Curry15
Georgian Shopfronts: Woburn Walk
This is the only Georgian street (of shops) that I know of in London, which is so perfectly preserved. They are mentioned in John Summerson's Georgian London and were built by Thomas Cubitt in 1822, they are grade II* listed. In the 1890 street directory there were chemist, baker, grocer cheesemonger, tobacconist AND a cowkeeper & dairyman. A plaque on no 5 marks the house of W B Yeats, who lived here between 1895 and 1919. The reason for bowed shopfronts was that the glazing bars were on the outside and the puttied rebate was inside, the reverse of the usual practice. It was easy to dislodge the putty, remove the glass and steal something. This was safer, they would rarely have been fitted with 'bottle glass'.
Woburn Walk was originally known as Woburn Buildings.
'The shopfronts were designed with great skill. The window stood in the centre, flanked by doorways, and was the same shape in plan as the balcony over, projecting over the pavement to the level of the sill, beneath which were two shaped brackets. Each window was divided by very delicate glazing bars into twenty-four panes, four panes high, and curved at each side. Over the whole ran an unbroken entablature, which followed the window curves, with twin pilasters between each house. A single-moulded cornice, frieze (functioning as a lettered fascia) and an architrave with continuous anthemion ornament made up this most effective shop design. The doors were of four panels with rectangular fanlight above. The curved sill of each window was enriched with guilloche ornament Between each pair of doors was a wrought-iron scraper. The rainwater downpipes, with moulded heads, were neatly arranged in alternate recesses between the housesThe houses were of three storeys with stucco fronts, each being emphasised by recessing the walls where the houses joined. A plain coping over a projecting band was used as the finish to the parapet with scroll cresting at special points, and each of the upper storeys had a single broad window with slightly arched head, within an unmoulded architrave studded with paterae. The original form of the windows seems to have been a broad sash window, three panes wide with a single light on each side. The firstfloor window had an ornamental balcony of cast iron with curved ends.'
. . . British History Online
Woburn Walk was used in the Poirot episode The Clocks.
Georgian Shopfronts: Woburn Walk
This is the only Georgian street (of shops) that I know of in London, which is so perfectly preserved. They are mentioned in John Summerson's Georgian London and were built by Thomas Cubitt in 1822, they are grade II* listed. In the 1890 street directory there were chemist, baker, grocer cheesemonger, tobacconist AND a cowkeeper & dairyman. A plaque on no 5 marks the house of W B Yeats, who lived here between 1895 and 1919. The reason for bowed shopfronts was that the glazing bars were on the outside and the puttied rebate was inside, the reverse of the usual practice. It was easy to dislodge the putty, remove the glass and steal something. This was safer, they would rarely have been fitted with 'bottle glass'.
Woburn Walk was originally known as Woburn Buildings.
'The shopfronts were designed with great skill. The window stood in the centre, flanked by doorways, and was the same shape in plan as the balcony over, projecting over the pavement to the level of the sill, beneath which were two shaped brackets. Each window was divided by very delicate glazing bars into twenty-four panes, four panes high, and curved at each side. Over the whole ran an unbroken entablature, which followed the window curves, with twin pilasters between each house. A single-moulded cornice, frieze (functioning as a lettered fascia) and an architrave with continuous anthemion ornament made up this most effective shop design. The doors were of four panels with rectangular fanlight above. The curved sill of each window was enriched with guilloche ornament Between each pair of doors was a wrought-iron scraper. The rainwater downpipes, with moulded heads, were neatly arranged in alternate recesses between the housesThe houses were of three storeys with stucco fronts, each being emphasised by recessing the walls where the houses joined. A plain coping over a projecting band was used as the finish to the parapet with scroll cresting at special points, and each of the upper storeys had a single broad window with slightly arched head, within an unmoulded architrave studded with paterae. The original form of the windows seems to have been a broad sash window, three panes wide with a single light on each side. The firstfloor window had an ornamental balcony of cast iron with curved ends.'
. . . British History Online
Woburn Walk was used in the Poirot episode The Clocks.