Strand, London

Tea break

The last few months have seen me wind down my paid work as part of my preparation for retirement. This process has involved saying farewell to my time as a teacher of courses – I did my last in August – and I have just done what is probably the last of my various talks and lectures. I’ve enjoyed this activity hugely. One of the drawbacks of life as an author is that writing is a solitary activity. Getting out and speaking and teaching means I get out and meet people, mostly people I’d never have met otherwise. I’ll miss that, but I’ll not be sorry to give up the travelling. In the past, driving to a venue to teach or speak has had the bonus of taking me to new places and countryside too. But increasingly it is feeling like hard work.

My last talk happens to be one I call ‘Great British Brands’, a brief introduction to the history of a number of famous food and drink brands, a subject that caught my interest when I wrote a book about the history ofd shops and shopping, years ago. Among the companies featured in the talk is Twining’s, one of the most celebrated British tea brands, which has been going strong for more than 300 years, albeit these days as a part of a larger conglomerate. So here’s a picture of the entrance to Twining’s premises in London’s Strand, the site where the founder, Thomas Twining, set up Tom’s Coffee House in 1706.

Tom, who was from a family of Gloucestershire weavers, came with his family to London to find work, did his weaver’s apprenticeship, but decided that he’d prefer to work for one of London’s merchants instead. The merchant was handling shipments of tea, and Tom eventually went it alone in the tea trade. He succeeded because tea was newly fashionable and because he sold dry tea to women, who were not allowed into conventional coffee houses in London, which were men-only. This doorway is later than the original coffee house, and was built for Tom’s grandson, Richard Twining, in 1787. The two men in Chinese dress refer to the source of the tea and the lion symbolises Twining’s dry tea and coffee shop, which was known as the Golden Lion.

And so you see even a talk on food brands has been an excuse to show people memorable bits of architecture and design – from Cadbury’s factory at Bournville to shop signs advertising Hovis bread. For now, I’m not retiring from sharing similar things on this blog, for those who are interested enough to look and read about them over a cup of tea, and, I hope, go and see for themselves.

The Strand, London

Tea up the Strand

I’d worked in the Covent Garden area of London for years before I noticed this doorway on the Strand. It’s a bit of architecture – small in scale but grand in conception – that celebrates one of the most famous brands of the quintessentially English drink. Twining’s tea has a long history. The company was founded by Thomas Twining, who was born in Gloucestershire and came to London make his fortune when his family’s business – they were weavers – took a downturn. In London he worked for an East India merchant who bought and sold tea and made enough money to set up in business in his own right, buying Tom’s Coffee House in the Strand in 1706. Tom’s became a coffee house with a difference – tea, a beverage that had been made fashionable by Queen Catherine of Braganza, was sold there and although it was costly it proved popular.

In the 18th century, coffee houses usually served only men. But women liked tea too, and many upper-class ladies wanted to serve it at home. So they’d turn up in the Strand in their carriages and send a footman in to buy tea leaves. Word soon got round that you could buy tea here and Twining’s were made: they expanded the business, acquired a royal warrant, fulfilled orders using horse-drawn vans, and, by the end of the 19th century, were using the tea clippers – famously fast sailing vessels – to import tea from China.

Throughout their history, Twining’s stayed faithful to their original premises in the Strand. The company still occupies the building and you can still buy tea there. The street frontage is not large, but the entrance is magnificently decorated. It is topped by an array of ledges and panels supported by a pair of columns topped by acanthus capitals. This arrangement stretches classical architecture to its limits. The ledges provide a place for a pair of sculptures of Chinese gentleman, to remind customers of one source of the precious leaves. A royal coat of arms and a gilded Coade-stone* lion complete the picture. This delightful if eccentric collection of sculpture and ornament was reconstructed in the 1830s – the columns and capitals were apparently moved here from another building. The result, architecturally, is a memorable mixture of classicism and Chinoiserie, with a twist on the classical orders provided by the unusual acanthus capitals. The lion belongs to neither tradition but is very much part of Twining’s history: Thomas Twining was already using a lion as his shop sign in 1717. The brand’s heritage shines on. 

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* For some background on the use of this artificial stone, see my post on a Coade stone royal arms in Bath. 

Strand, London

Green and gleaming: Illustration of the month

‘Have you seen how “VITROLITE” has brightened the bathrooms at the Savoy Hotel London?’ That’s the headline of a full-page advertisement in the August 1936 issue of The Architectural Review. The artwork, which I've chosen as my illustration of the month, shows a bathroom of great Art Deco elegance. The walls are clad mainly in eggshell green Vitrolite, a form of opaque pigmented glass that was especially popular between the two world wars, with strips of Wedgwood blue here and there to provide accents. The Vitrolite is fitted to different heights in different parts of the room, giving a stepped effect (partly visible in the reflection in the mirror) that’s typical of this decorative style. The chromium-plated fittings, angular basin and bath, and glass shelf complete the picture.

Everything is shiny and reflective (easy to clean and dazzling to look at), and the anonymous artist of this illustration is at pains to capture these mirror-like surfaces in the picture – a rug with a zigzag pattern is revealed reflected in the Vitrolite that surrounds the bath. The image is full of telling details: those reflections, the green soap, the glassware on the shelf. Everything works together, and everything is shiny and modern. The design was by Stanley Hall, Easton and Robertson, and perhaps this glamorous illustration was done in their office. It brings back the period and the style as perfectly as the Art Deco cinemas and factories of which I’m so fond.

Strand, London

Fish facing

My interest in the work of the Doulton ceramics company, as featured in the previous post, alerted me to this building long before I actually managed to find it. It's easy to miss, because this part of London, where the Strand and Fleet Street meet, is full of rival architectural attractions, from the Law Courts and the church of St Clement Danes to the premises of Twinings, purveyors of fine teas. This richly decorated building began life as the Palsgrove Hotel, and its entrance lobby is a dazzling array of Doulton tiles decorated by John H McLennan. McLennan worked for Doulton for some 33 years, coming to their Lambeth factory at the age of 17 in 1877, while continuing his studies at the Lambeth School of Art. A mere year later he won a silver medal at an exhibition for a portrait of Handel on a ceramic plaque, and he continued to win prizes, as well as completing decorative schemes for prestigious Doulton clients such as the King of Siam and the Czar of Russia.

His tiles for this hotel lobby form a riot of foliage, animal heads, figures, and ornate architectural details. A relief panel depicts fish disporting themselves amid sinuous waves and this theme is continued on the end walls, where flying fish with big wings and twisting tails stand out from niches. Above the fish, on a keystone, is the letter P for Palsgrove Hotel, in the fanciest Victorian script. I'm not sure of the significance of the fish – maybe the hotel had a fish restaurant – but the creature takes its place among a decorative ensemble that is at once exotic and typically Victorian in its richness of detail.

If all these beasts and fish, flowers and leaves, capitals and keystones,  were outstanding in a hotel, they seem even more remarkable in a bank, which is what this building became in 1895, when Twinings, who had diversified into finance and were running a bank from their neighbouring premises, took it over. Nowadays, it's a branch of Lloyds and offers customers a visual feast as they queue to use the cashpoint.

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There's more about this building at Caroline's Miscellany, here.

My main source for information on John H McLennan is Desmond Eyles and Louise Irvine, The Doulton Lambeth Wares (Richard Dennis, 2002)