Swift & Company Ltd
Swift & Company Ltd, Braggs Lane, Bristol BS2, 2013 • Stunning little tiled relic of a 1920s American meat packing and refrigeration company – more info here.
Birchington Ice Cream Parlour & Patisserie
Birchington Ice Cream Parlour & Patisserie, 11-13 Minnis Road, Birchington-on-Sea, […]
Victoria’s Tea Rooms & Restaurant
Victoria’s Tea Rooms & Restaurant, 11-13 Minnis Road, Birchington-on-Sea, Kent, 2006 • Lovely deco fan light doors and net curtain combo. This adjoined an equally retro ice cream parlour – I […]
Cafe Restaurant
Cafe Restaurant, 25 St Cross Street, Borough of Camden, London EC1, 2001 • Wonderful old Italian caff shot with dreadful old digital camera – both long gone. According to a […]
J.E. Bailey
J.E. Bailey, 67 Aston Street, Wem, Shropshire, 2017 • I started going to places in Shropshire just because of the weird names – Clun, Wem, New Invention (a real if […]
Robert Forsythe
Robert Forsythe, 54 Wardour Street, City of Westminster, London W1, 2017 • Brief revelation of a stunning art deco ghost sign for a theatrical tailor. The premises had previously been […]
Blustons
Blustons, 213 Kentish Town Road, Borough of Camden, London NW5, 2015 • Art deco stunner opened in 1932 and closed down after 85 years of trading in April 2015. Sadly […]
Spar (Battersea)
Spar (Battersea), 23-27 Falcon Road, Battersea, Borough of Wandsworth, London SW11, 2002 • Part of a large black marble art deco block, possibly an ex-Burtons. Later became a Tesco Express.
Adana
Adana, 162 Grays Inn Road, Borough of Camden, London WC1, 2001 (top two images) & 2013. Beautiful art deco glass sign for Adana, a make of printer. It was retained […]
S.&V. Knitwear, L. London & Sons
S.&V. Knitwear, L. London & Sons, Alie Street, Shoreditch, Borough of Tower Hamlets, London E1, 2004 • Beautiful art deco-looking ghost clock on a derelict knitwear factory, which has since […]
Neasden Parade
Neasden Parade, Neasden Lane, Neasden, Borough of Brent, London NW10, 2016 • Art deco parade that has seen better days. Even the ‘A’ is dropping off…
Beatties (House of Fraser)
Beatties (House of Fraser), 71-78 Victoria Sreet, Wolverhampton WV1, 2016 • Beatties is a defunct Midlands store chain that grew from a drapery business founded in 1877; all branches have […]
The French
The French, 190 Albert Road, Southsea, City ofPortsmouth, 2016 • Brightly shuttered ex-bakery with what looks like an original 1930s sign, possibly dating from the legend that reads: “Prop R.S. […]
The Forum
The Forum, 8-9 Market Place, Hexham, Northumberland, 2016 • Art deco cinema still in operation, complete with with cafe and built-in J.D. Wetherspoons. It’s Northumberland’s only full-time cinema, and has […]
Hexham Old Bus Station
Hexham Old Bus Station, Priestpopple, Hexham, Northumberland, 2016 • Charming but doomed little art deco bus stand at the centre of an old-fashioned parade in the wonderfully named Priestpopple. There’s now […]
Hair and Body, Sole Man
Hair and Body, Sole Man Shoe Repairs, 25 & 25a Corbets Tey Road, Upminster, Borough of Havering, London RM14, 2016 • From plain-talking head to punning toe in a faded […]
Roomes
Roomes, 41-49 Station Road, Upminster, Borough of Havering, London RM14, 2016 • Immense deco-tiled store still in operation. The homeware firm Roomes was founded in 1888 this is their 1927 branch […]
Towers
Towers, 31 High Street, Hornchurch, Borough of Havering, London RM11, 2016 • Hard to believe, but this stunning 1935 ex-cinema is due for demolition. Lidl, who plan to replace it […]
Beacon Bingo
Beacon Bingo, The Old Cinema, Baxter Gate, 37-40 Churchgate, Loughborough, Leicestershire, 2016 • Thank goodness for bingo halls keeping all these old art deco cinemas alive. This one has a carefully […]
RPG
RPG, 93 Constance Road, Leicester LE5, 2016 • If you want your name to last, write it in stone. Can’t find any history on this deco small business centre, yet […]
Wildt Mellor Bromley (Roti House)
Wildt Mellor Bromley (Roti House), c.431 St. Saviours Road, Leicester LE5, 2016 • Imposing deco edifice that was once home to one of the world’s largest knitting machine manufacturers, which hit […]
Masjid-Noor-Ul-Islam
Masjid-Noor-Ul-Islam (Linden Street Education Centre), Linden House, Linden Street, Leicester LE5, 2016 • Streamlined art deco mini-liner that only became a mosque after 2014. I can’t find out what it originally was, but […]
Blunts Shoes
Blunts Shoes, 128-132 Granby Street, Leicester LE1, 2016 • Immense deco bunker built in 1932 to house the Harris furniture store, and still with period fittings inside. Blunts (whose giant Shropshire signage […]
Kingstone
Kingstone, 66-67 Belgrave Gate, Leicester LE1, 2016 • Modernist grade II listed 1937 furniture store with pink Vitrolite stripes, designed by Australian architect and glass fan Raymond McGrath. It’s only the second-known […]
Michael de Carle
Michael de Carle, 75 Hook Road, Surbiton, Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames, London KT6, 2916 • Beautiful yet sad coiffeur found via a tweet from Phil Day aka @HappyPlums. He also tweeted an image […]
Radio Days
Radio Days, 87 Lower Marsh,Borough of Lambeth, London SE1, 2010 (top) & 2015 (bottom) • Original black Vitrolite on a long-established vintage emporium whose Biba-esque frontage and evocative 1940s soundtrack […]
City Motors
City Motors, 7 Wadsworth Road, Perivale, Borough of Ealing, London UB6, 2006 • Classical portal for car wreck specialist. The door is still there, but the sign has gone, and […]
Empire Milk Bar
Empire Milk Bar, Picadilly Circus Tube Station, City of Westminster, London W1, 1988 • True fact – there was a 1930s-style milk bar operational in the orange-columned depths of Piccadilly Circus tube […]
Greggs (Leyton)
Greggs (Leyton), 857 High Road, Leyton, Borough of Waltham Forest, London E10, 2016 • I went all the way to Leyton to photograph this 1930s Greggs and it was closed! […]
Floorcraft
Floorcraft, 20a Oxford Street, Whitstable, Kent, 2002 • DIY sign-painting meets mini-grandeur. Now houses Oxford Street Books.
Falcon Print Transport
Falcon Print Transport, 310 High Street, Stratford, Borough of Newham, London E15, 2006 • Mini art deco print transport HQ, next to the fabulous West Ham Labour Party building. Now […]
Famous Amusements Emporium (JG’s)
Famous Amusements Emporium (JG’s), 3-9 Tontine Street, Folkestone, Kent, 2008 • Classic neon ghost sign on what was once the street’s oldest boot and shoe shop – there’s a photo of that here. By […]
Ex-shop with sunray windows
Ex-shop with sunray windows, 161 Camberwell New Road, Borough of Southwark, London SE5, 2001 • Art deco transom lights are the only remnant of this shop, which was still the […]
376
376, 376 Forest Road, Walthamstow, Borough of Waltham Forest, London E17, 2004 • Only the net curtains remain in this traditional green shop, which I’d guess was once a cafe. […]
Building Supplies Ltd
Building Supplies Ltd, 49-51 High Street, Leatherhead, Surrey, 2003 • Classic fleapit-era tiled retail unit sold for redevelopment around 2015. You can see it still open in 2014 here.
Ian S Davis
Ian S Davis, 66 Hanover Street, Liverpool L1, 2014 • Ex-optician in art deco tiled building.
Lewis’s
Lewis’s, 40 Ranelagh Street, Liverpool, 2003 and 2010 • Grubby city centre monolith, slated to become a Lidl, featuring an imposing male nude statue (apparently known locally as Dickie Lewis) by […]
ABC Cinema (Liverpool)
ABC Cinema, corner of Lime Street and Elliot Street, Liverpool L1, 2003 • Right opposite Liverpool’s main train station, a grubby Grade 2 listed disused deco cinema built in 1931. It’s not […]
Frankle Trimmings
Frankle Trimmings, 281-285 Bethnal Green Road, Borough of Tower Hamlets, London E2, 2005 • Art deco cinema, now a trimmings emporium. Apparently it was renovated 2005, maybe just before I […]
Minerva Hotel
Minerva Hotel, 10 Nelson Street Kingston upon Hull, 2013 • Handsome waterfront hostelry boasting ‘the smallest pub room in Britain’. These deco doorcases are a later addition to the essentially 1850s […]
Look-In, Aylesbury ex-Odeon
Look-In, Aylesbury ex-Odeon, 48 and 44 Cambridge Street, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, 2010 • The TV shop shares a name with a popular 1970s kids’ TV mag, and apparently closed down 2005-ish. That’s Aylesbury’s ex-Odeon […]
Spemco Manufacturing Ltd (Intra)
Spemco Manufacturing Ltd (Intra), 337-341 High Street, Rochester, Kent, 2015 • Defunct electrical products company behind a zigzaggy deco frontage. Intra is an arts venue and studio complex that now occupies the premises.
Thomas Cook (Cambridge)
Thomas Cook (Cambridge), 8 St Andrew’s Street, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, 2010 • Interesting art deco window, boring noughties sign.
H. Samuel Everite Time clock (Cardiff)
H. Samuel Everite Time clock, Central Market, St Mary Street, Cardiff, Wales, 2012 • Now that’s what I call a clock, albeit handless and ‘everwrong’. It’s pictured earlier with hands here, […]
B&L. Stevens, Roger’s Gents Barbers
B&L. Stevens and Roger’s Gents Barbers, 51 and 51a Walton Street, Walton-on-the-Hill, Tadworth, Surrey, 2003 • Charming little bike shop from the days before they got all hipster (and still the […]
Sainsbury’s Local (Stratford-upon-Avon)
Sainsbury’s Local (Stratford-upon-Avon), 8-9 Bridge Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, 2012 • Very similar to yesterday’s mystery art deco facade. It also features in this engrossing compendium of art deco buildings, but […]
Retail Therapy
Retail Therapy, 80 High Street, Poole, Dorest, 2004 • A very distinctive art deco frontage – I wonder if this used to be a Burtons?
Broadway Market
Broadway Market, 42 Tooting High Street, Borough of Wandsworth, London SW17, 2006 • A hotspot for tattoos and “Kenkey” (whatever that is), this opened in 1936, and proclaims itself South London’s biggest […]
Sheffield Engine Services Ltd
Sheffield Engine Services Ltd, 100 Catch Bar Lane, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, 2010 • Arched facade in classic fleapit cinema style, with added flagpole antennae. It’s next to the lovely Edwardian-style William Confection ghost […]
Nameless ex-works (NuWeld Engineering Services Ltd)
Nameless ex-works, circa 36 Oxford Street, Birmingham, 2014 • A […]
The Smithfield Garage Ltd
The Smithfield Garage Ltd, opposite 38 Meriden Street, Birmingham, 2005 • According to the history here this was built by Harry Weedon, an architect known for Art Deco factories and […]
Burton (Royal Victoria Place)
Burton, Royal Victoria Place Shopping Centre, circa 29 Calverley Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, 2014 • According to the article here the local council refused permission to demolish this frontage and made the developer take […]
Kenilworth Castle
Kenilworth Castle, 104 St Anns Road, Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London W11, 2002 • Unusual post-war council estate pub on the fringes of posh Holland Park. By 2012 it was painted blue and much […]
Sir Robert Peel, Krystals Express
Sir Robert Peel, Krystals Express, 178 Bishopsgate, City of London, London EC2, 2004 • Something of an oddity – commemorative 1930s tiling on a circa 1900 pub named after the prime […]
Knight & Willson Ltd.
Knight & Willson Ltd., 127-129 Water Lane, Leeds, West Yorkshire, 2014 • Another built-in clock, this time on an immense derelict printing works – no doubt an urban explorer’s delight – in a canal-side industrial area […]
S.C. Price & Sons
S.C. Price & Sons, 7 Castle Street, Ludlow, Shropshire, 2014 • A beautiful sunray door in foodie Ludlow, and so traditional they call it a “confectioner” (which used to denote […]
Dreamland
Dreamland, Marine Terrace, Margate, Kent, 2014 • I couldn’t leave Margate without photographing this famed old amusement park, which was nearly destroyed by arson in 2008. It’s currently shuttered, but is […]
G.W. Horners
G.W. Horners, 21 Anlaby Road, Hull, 2013 • Pub in an imposing ex-fleapit, The Regent, which was built in 1910 (the towers were added later) and owned by the same family […]
Queen’s Garden News
Queen’s Garden News, 10a Alfred Gelder Street, Kingston upon Hull, 2013 • Alfred Gelder Street – named after Hull’s most famous architect – launches in style with this liner-like black deco building, […]
Boots Opticians (Strand)
Boots Opticians (Strand), 428 Strand, City of Westminster, London WC2, 2012 • See what I mean about Boots being in interesting buildings – in this case, a slim Art Deco throwback […]
Wakefields Jewellers
Wakefields Jewellers, 11 West Street, Horsham, West Sussex, 2003 • This art deco frontage must have been an early “update” for Wakefields, established in 1911. It’s still there – jewellers seem […]
Virgin, Republic (Walsall)
Virgin, Republic, 18-22 & 16-18 Park Street, Walsall, West Midlands, 2005 • Another grand Walsall building – it certainly outlasted Virgin.
Teignmouth Parade: Terry’s News, Lloyds TSB
Terry’s News, Lloyds TSB, 4 & 3 Teignmouth Parade, Perivale, Borough […]
Teignmouth Parade: Devine Creations, Videotalk
Devine Creations, Videotalk, 5 & 6 Teignmouth Parade, Perivale, Borough of […]
Spar (Derby)
Spar (Derby), 6 The Spot Osmaston Road, Derby, Derbyshire, 2010 • Impressive art deco parade which used to sell provisions, but is now a Money Shop, opposite a Poundland. Sigh.
Gilham
Gilham, 4 Saint Thomas’ Square, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 2002 • Last hoorah of an imposing deco greengrocers now unrecognisable as Level Hair & Beauty.
Modern Furniture
Modern Furniture (Ego & Id Ltd.), 43 Rowlands Road, Worthing, West Sussex, 2004 • Multilayered palimpsest of a ghost sign that’s still there, though the shop beneath has changed into The […]
Textra Furnishing Fabrics
Textra Furnishing Fabrics clock, Cleary House, 15-16 Newman Street, City of Westminster, London W1, 2004 • Art deco ghost-clock reminder of a long-gone shop in the dwindling rag trade area of […]
Bloomsbury Service Station
Bloomsbury Service Station, 6 Store Street and 2-8 Ridgmount Street, Bloomsbury, Borough of Camden, London WC1, 2002 • Another quaint garage, founded 1926, which by 2002 must have been London’s most […]
Chequers Lane Garage
Chequers Lane Garage, 3-5 Chequers Lane, Walton on the Hill, Tadworth, Surrey, 2003 • Attractive old-style garage (website here), founded 1991 but making sympathetic use of a facade from the dawn […]
West Ham Labour Party
West Ham Labour Party, 306 Stratford High Street, Borough of Newham, London E15, 2006 • This dilapidated Moorish-style party edifice is still in place, albeit with updated fascia – though given […]
The Molesey Fish Bar
The Molesey Fish Bar, 260 Walton Road, West Molesey, Surrey, 2003 • Unassuming outside, streamline moderne (and annoyed punter) inside. That’s a Milly Dowler “missing” poster in the window, sadly.
Ex-Franklin Barnes
Ex-Franklin Barnes, 12 Bridge Street, Hereford, Herefordshire, 2008 • 1930s “streamline moderne” facade that looks like an ex-cinema, but was originally Franklin Barnes & Co Ltd, a farm and garden supplies emporium. […]
Millennium Cafe
Millennium Cafe, Silvertown Way / Brunel Street (South), Borough of Newham, London E16, 2002 • Totally demolished, and even the side road has gone.
Notarianni & Sons
Notarianni & Sons, 142 Battersea High Street, Borough of Wandsworth, London SW11, 2002 • Exceptionally fine 1950s diner-style facade later mainly concealed beneath a maroon Indian restaurant fascia.
Adhesive Specialities Ltd
Adhesive Specialities Ltd, 59 Ladywell Road, Borough of Lewisham, London SE6, 2010 • Classic little art deco factory with a brilliant name, knocked down weeks after I happened across it, […]
C.E. Pound
C.E. Pound, 162 Trafalgar Road, Borough of Greenwich, London SE10, 2002 • This art deco-ish beauty may still lurk beneath current incumbent Mr Chung’s equally large sign.
Cafe Breakfast Dinners and Teas…
Cafe Breakfast Dinners and Teas…, 177 New Kent Road, Borough of Southwark, London SE1, 2001 • Generic yet specific; and I like the 1930s stepped fascia. Now plasticky blue Cafe […]
Shopfront Elegy 