearing, it doesn't actually look like her. Her coquettish charm masked in thick make-up:

It occurred to me that her look in this image is very now, very 2020s. She is seen with overdrawn enhanced lips and eyebrows, false eyelashes and lots of foundation. I've paired it with a different kind of retouching – a self portrait of Beaton in his mid-20s where he has altered the surface of the negative/print by adding daubs to denote snow for a Christmas card. 

Quite a few pre-press photos shown here are retouched. For instance, I know people were much slimmer back then, but I very much doubt that the lady against the cracked mirror in the pic above, really had a stomach quite so flat and hips that narrow. I'd had spotted some retouching in one of the first rooms so I went back to take a closer look.

These images of society ladies dressed up for balls and parties at some of London's most fashionable venues are fabulous, made all the more interesting by the retouching on them, designed to enhance the highlights of their jewel encrusted accessories and shiny fabrics, and also to slim their figures. The pic above left shows where the girl has gone from a size 14 to a size 8 by the application of opaque white paint on her midriff, both front and back. The splattering of paint behind her is bizarre. Another lady with stars on her head has what can only be described as stippled hair extensions.

The next two images are sections from a photo of a very Jazz Age lady bedecked in pearls, beads and rhinestones:

The green flashes are reflection from the lights in the room on the protective glass, but the white paint, probably gouache, is evident, added to almost every globule and crease on her long satin gloves to better enhance the lustre on the jewels and the sheen on the cloth. 

I love this. It takes me back to my first years working in the design and advertising industry, before the age of desktop publishing, AppleMacs and Photoshop, when we used Cowgum, Rotring pens, PMT cameras and Letraset to create artworks for print. It was at the tail end of an era when every company had at least one person whose job it was to retouch photos with pen and ink, brushes and paint, as shown on these images.

On returning to the first section of the exhibition, where a collection of gorgeous portraits of society ladies is arranged on a midnight blue wall enhanced by beautifully-made paper flower arrangements that perfectly enhance and echo the images, I couldn't believe how I hadn't spotted the clunky retouching on these prints on first seeing them. 

But then, that's how retouching should be; you ought not notice it, even when it's as obvious as this next lady's unusually sleek features and Lillie Langtree's crisp profile:

The next two pics show that Mrs MacAdoo has lost her left shoulder and a sliver off the side of her face, and Miss Gellibrand has a nasty gash along her jawline:

I love that these are the the original retouched images. Yet it's odd that these adjustments are not mentioned in the panels that accompany any of the images. I'd like to know how much Cecil Beaton was involved. Perhaps these are his own daubs?

On the subject of the man himself making a mark on his own images, I'd first noticed a lovely signature under an image which looks to be created with one of those multi-coloured pencils:

Yet, in the same room, I spotted two different signatures, both in pink:

He signed his name in a variety of styles, with no identifiable mark. This surely must make identification and valuation of his work quite difficult.

If you haven't seen the show yet, do make an effort, because there's much more to see and find out in this multi-layered show than I have shown here – but there's less that a month left to see it – ends 11th January 2026.