Wiseman (The Card Shop)

Wiseman (The Card Shop), 40 Seaside, Eastbourne, East Sussex, 2015 • Nice old step logo, but I can’t find any info about what the shop sold. The arcade windows suggest […]

Percy Harrison

Percy Harrison, 117 Elm Grove, Southsea, City of Portsmouth, 2016 • 1950s-style optician that looks too perfect to be real, but it is. I though it was closing down, but […]

Pitchers (Caffe Nero)

Pitchers (Caffe Nero), 91 High Street, Godalming, Surrey, 2016 • Attractive ghost-step for a knitwear emporium, now leading to a Caffe Nero. Pitchers was a sports sweater manufacturer founded in the 1880s […]

Bridge Hotel

Bridge Hotel, Castle Garth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2013 • Forbidding but fantastic pub built into Newcastle’s old town walls and perched high above the river Tyne, bracketed by two of the city’s spectacular bridges. […]

Rowson (Claims Management Centre)

Claims Management Centre, 25 Frankwell, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, 2014 • Another nice step leading to another depressing manifestation of our current society.

Valley Vapes

Valley Vapes, 20 Castle Gates, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, 2014 • I’ve never seen a shop for these creepy devices before. Lovely step and entranceway, though.  

Hawkes

Hawkes, 99b High Street, Poole, Dorset, 2004 • High quality 1960s frontage, complete with a tiled hawk sign on the floor (just visible) and some French onions outside. Once the largest […]

Two Way Books

Two Way Books, 54 Gardner Street, Brighton, East Sussex, 2010 • Old-fashioned book exchange in Brighton’s trendy Laines.

Tudor Williams

Tudor Williams, 94-98 High Street, Dorking, Surrey, 2008 • Another nice doorstep with a dull shopfront attached; these op-art stripes look rather art deco.

Easiephit Footwear (Wherry)

“Easiephit” Footwear (Wherry Estate Agents), 115 High Street, Lowestoft, Suffolk, 2007 • Great mosaic ghost sign step with a boring estate agent attached. I assume it was once a shoe shop.

Wainwright & Sons (Risborough) Ltd.

Wainwright & Sons (Risborough) Ltd., 69 High Street, Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, 2007 • Formerly Grover, according to the doorstep, and in its last days here. Google Street View showes it vacant […]

Mercure Hull Royal Hotel

Mercure Hull Royal Hotel, Paragon Station, 170 Ferensway, Hull, 2013 • Built in 1849 and recently refurbished, this is at the start of Hull’s Philip Larkin trail. It’s described in his […]

James Smith & Sons

James Smith & Sons, Hazelwood House, 53 New Oxford St, London WC1, Borough of Camden, London WC1, 2011 • A new Year’s present of London’s most famous old shop, an impossibly […]

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 […]

Scratch n’ Dent

Scratch n’ Dent, 211 Tarring Road, Worthing, West Sussex, 2003 • I love the wonky carpet of tiles, and it’s a great name for a shop, though now more poshly rebranded […]

Hotel de Boulogne (London Chinatown)

Hotel de Boulogne (London Chinatown), 27 Gerrard Street, City of Westminster, London W1, 2002 • Belle epoque mosaic step now adding an incongruous continental flavour to Soho restaurant London Chinatown. 

The Polyshop

The Polyshop, 48 Tarring Road, Worthing, West Sussex, 2003 • Sinister heads and inexplicable bunnies, still there in 2012 but with a less lovely logo.

F.H. Hannis

F.H. Hannis, 65 Gloucester St, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, 2007 • The note in the door suggests it was shuttered in 1999; in 2012 it became a posh deli, keeping the lovely mosaic […]

Gardner & Finch

Gardner & Finch, 70 Caledonian Road, Borough of Islington, London N1, 2012 • Quali y Butch r – a classic old  frontage at the letters-falling-off stage. By 2017 it still looked […]

Jean

Jean, 18 High Street, Caterham, Surrey, 2001 • Sigh – shops named after their owners, selling random bits of haberdashery, are a dying (if not dead) breed.

Ye Olde Town Launderette

Ye Olde Town Launderette, 28-30 King Street, Margate, Kent, 2012 • Yeah, I’ll go to the launderette in the new town, thanks.