View allAll Photos Tagged shopfitting
From a very lavish production, printed of course by the CWS's own Printing Works at Reddish, is a description of the new flagship department store for the huge London Co-operative Society in Hounslow that opened in 1958. The building that I suspect was at the eastern end of Staines Road has now I think been demolished. What seems to have been of especially interest was the "Starlight Room" restaurant pictured here with some amazing internal decorative features and I so hope they were saved but I strongly doubt it. The images dscrive the interior and show some of the sand-blasted mirrors showing the symbols of the Zodiac.
The book describes the many new shops, stores, factories and offices for the CWS and the various Societies were designed by the CWS's own Architects Department in the day when the Society basically made and did everything its members could need.
From comments on Twitter - astonishingly this building was indeed demolished a few years ago - what happened to these fittings from the restuarant that apparently had a view from "Windsor to the South Downs" no one knows.
Display magazine was one of the trade journals that specialised in shop design and display for the retailer and national advertiser, showcasing products and displays in various retail settings. The January 1958 issue contained an article looking at christmas shop displays both in London and the Provinces for the Christmas just gone.
This page shows London stores Bourne and Hollingsworth, Whiteley's in Bayswater as well as LDB in Portsmouth and Manfield's shoe shop in Ranelagh St, Liverpool.
Crosse & Blackwell were a well-known British manufacturer of preserves, pickles and sauces - their head office was at the top of Charing Cross Road - the site is now forming part of the extensive reconstruction of the London Underground station at Tottenham Court Road. The lettering on the facade is very fine - and the shop was fitted by Pollards, the Shopfitters. Crosse & Blackwell (whose name is still used) also owned Keillers, the marmalade makers.
Shop fronts and facades are seemingly amongst the most ephemeral and transient of features and few 'originals' survive especially in today's modern craze for constant renewal guided by generally poor architectural taste and poor materials. Mind you, high 'art deco' was not, and is not, every ones taste - but you have to admire the chutzpah of this shop front in Victoria Street, London, c1930, seen in a design magazine article.
Allen-Liversidge was formed in 1908 and seems to have started by manufacturing motoring 'requisites' such as acetylene lamps for cars, etc. In time, from their works in Cricklewood, they moved into the wider field of gases and associated equipment for welding. They were taken over by the expanding British Oxygen Company in 1930. Joseph Emberton (1889 - 1956) was one of the first English architects working in the contemporary 'Modernist' style and is remembered for his work at the Olympia exhibition halls in London and Simpson's store on the Strand, also in London.
I couldn't resist taking a photo of the interior - impossible now as they've painted over the windows while shopfitting takes place. Goodbye Lovejoys, it was nice to know you.
N.B. This picture is part of a set showing how one of London's most famous streets used to look in the 20th century, before major demolition work started in the 1960's and more recently, due to the Crossrail development. To take a trip down the Charing Cross Road, starting at St Giles Circus in the north, click here www.flickr.com/photos/59082098@N05/sets/72157629469822347/ to see the Astoria when it was a Crosse & Blackwell pickle warehouse, the old Jacey news theatre and many other buildings, long since disappeared.
Tables and benches made by www.woodrecycling.org.uk from reclaimed and recycled wood, for The Fountainhead, Brighton www.drinkinbrighton.co.uk/fountain-head
Shop display shelving and counter made from recycled and reclaimed wood for This is Not A Butchers, Brighton by www.woodrecycling.org.uk
www.facebook.com/pages/This-Is-Not-A-Butchers/14336558912...
Tables and benches made by www.woodrecycling.org.uk from reclaimed and recycled wood, for The Fountainhead, Brighton www.drinkinbrighton.co.uk/fountain-head
I do like a 1950s store design and they are now, as constructed, virtually extinct in the UK. This article in the November 1951 Art & Design describes the remodelling of the once famous Cardiff department store of David Morgan's, now closed, by designer Gaby Schreiber FSIA.
The text describes the fact that due to post-war restrictions on building refurbishing existing estanblishments was the main route to renewal at the time and shows several departments as reconstructed, such as the Restaurant Suite and the new Deymel Delicatessen, the latter looking superbly continential in style/ There is also a description of some of the shop fittings and display equipment - I'd love that free-standing perfumery show case - and also, with b/w photography, gives an indication of the colour schemes and materiality used.
Gaby Schreiber (1916 - 1991) was born in Austria but came to the UK in 1938 and became a noted designer working for many companies such as Marks and Spencer and Cunard.
I wonder when all this was swept away? Retail 'environments' are notoriously fashion-led and so fickle survivors. David Morgan's building survives despite an early closure in 2005. Always independent the company had opened in 1879 with the main Cardiff building, and associated arcades, dating from the 1890s and early 20th century.
Interior of the Grasmere Gingerbread Shop, Grasmere, Lake District, Cumbria
Some background information:
The famous Grasmere Gingerbread Shop is a teensy cottage, which once used to be a school. It is located next to the parish church of St Oswald. Many gingerbread lovers from all over the world stop for a treat there whilst visiting the Lake District. Inside the shop the famous Grasmere Gingerbread can be bought and also tasted. Grasmere Gingerbread is still baked according to a recipe from 1854 by Grasmere’s then resident Sarah Nelson.
Sarah once was a poor woman with a hard life. Sarah’s husband Wilfred worked as a farm labourer and part-time grave digger, but was unable to earn enough to support his wife and two children. Therefore Sarah herself also kept her nose to the grindstone by taking in washing and making cakes and pastries for Lady Farquhar in her home at Dale Lodge.
One day she was encouraged by Lady Farquhar’s French chef to make gingerbread. As the Victorian tourists passed by, they would see Sarah donned in her white apron and shawl sitting out in her cobbled yard selling her wares of Helvellyn cakes, aerated water and most importantly gingerbread.
Her gingerbread became renowned and soon she was wrapping it in pure vegetable parchment printed "None Genuine Without Trade Mark". The recipe was locked away in the local bank vault. Sarah abandoned her parlour, and hung a curtain across her kitchen to form a passageway from the door through to the diminutive shop. Sarah had now established herself as "Baker and Confectioner of Church Cottage, Grasmere".
In 1869 and 1870 tragedy struck when both Sarah’s young daughters died of tuberculosis. And a few years later her husband Wilfred also died. She turned to her work, even making gingerbread alphabets, then covering them with thin horn to protect them, and using them to teach the village children. She died in 1904 at the age of 88 worn out by her hard work. But fortunately her secret recipe did not die with her.
A shop being fitted into Hive at Masshouse.
Wonder if they will add steps and a ramp to get up to there?
Also a Spar is about to be fitted into the first Masshouse block.
A page from a substantial book illustrating the steel work and other engineering contracts carried out by the West Bromwich based Braithwaites. Founded in 1884 as Braithwaite & Kirk the company prospered mainly due to a healthy export business in the 'colonies' as well as in the home market and indeed in 1913 they opened an Indian branch as well as later acquiring additional works in Newport, Monmouthshire.
This spread shows the then new Prudential Assurance Company's Birmingham offices in Colmore Row, opposite the railway station on Snow Hill and indeed the text alludes to the fact that this building was partially over a 'main line railway' as the GWR tunnels run under this site. The building is still with us (something of an amazing thing in much mauled Birmingham) and indeed the Halifax "Building Society" are still, I think, in the same shop. To the left can be seen the ZIP dry cleaners and the corner of what I think was the Kardomah Cafe. One unit is still being fitted out and this work is being underaken by a well known Birmingham company of shopfitters who are still on the go - Edmonds. I recall their offices were not far away in Hockley?
Frederick Sage & Company Ltd was a global British shopfitting business that had bases in Europe, South Africa and South America. During both WW1 and WW2 the company diversified into aeroplane design and manufacture and this significant badge, with outstanding visual presence, captures the very essence of their aeronautical ventures.
During WW1, the Company's aircraft design and making division was responsible for a twin-engined bomber, a biplane-fighter and a biplane-trainer. Once WW1 ended, the company returned to its shopfitting roots and continued uninterrupted until the outbreak of WW2. At this juncture, the Company once again resurrected its aeronautic interests and manufactured parts for the De Havilland Mosquito. At the end of hostilities, Frederick Sage & Co once again returned to its shopfitting and woodworking business by winning the commission to rebuild the interior woodworking of the bombed House of Commons.
Throughout its varied past, the Company was responsible for many prestigious interior projects such as the original retail fit-out of Harrods in Knightsbridge and many of the historic shop fronts in Regent Street, Oxford Street and Bond Street.
Frederick Sage and Co Ltd was founded in 1860 and was based, until being bombed in 1941, in Grays Inn Road, London.
Photography, layout and design: Argy58
(This image also exists as a high resolution jpeg and tiff - ideal for a variety of print sizes
e.g. A4, A3, A2 and A1. The current uploaded format is for screen based viewing only: 72pi)