The Tottenham Court Road emporiums

More proof that you should be looking rather than just bowling along when you pop out for that sandwich at lunchtime.
These pics are from a short middle section of TCR near Goodge Street Station. I have yet to find out the original purposes of the buildings in this top collection of pics. All help welcome.

Top row: The large green dome on the top of the building on the south corner of Chenies Street is topped with a fabulous gold weather vane featuring a lion. Art Deco Glenn House opposite Goodge Street Station is solidly built and features a a ornate clock.

Middle row: First two pics above the Scientologists shop (shop? what is it? a lure? a trap?) – Goddards sign and an ornate frieze. The building that now houses Paperchase sports some colourful gold and blue faux capitals. 

Bottom row: The first image shows the corner of Goodge Street in 2008. The corner building has recently been demolished, as shown in the second pic. Pics 3 and 4 show some of the details on the gothic building which at the time of writing houses EAT sandwich shop.

On the northern corner of Goodge Street, sits a building that is absolutely festooned with ornamentation – friezes of fruit, birds, mythological beasts, windows in all shapes and sizes, and two green conical spires both topped with identical golden spheres and weathervanes of what look like mer-boys. 

Only the a large letter 'C' on the bowled corner window hints at the original owner although this seems a bit of a contradiction seeing how much of a show-off he seems to be in other respects. The 'C' stands for Catesby's Furniture Store and was 'the home of cork lino'. Edward Catesby looks to have been doing rather well for himself. I am told he was a descendant of the gunpowder plotters who tried to blow up James I's parliament.
The architects' initials HAW (Henry A. Whitburn) and the date (1904) can be made out either side of the dragon at the very top. 

Look up, see more!

Whitecross Street Party 2014

The Whitecross Street Party 2014 – Rise of the Non-conformists is a fab fun colourful central London street festival for all ages. and it's happens this weekend 19th and 20th July.
It doesn't seem like a year since last year's great event which is shown in the pics above.
See you there – I will have a stall again – if I get time I will be also selling some photographic collections of the local area as well as the usual clay pipe stuff.

Old Salt Quay and Surrey Docks

This huge, now redundant lifting mechanism, can be found on the bridge by the Old Salt Quay at Rotherhithe and marks the entrance from the River Thames into the old, now mostly demolished, Surrey Docks.
The pub that stands nearby was formerly called The Spice Island which hinted at the imported goods coming into the area back in the days when the area was a bustling port.
Read more about the area here in this really informative booklet by Stuart Rankin.

St Thomas Street – a wind tunnel of change

I recently met some friends for a drinks and nice food in a lovely pub in Bermondsey Street. Zig-zagging back towards London Bridge I entered St Thomas Street via Weston Street to find the junction completely blocked by construction works. Gone was the view of the road tunnel under the railway bridge, with hoardings and scaffolding erected half way along the road looking east. It's probably been like this for ages, but this not being an area I walk regularly, it was a bit of a shock for me. I stood and wondered and hoped if the lovely old brickwork that originally supported the bridge would remain once the work was completed.

Turning left into St Thomas Street I found that I was in a very forceful wind tunnel. It wasn't a particularly breezy evening so I can only assume that The Pointy Thing was causing this uncomfortable condition. I stood at the foot of the glass monstrosity and marvelled at its lack of architectural features. I still could find nothing to endear me to it; just rows and rows of angled plain glass windows separated by red lines and pale grey panels. Actually, it's all a bit mid-80s isn't it?!

On the western end of the St Thomas Street, stands the main tower of Guy's Hospital. This edifice has had a bit of a make-over recently – see the pics in the middle row of the top collection of images; the first were two taken in 2008. The tower dominates the lovely old main entrance to the hospital with its beautiful ironwork gates and gardens.
On the other side of the street, The Old Operating Theatre Museum & Garret and the adjacent georgian buildings make a ridiculous contrast with The Pointy Thing.
These days the powers that be are indeed saving certain buildings from 'progress' but it seems to be only those over 150 years old. Therefore, little three-storey, hand-made and brick-built gems get ring-fenced by enormous sheets of glass as architectural curiosities.

This area of London, from the south side of London Bridge down into Borough High Street, fanning left and right, is steeped in history yet much of it has been lost, mostly due to the swathe of land cleared when extending Guy's Hospital. Once an area for rowdy socialising, gaming, drinking and theatre, most of the drinking holes are long gone with only The George Inn remaining as an example of its kind. Hints of these old taverns can be glimpsed in the truncated narrow streets off the main road.

I have no concluding sentence.

King Brendon Burns.

Back in August 2002 I was a Perrier judge at the Edinburgh Festival, having won the position through a written competition in Time Out.
It turned out not to be rather hard work – charging back and forth across the city, seeing sometime six shows a day, with many of them not very funny at all, can become rather tedious. Often there were only five people in the audience!
However, I was lucky to see so many great comics before they'd become household names. These included the fabulous Sean Lock (love that man so much!), Rich Hall, Alan Carr, Dara O'Briain and Adam Hills. It was also the year that Jimmy Carr really came to the fore; for some bizarre reason, rather than being the obvious newcomer winner*, he was instead 'promoted' as a front-runner for the main award**.
In the judges' meetings I tried to champion a few of my favourite candidates, but was consistently overruled; often by people who hadn't even seen the shows and weren't even judges. It was rather demeaning; both for me and the acts I was trying to promote.
For instance, they said no to Andrew Maxwell because they thought he talked about football too much. I don't recall it being more that 10% football – I know diddlysquat about football I still found what he had to say really funny. Interesting that two years later he went on to win another major award.
I also liked Reg D. Hunter. But a few of the other narrow-minded 'judges' thought Reg was mysogynistic; something that hadn't crossed my mind at all. I thought he had just been making clever observations about certain types of females. I talked to him at the awards party and he was confused and concerned about this.
And then there was Brendon Burns who put on my second favourite show of the festival**. It was filled with clever, intelligent, side-splitting observations, including one hilarious story about an article in a newspaper that he (and I) had seen involving a man and a goat and a train. Sublime.
During the show he had an assistant tallying up the swear words. He was 'king funny and 'king clever, hence the montage of London king pictures at the top. But, yep, you've guessed it; some of the other judges thought he swore too much. Oh d'uh! It was part of the show!
Brendon is back in London next week with his latest show "Brendon Burns: Hasn't Heard of You Either" at The Soho Theatre, July 8–13th. Be prepared; there will, more than likely, be blaspheming!

* Newcomer winner 2002 – Flight of The Conchords (I preferred Hal Cruttenden, but have since fallen in love with the NZers)
** Main award 2002 – Daniel Kitson – it was almost a unanimous decision.

A day out in Margate

Two weeks ago I met my friend at London Bridge Station so that we could find and catch a train to Margate. We thought this was the most logical place to start; that trains departed London like the spokes of a wheel. After all, if I wanted to go to, say, Southend in Essex I wouldn't expect the trains to depart from Marylebone, or to Penzance from Kings Cross.
We bought our tickets but couldn't see Margate on the destination board. We were advised we'd have to change at Ramsgate and to use the back four coaches. Thinking this was normal we settled down for our journey and admired the countryside, wondering when we'd get to see the coastline. But the train took us via Ashford and Canterbury to Ramsgate where we picked up another train bound for London. Eh?! It turns out that if you want to go to the northeast tip of Kent the direct trains along the north coast leave from Victoria! Live and learn.
Had I seen Portillo's railway journey about the area, which was on TV last week and alas too late for this trip, I would have been better informed.
Anyway, we got there. And what a lovely town.
On exiting the station we were greeted by a fabulous old ghostsign advertising Dominion Motor Spirit, which I assume was some kind of oil. Crossing the road into Marine Terrace I was in heaven sitting in and photographing the Edwardian seating terrace (a similar one round the other side of the headland is in a sad state, fenced off and crumbling away). We had a wander on the gorgeous sandy beach, surely a contender for the finest sand in the UK, a paddle in the very cold sea, and then went for the obligatory seaside meal of fish and chips.

Margate, having fallen out of favour with holiday-makers over the past four decades has become a treasure chest of architectural delights for people like me. The streets, especially in the old town and along Northdown Road, are jam-packed with old shop signs, curved glass and island windows, hand-painted and hand-carved signs, mosaics and tiles, and lots more besides. Many of these lovely shops are now owned by second-hand and antique dealers. It was hard not to go inside every one.

The streets were so absorbing that we only just managed to get to the shell grotto before it closed at 5pm, and what a treat – I had no idea the place was so extensive and the work was so fine. Amazing that no one knows who created it and why.
Our last few hours were spent chatting to locals supping very fine beers at The Lifeboat, the local ale and cider pub, near Market Square – highly recommended. We'd have stayed longer had the trains been more frequent and faster (there's only one 'fast' train an hour in the evenings which takes approx 130 minutes). We only just caught 8.15 (to Victoria!) and finally saw the coastline with the sky glowing pink as the sun set on our great day out.
I can't believe it's taken me 30 years to return to Margate – I must go again soon, and for longer, perhaps a couple of days.

I also took lots of photos of the beautiful coastline, the grotto, Thanet wind farm and other local landmarks such as the clocktower, the old Lido, the entrance to Dreamland and that hideous modern tower of flats – find some of them here.

Crouch End Playing Fields and the Capital Ring

Have you ever walked down those footpaths that cut between the sports fields off Park Road, between Ally Pally and Crouch End?

I always feel when I am there that I have stepped back in time. Just fields and woods and cricket pavilions and people being sporty. I kind of expect a group of 1930s la-di-dah hoorays dressed in perfect period sports' whites, laughing and joking carrying tennis racquets and cricket bats, to skip past me at any my minute. It also reminds of when I was a child and I used to go on expeditions on my bike finding alleyways between the houses in Hornchurch that I though no-one else had a clue about. (Which reminds me, back in the 1970s there used also a disused row of lovely old houses in what is now Torrance Close at the north end of Harrow Lodge Park near Hornchurch Swimming pool – sadly now gone.)
The path between Crouch End Playing Fields starts at Park Road, passes some interesting wood carvings, and very quickly forks. The right hand path takes you directly across Wood Hill and into Queen's Wood which must be the loveliest bit of woodland in North London.
But Queen's Wood can also be reached without crossing a road by taking the longer prettier route accessed by the left hand fork which takes you right around the back of one of the cricket fields (there are three, yes, three cricket pitches, and lots of tennis courts) into a little wooded area, through a tree-bordered glade, back onto a wooded path and then through an old iron fence into Queen's Wood via the south east corner where it joins up with The Capital Ring.
From there... just keep walking...

Goodbye Georgiou's, Tufnell Park Road

There used to be a lovely little green-tiled convenience shop on the corner of Tufnell Park Road and Warrender Road, N19.
The owner passed away a few years back so the shop closed, and I watched the site with interest hoping someone would make good use of the old frontage.
As you can see here it has suffered terribly.

The main picture shows the shop as it was in 2008.
In January this year I noticed the shop windows at the front had been removed, and soon after some scaffolding was being erected. Then, last Thursday I stopped in my tracks when I saw the extent of the 'renovation' – there is nothing left of the old shop whatsoever.
One of the fellas working there saw me taking photos (that's him on the left, bottom right) and he came over to talk, thinking I was impressed. He asked me what I thought and I told him (ahem) how it was awful to have eradicated the historical element – all those beautiful hand-made tiles gone, probably dumped.
I also berated him for putting in nasty, unsympathetic, non-sash UPVC windows. He was bemused, probably thinking I was mad. Mad yes; but in the angry, frustrated way; not the loopy way. People like him seem to think that old is bad and dirty, and new and white is clean and good. Knob head (him not me).

In the same street I found a discarded, dirty and deflated Space Hopper, but at least this little fella, which is really tiny and looks to be made of really thin rubber*, brought back fond memories of the races my sister and I used to have in our garden in the seventies.

* I recall my Space Hopper was made of sturdier stuff and came in a box about 1ft wide.

Something fishy

Last night I spent another great evening at The Underground Cookery School.
Last time I was there we made pasta and casserole; this time we were butchering chicken and filleting sea bass. Some of the other girls were a bit squeamish about dealing with dead, gutted beasts; others managed to pulverise the poor creatures. But I was in my element, sharp knife in hand learning how to slice the flesh cleanly off the fish's spine and remove the little bones. And it tasted lovely too.
Here are some fishy things in and around the streets of London:

And here's a link to an old post about fishing practices.

Guerilla gardening in North London

The streets of Holloway are again blooming and more lovely pyramids of fiery nasturtiums can be found in Holloway, specifically Mayton Street.

Last year I spotted similar displays in and around the area including a wonderful little Christmas arrangement. 

And in other areas of Islington I have seen little min-gardens with tiny fences around trees. See the six pics on the left side of the montage below.

The other six photos on the right are from further north. Along the path that leads east off Park Road between the Crouch End playing fields there are some tree stumps embedded in the railings and these have been roughly carved. Lovely. Someone should do something similar with these. 

An Art Deco Walk in Bloomsbury

Here are some pictures I took whilst enjoying Art Deco In Bloomsbury (Architecture In The Machine Age) walking tour last Saturday afternoon.
Yannick is a delightful, enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide brimming with info. Recommended.

Yeah yeah... I know a lot of these things aren't Art Deco but they are on the route.

St George's, Bloomsbury

I hadn't noticed until April this year that the lamps at the foot of the front steps to this gorgeous church echo the design on the spire.
But if you look closely and compare these little metal designs to the larger edifice on the roof there are few differences.
If you look closely you can see that the lamps feature George looking more llike a toddler, the lions standing wearing crowns and the unicorns also on all fours but with no horns.
Perhaps the lamps are from earlier designs.

The six images on the left show the roof, and other six to the right show the lamps.

Who's giving me the eye?

Can anyone help with this?

This Eye of Horus is embedded in the pavement on Hampstead Road, near Mornington Crescent Station. Find it in front of Harrington Square's* railings, directly opposite the Art Deco Carreras building.

I am thinking that due to its locations and the arrow, which points north, it might be part of an Egyptian-themed trail/route.
I have tried to find out more about this but have so far hit a brick wall.

Incidentally, why is the Carreras Building still registered as Greater London House, even though Ken and the boys were only in there for such a short while and moved out decades ago?!

*Harrington Square is triangular

Holloway Festival – 1st–8th June

This Sunday 1st June sees the start of my local arts festival in Holloway.
Organised by Rowan Arts, it's jam-packed of things to do and see.
I'm involved this year and as well as being one of the featured photographers on show at The Postcards From Holloway exhibition I have produced smaller mounted prints and collections as per the one below, echoing the groups I put together here on Jane's London, and these will be for sale from my stall at the Hornsey Street Festival and the Big Day Out in Whittington Park on Sunday 8th.
Hope to see you there

Mount London – Ascents in the Vertical City

There are some great views across this fair city from high points such as Crystal Palace, Ally Pally and Richmond Park. Plus some fantastic vantage points from man-made constructions which include Hornsey Road's 'Suicide Bridge', BT Tower, The Wheel and the The Pointy Thing.
But on a smaller scale, London exists on a series of hills and mounds and this can be seen in the names of the streets, such as Saffron Hill, which to us today seems like a little blip and not worth mentioning.
Mount London is a collection of thoughts and observations by twenty-five different writers about these geographical ups and downs.
Published this Wednesday 28th May – more info here.
Below are some of my own observations on London's hills.

Corn, Denmark, Lavender, Rosslyn.

Stamford, Notting, Highgate, Crouch End.

Muswell, Haverstock, Primrose, Tower.

Bankside _ a Southwark Patchwork

A few months ago I was walking to London Bridge from Lower Marsh via Southwark Street.

Just south of Tate Modern, at the junction of Hopton Street I stopped to stare across at the old alms houses which are surrounded on three sides by huge glass monsters*.
I stood and surveyed the view for quite a while and, without moving from that spot, I took a series of photographs to illustrate all the different types of buildings.
Metal, glass, UPVC, more glass, cladding, some Meccano clips and a bit of brick.
This montage of selected images makes the area look really interesting, but in reality the it resembles some kind of architectural testing ground and I don't like it one bit.

  *I am building up quite a collection of these saved, yet smothered gems, so watch this space.

How to make a cup of tea

We are awash with branded coffee shops offering all sorts of different types from skinny latte decaf to double espresso. Yet the staff in these shops, who have managed to master the complexity of the barista machine, seem to lack simple tea-making know-how.
Often I have have purchased a much-needed cuppa only to lift the lid and discover a pale milky concoction with a teabag festering at the bottom; the tea having been made by adding the milk (often way too much of it for my liking) almost immediately after the hot water, therefore making the tea-brewing process redundant. It's barely possible to get more tea flavour out of a bag once the milk has been added. You wouldn't add milk into a teapot, so why put it in the cup?
And for this service they charge at least £1.50. It's so disappointing. And a rip off to boot!
To make tea – add boiling water to tea bag, let it rest/brew or squish the bag a bit, and then add milk if so desired. Satisfyingly simple!

Tea-related things in London

Museums and Heritage Show, Olympia 14th & 15th May

This show, taking place over two days within the West Hall at Olympia, will be packed full of cultural, archaeology, heritage and historical info.
Free to enter – pre-register on the M&S site.
Find me at stand L2.
And speaking of history, there is a fabulous old shop just around the corner, at the eastern end of Blythe Road. Now sadly closed, it's a mix of Edwardian, Art Deco and the Swinging Sixties:

That's the way to do it (again)

Whoosh!

Another year has whizzed past and it's Punch's birthday again.

As per last year, the celebrations take place in St Paul's church garden, Covent Garden.

Fun and puppets and food and stuff for all the family.

I will be there with my pipes.

The Sunlight Laundry

How on earth had I never seen this before?

Because, dear reader, I don't tend to use this part of Pimlico Road preferring, when heading to Victoria Station, to cut down Ebury Road.
Approaching from the west, the blue tiles caught my eye at first so I stopped to take a few snaps wondering what the original shop might have been.
Well, wonder no more Jane, because on the outside of the shop's eastern wall is a huge metal sign for the Sunlight Laundry alongside the original painted metal downpipe complete with a fancy hopper.
This old launderette at No.24 comprised one of the part of the ground floor of the block of Peabody's Coleshill flats. The sign and the blue tiles are in excellent condition.
I am assuming the name Sunlight ties in with the lemon soap of the same name which also can be seen on a few faded wall ads in London.
Sunlight has been making soap since 1884 and is now a part of Unliver.

Montague Burton, The Tailor of Taste

Back in the 1930s almost every decent high street in the UK had a branch of Burton selling menswear. So popular were they that it's said that pre-1950 25% of British men were wearing their clothes.

The company's large statement stores featured lots of lovely Art Deco motifs as well as the company's distinctive logo. A few buildings are still occupied by Burton, as at Tottenham Court Road Station, but most have long gone. Some details still remain on the old stores – iron grilles at foot level, doorway mosaics, faux temple columns and, as in Streatham (and Belfast), elephants' heads, a popular motif in that era.

Commemorative date stamps can be found on some of the buildings in the granite footings; it was only a few months ago that I noticed that McDonald's near the Nag's Head junction of Holloway was originally a Burton branch, s opened in 1929 by members of Montague's family. Odd that I hadn't spotted the marks when I was writing about the shop next door. More date stamps here.

This reminds me that back in the late1980s I bought a Burton's three-piece wool de-mob suit (often called a Full Monty) in dark brown with a light grey chalk stripe from Black Out II in Endell Street, WC2, an excellent vintage shop that I am glad to report is still trading today.
I made a few alterations to the jacket and trousers because the original owner must've been short and, er, squat. I took down and steamed out the turn-ups, added pleats to the trousers' waist, and moved the buttons on the jacket. I wore the it 'Kim Wilde style' with white shirt and sparkly jewellery. Though I did hear that it caused some blokes to assume I was a lesbian (idiots, but in most cases – phew!).
The suit had Burton's labels inside the pockets of the jacket and waistcoat (both lined in lovely thick cotton twill) plus the original owner's name written in ink, a name I cannot now recall and it never occurred to me to take photographs of the labels despite the fact that I liked to show this detail to friends or anyone who was interested.  

I don't recall when I got rid of it – I expect I gave it to a charity shop in the '90s. Back then I assumed suits like this must have been fairly commonplace, so I didn't consider it to be anything special. The most sensible thing would have been to have at least sold it back to the shop where I'd bought it – duh!
Obviously, I am now I am a little annoyed with myself because, having searched the web for reference of the same to include here, I can't find a similar suit, or a pic of the label. 
You'll just have to make do with this snap of me wearing the suit at a wedding – it's the only photo I can find of it.
Ah well.

Canalway Cavalcade at Little Venice

A great event takes place this Bank Holiday weekend in and around the canal junction of Little Venice.
From Saturday 3rd until Monday 5th May you will find all sorts of attractions on the water and the surrounding roads and towpaths. These include pageants, entertainment, boat trips, foods, stalls, music and dance.
Find out more here.

 Some of my London canal photos, from Limehouse Basin to Little Venice

African Galleries at the British Museum

Beneath the Living and Dying exhibits, in Room 24 at the back of the British Museum's courtyard, are two flights of stairs that lead down to the African Galleries.
I can't believe I had never found these fabulous treasures until earlier this year – and what a find!
Three rooms contain some absolutely gorgeous hand-crafted pieces including masks, bronzeworks, carvings and even a hat made out of spiders' webs.
Beautiful and inspiring.

Victoria Street – a glass corridor

As you will probably already know, I am not a fan of all these build-it-glass, build-it-fast, and build-it-high architecture that is sprouting up like a fungus all over this once great city.
Due to the homogenous design of these clip-together buildings I have been referring to this invasion of glass as 'The Dubaiification of London'
The latest victim of this spore is Victoria Street, SW1.
This vital route links The Palace of Westminster to Buckingham Palace Road and Victoria Station and, just like Cheapside* is in the process of being turned yet another glass river resembling a crevice in an ice flow.

Exiting Victoria Station one is confronted by the enormous upheaval of demolition and construction on a vast scale. Victoria Station itself is undergoing redevelopment, but works do not stop at the station concourse – there are other projects on the go at the same time and the whole of Victoria Street is a massive building site.
I photographed the area back in 2008, as shown above, and in July last year had access to see the huge hole made at the back of the The Victoria Palace Theatre. As you can see, Land Securities have very kindly kept the theatre but demolished a building of similar age that was to the right of it. The theatre will now sit like a tiny little child surrounded by huge shiny robots as per The Albert, a Victorian yellow brick public house that still survives on the corner of Buckingham Gate and is shown in the collection of images below.

What else is staying?
Little Ben has been removed – I assume he will return in the same position.
I notice the old Victoria Arcade has also been retained. I am hoping this is a permanent feature as I would hate to lose that beautiful (Doulton?) ceiling.  
But I am disappointed that the Overtons' sign on the building at the easter tip of the station concourse has been removed.
Westminster Cathedral's a bit old, so it's a good job we can't really see it. It can only be seen reflected in the glass windows of Victoria Street's upper floors, phew; that's a relief.
Compare and contrast... see the archive image above, bottom right, for how the Army and Navy Store used to look in 1905. Much of the rest of the street would have looked similar; imposing, solid and made to last... until someone with a wrecking ball and a love of mirrors came along.
I despair.
Read more about the plans for Victoria Street here.

*blimey, did I never get around to writing that one?

The tiles of Tottenham Lane and Hornsey

At the beginning of last century, Crouch End and Hornsey looked rather different – Edwardian high streets would have been lined with shops beautifully decorated with tiles and fancy ironwork. And many of them would have had a lot of produce outside the shop, hanging above, around and in front of the window, with the owner and staff smartly dressed in white aprons ready to greet their customers.

At street level, most London high streets show barely a hint of their past these days, but this area of N8, probably due to it's lack of tube station and minimal bus connections, still has a few shops that display some lovely glimpses of the past. I mentioned some of my observations in a post earlier this year. This time I am concentrating on the tiles.

And what amazing tiles! It's hard to fathom how they were chosen to go together as never in a million years would I have thought to put such patterns, colours and textures together on the same wall. But they look fantastic.

The pics below are from just three different shops:

Top row: On the corner of Tottenham Lane and Harvey Road is Garden Transformations who have painted their double-width shop bright blue and kept these tiles which are along the side street (phew!). The mix of colours and patterns is bonkers! As you can see from the pics above, florals are placed next to bright pinks and turquoises, with swags and brown reliefs all mixed in too. And, notice too, that the old curved window frames are still in place along that face.

Middle row 1 & 2: Also in Tottenham Lane. I found these by accident because I had a strange urge for a bag of chips – it must have been serendipity because on entering George's Fish Bar I was amazed to find that the shop is tiled on both sides up to dado level with these wonderful golds, blues and greens. I chatted to the owner and he tells me that there has been a fish shop there for over 100 years; that the tiles are from the first ownership (though he isn't George and he isn't related to George or his family). But how lovely that the tiles are still in situ. Shame the outside of the shop doesn't retain any of the original features though. Now it's got me wondering how many other shops along that stretch have tiled interiors... 

Middle row 3 & 4 and all of the bottom row: These tiles are from either side of a what must have been a terrace of similarly-decorated shops in Hornsey High Street. It's a japanese restaurant at the moment. The crazy mix of Edwardian tiles on both sides of the recessed window have been retained over the decades – I can't see a trace of paint on them, just a few stickers.  

Here's how the junction at Middle Lane has barely changed except for the look and feel of the shops and the kind of things they sell. The shops back then just looked nicer.