Dirty Old London  published by
Yale University Press (October 2014)

Wednesday 13 August 2014

Covent Garden to Soho

Beginning in Sheffield Street, opposite the LSE's new student services building, there's a pleasing granularity to the dissolution of Hepburn & Cocks (box makers) ...


Across Kingsway, the crazily circular geometry of Wild Street modernity looms over the Edwardiana around it ...


Something quite pleasing about this corner on Kemble Street ...


The Theatre Royal's neon sign somehow looks rather shoddy and bare in the daylight ...


Nice use of tiling to name these blocks of flats ...


And a sign harking back to when 'hawkers' and 'traders' had bells ... can't have been many of them, these buildings are not *that* old ... the rag and bone man, perhaps?


I have no idea why the Church of Scotland should maintain a 'crown court' in London ... 
[oops, hang on, the street is called Crown Court]


The spirit of the Great Exhibition lives on in the former flower market, now Floral Hall of the Opera House on Bow Street ...


The famous magistrate's court remains, however, disused ...


The White Lion on Floral Street has some spiky rooftop defences ...


The market roof (a Victorian addition) catches the sun quite nicely ...


Meanwhile, the silver-costume statue man prepares for his day ...


No shortage of tourists ...


Some antique-looking electronics built into these reformed gas lights (I assume now electric ... hard to tell in daylight) ...


Odd design  for a warning notice, particularly the nice pic of the Church ... which is literally just behind it ...


I doubt Bedfordbury has any 'general builders' these days, although I may be wrong ...


A rather grumpy chap stuck in 1894 on New Row ...


Leicester Square is an ancient part of London but there's not much great architecture left there ... here's a few nice details on the rooftops ...


And there's the frankly eerie sculpture celebrating London's (meagre?) connections with Switzerland, which includes this ...


Lights off Oxendon Street ...


A sundial from the 1600s bolted onto an early 20C building ...


This is very rare ... semi-circular crown ?holders? on front step railings ... for putting something in, perhaps, but what? Lamps? 


I always like to see street numbering tackling in new ways ...


This naked lady soars above the Haymarket with a couple of similar friends. Tacky, yes, but also remarkable in the way it catches the light, and shines against different coloured skies. I actually quite like it ...


Like the cockroach, the Aberdeen Angus steakhouse will survive when all the rest of London is levelled to the ground ...


A dull-looking neglected bit of ironwork at the Trocadero ...


No idea why this lurks next to the Raymond Revue Bar in Soho ... spooky ...


St. Anne's church, Wardour Street, boasts a fountain from the late-Victorian Metropolitan Public Gardens Association ...


And opposite, grating musical ...


A decaying bike lock on Winnett Street has a certain appeal ...


Whilst above the strip club in Tisbury Court is a Rely-a-Bell ...


A reminder of how difficult it is to actually draw a car, on Archer Street ...


Brewer Street mixes Dry Cleaning with Manga ...


This was once a rather damaged Victorian street sign (see http://t.co/mBS3be9KVc)


Westminster signs always seem to acquire an appealing penumbra of filth/erosion around their edges ...


The Champion Pub on Eastcastle Street has some great stained-glass windows - I'm guessing 1920/30s, but could be earlier ... anyone know?


And finally, wandering through Fitzrovia, spotting a dragon in Cleveland Street ...

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