Carolineld

LATEST ARTICLES ( 790 )

• Permanent Waving, Electric Massage

  

  Above an estate agent's in Wells, Somerset, stained-glass windows advertise a former business. It offered quite a variety of services for appearance-conscious... Read more

  Posted on 21 April 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Ghost Signs (87): Lil's Cafe, Leeds

  

  This sign is so perfectly in tune with current vintage fashions that it's hard to guess its age. However, Lil's Cafe seems to have been gone for some years... Read more

  Posted on 16 April 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• At the Huguenot Festival

  

  When the Huguenots - French protestants - fled persecution and moved to London, many of them brought skills as silkweavers. They settled in Spitalfields, away... Read more

  Posted on 14 April 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Ghost Signs (86): Pammastic!

  

  Travelling on the 123 bus through New Eltham, I saw a ghost sign which had been painted over. That the cream covering hadn't proved stronger or more durable is... Read more

  Posted on 12 April 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Hare Court and Arthur Cohen

  

  Temple, the area south of Strand largely occupied by barristers' chambers, has been home to two Inns of Court - Inner and Middle Temple - since the middle ages. Read more

  Posted on 09 April 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Ghost Mosaic

  

  Dinard, on Brittany's Emerald Coast, has long attracted summer visitors: the British have been holidaying here for a century and a half. Read more

  Posted on 07 April 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Leeds Curiosities

  

  Leeds grew enormously in the nineteenth century, so it's no surprise that much of its architecture - civic, commercial and industrial - should be Victorian and... Read more

  Posted on 02 April 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Ghost Signs (85): Subscription News Room

  

  At the top of Saddler Street, Durham, near the castle, is an early nineteenth-century building. Above its door is a painted sign: Subscription News Room. Read more

  Posted on 31 March 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Tea, Fish and Finance

  

  The sinuous ceramic fish I shared a few days ago is just one of the decorative features in the lobby of Lloyd's Bank, Law Court Branch. Read more

  Posted on 26 March 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Margate Ghosts

  

  Right outside the railway station is a good, if faded, sign for Dominion Motor Spirits. Like many signs, it partly owes its survival to the newer advertising... Read more

  Posted on 19 March 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Kew Gardens, Culture and Empire

  

  In 1910, a Japanese-British Exhibition was held in White City. Among its attractions was a large and elaborate gateway, a four-fifths size replica of the Gate o... Read more

  Posted on 17 March 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Thomas Myddelton, Lord Mayor of London

  

  Today, Sir Thomas Myddelton (c1550-1631) is pretty much forgotten in favour of his younger brother Hugh of New River fame. However, Thomas was pretty important... Read more

  Posted on 14 March 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Boy and Serpent, Weston-super-Mare

  

  I'm very fond of cast-iron fountains, and Weston-super-Mare has a lovely example on the sea front. It has been in place since 1913, and was recently restored... Read more

  Posted on 12 March 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Conservation up Close

  

  The Painted Hall of the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich is one of Britain's baroque masterpieces. It has also spent the last three centuries as a tourist... Read more

  Posted on 10 March 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Sunlight

  

  Although you can no longer wash your clothes here, the enamel sign for the Sunlight Laundry still brightens up Pimlico Road. The company was founded in 1900, an... Read more

  Posted on 07 March 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Scooby Kew!

  

  Scooby Doo appears to have visited Kew Gardens!He is actually one of the Queen's Beasts, ten heraldic animals representing the genealogy of Elizabeth II. Read more

  Posted on 05 March 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• From Ladywell to Travancore

  

  Ladywell may be a local cemetery, but many of its gravestones have international links. Among these is the memorial to Augusta Mary Blandford, who died aged 71... Read more

  Posted on 28 February 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Ladywell Cemetery, Motor Buses and 'the Black Death'

  

  As London's churchyards became dangerously overcrowded in the nineteenth century, new facilities had to be established outside the city centre. The most famous... Read more

  Posted on 26 February 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Hawksmoor, the Underground and Amazing Grace

  

  We should be grateful to the engineers of Victorian London that St Mary Woolnoth still stands. The church is directly above Bank station, so any mistake in thei... Read more

  Posted on 24 February 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Cambridge's Mission to Ilderton Road

  

  A church on Ilderton Road, Bermondsey is a reminder that Victorian missionaries did not always work overseas. Many public schools and Oxbridge colleges ran... Read more

  Posted on 22 February 2013 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY