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Shops
Stanley Gibbons's stamp shop was not the only mecca for nineteenth-century collectors, as Dr Adelene Buckland (English Department, King's College London) demonstrated at the 'Shows of London' seminar series on Monday night at King's (see http://showsoflondon.wordpress.com/). On the opposite side of the street to Gibbons's establishment, at 149 Strand, was a mineral shop from 1804-1881. Read more »
This is my sister, Kate, eating ice cream (or is it yoghurt?) on a September day in 1982. This was a few years before I was born, but it's evocative of my own childhood memories of the Strand.
Self described ‘war baby’ Judith Herrin was born in 1942 and lost her father, who was serving in the Air Force, a year later. Her mother, a general practitioner, never remarried. Regardless, Judith remembers a happy childhood and had a very close relationship with her mother, who took her on many holidays to places like Scotland and France. These trips, frequently including forays to ancient castles and other iconic sites, were partly responsible for Judith deciding to become a historian. While studying in Cambridge, the Byzantine era in particular caught her attention. Read more »
Not far from the theatres, still on the north side of the Strand, is the world-famous Stanley Gibbons stamp shop.
Stanley Gibbons. Photo taken April 2012.
Their website shows what the shop looked like in the late-nineteenth century, when it was at 391 Strand:
Stanley Gibbons, founded in 1856, on the late-Victorian Strand. Images from the Stanley Gibbons website.
In the 1720s, Mrs Holt's Italian Warehouse (a warehouse was a sort of 18th-century department store) in the Strand opposite Exeter Change. According to the trade card that William Hogarth engraved for her, she stocked Read more »
Shopping! This was a major activity on the Strand in the nineteenth-century, and West Strand was the site of the renowned Lowther Arcade (near where Coutts stands today):
The Lowther Arcade, from The Mirror, April 7 1832. Westminster Archives Centre.
This covered shopping area was a favoured destination for whiling away the time in bad weather. You could buy toys and other gifts here.
Recently returning from a shopping trip to Tesco, I passed the side of the Opera House laden with shopping & as I turned the corner I was met with a raucous noise & what seemed like a carnival atmosphere, but couldn't see where the noise was coming from. It reminded me of the protest march at the weekend & I just rushed on as all I wanted was home & a cup of tea.
John Edmund Gardner was the youngest son of Thomas Gardner who described himself as an Oilman. The Gardners had been selling lamp oil at No.484 Strand for more than thirty years when John Edmund was born in 1819. They were also considerable property owners. Thomas's will made in 1837 with codicils in 1838 and 1840 mentions 35 houses both freehold and leasehold in various parts of London, including No 4 Leicester Square. John was baptised, like all his siblings at St Mar Read more »
Pushka
The little Russian doll
was called Babushka
The name was evocative
of my feline pal Pushka
It was an austere autumn night Read more »
