Hexham, Northumberland

 

Welcome intervention

I’ve written before about the many positive contributions to British culture made over the centuries by those who arrived on these shores as refugees.* Perhaps the contribution to architecture and design that has been most celebrated over the last 90 or so years was that of the numerous Jewish architects, designers, and craftspeople whose flight from Nazism brought them to Britain. But there have been so many others. One group that is not widely known nowadays is made up of the Belgians who came here after the fall of their country in the first year of World War I. The numbers were vast, their impact was varied, and when I visited Hexham I saw one building where it shows.

One craftsman who settled in the area was Joseph or Josephus Ceulemans, a woodcarver.† While in Hexham he restored Hexham Abbey’s medieval font cover, which had fallen to pieces, providing intricate carving to complement what was left of the original. More of his work is visible on a shop in Fore Street. In Ceulemans’ time this was Gibson’s the chemist, where a collection of Flemish and French books had been assembled so that the refugees, many of whom initially spoke no English, had something to read. Ceulemans lavished his carving skills on the shop front, adding a profusion of vine leaves and bunches ofd grapes above one doorway (top photograph) and creating a carved tribute to Philip Gibson, Freeman of the City of London, above the shop sign (lower photograph). There is also carved foliage of various kinds and several coats of arms.

The variety of decoration found on surviving Victorian and early-20th century shop fronts is extraordinary, from Gothic arches to Classical columns, cast ironwork to colourful tiles. Wood, however, is the main material for shop fronts of this date, and few are as decorative, or ornamented with such lavishness, as this one. Another Belgian refugee commented on his and his friends’ plight: ‘We find nothing to occupy ourselves …and this idleness weighs upon us.’ Some, though, like Joseph Ceulemans, did find things to do and this carving marks a turning point in a craftsman’s life. Forced to leave his homeland, he was trying to be as active as he could in his craft (keeping his hand in, as we say), while also, no doubt, paying a tribute to the local people who made him welcome.

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* For one piece I have written about the positive impact of settlers from overseas, see this blog post from 2014.

† I am indebted to the website of the Allen Valleys Local History Group for information about Joseph Ceulemans.

Devizes, Wiltshire

Boot’s Corner

One result of spending some time thinking and writing about the history of shops is that one becomes aware of the way different multiple stores liked to design their shop fronts – the light oak window frames of W. H. Smith, the muted, modernised neo-classicism of Marks and Spencer, and so on. Among the best of the bunch were a number of Boot’s branches in town centres, which were often placed on corner sites and sometimes adorned with statues of famous historical figures with a local connection. When I looked up at the corner of St John’s Street and Wine Street in Devizes, it wasn’t long before I guessed I was looking at a former branch of Boot’s.

In the 19th century, Boot’s began to diversify their range beyond the company’s core pharmaceutical products, taking in everything from cosmetics to photographic processing. As a result, they needed larger stores, often with room for an upper sales floor. They also chose corner positions to take advantage of higher footfall and shop windows facing in two different directions. The Devizes branch was one such corner shop, with the added feature of a round tower to emphasize the building and turn it into something of a landmark.

Then there were the portrait busts in roundels on the upper walls. Some of the more spectacular Boot’s stores (for example, in Newcastle, Derby, and Bury St Edmunds), boasted full-length statues. The Devizes branch, in a smaller town, made do with busts, but they’re still impressive. The busts form part of a decorative scheme involving very fancy window surrounds, running even to putti beneath the top-floor windows, and pilasters that extend up the full height of the building. The busts, set in garlands, are at the tops of the pilasters. The two busts in my photograph portray Hubert de Burgh and Edward I. Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent in the early 13th century, fought alongside Richard I during the third crusade, encouraged King John to add his seal to Magna Carta and became chief Justiciar of England. However, his enemies brought about his removal from office and he found himself imprisoned – in Devizes Castle, which is how his portrait came to be displayed on the walls of the Boot’s store in the town. The reason for Edward I’s presence here may be that the town sent two representatives to this king’s 1295 parliament, the so-called Model Parliament, because it set the precedent of boroughs sending two representatives to Westminster; for some historians, this makes the Model Parliament the first such representative assembly in England’s history.

One gets the impression, looking at the decoration on this building’s facade, that it was built to last and that Boot’s intended to occupy the store for an extended period of time. Although they no longer do, the facade remains as a reminder of the times when retailers put real effort into the design and construction of their shops, making the country’s numerous ‘Boot’s Corners’ a pleasure to look at.

Worcester

At the apothecary’s, 2

The old but restored chemist’s shop in my previous post, with its handsome wooden fittings redolent of the apothecaries of long ago, showed an excellent use for such a shop interior: it’s home to a business selling perfumes, skin products, soaps, and related items, which sit attractively on its shelves. Soon after seeing that shop in Matlock Bath, I stumbled upon another, in Worcester, This time, the shop building and frontage have gone, but the interior is wonderfully preserved, along with a great deal of its stock-in-trade, in the city’s main museum.*

This was once the interior of Steward’s, a chemist’s business started in 1876 and remaining in the same family until it closed in 1973. The beautiful mahogany fixtures were made in London and bought from Charles John’s General Fixture Warehouse, Drury Lane. Well made and serviceable, they were still in use when the shop closed, and no doubt these high Victorian shelves, drawers and cupboards were packed with the latest in pharmaceuticals and related products, with little of the Victorian stock on open display.

But the goods and gear of the Victorian chemist were not thrown away. The contents were kept: everything it seems was preserved, from the glass flasks and carboys to the metal moulds for making pills, from delicate, accurate balances for measuring the ingredients of medicines to a larger weighing machine on which customers could check their body mass in pounds and stones. Rows of boxes and bottles of old patent medicines remain too, testimony to a time when people in England knocked back quinine wine or warded off seasickness with a ‘Seajoy’ plaster.†

None of this would normally have survived in a modern pharmacy business, but it’s part of social history, and it’s both pleasing and educational to see it preserved and displayed here. Museums these days are short of money and a display like this, fragile and full of portable items on shelves and counters, needs constant supervision when open to the public. Therefore the museum can only open this room occasionally to its visitors – at the moment just on the first Tuesday of each month. When the Resident Wise Woman and I turned up the other week, we and the very helpful custodian were the only people there.

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* Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum; see my point about the restricted opening times of this specific display in the final paragraph.

† Quinine is certainly not a substance seen on British chemist’s counters today, although it still has restricted use under medical supervision; I’ve no idea whether ‘Seajoy’ bears any resemblance to the modern equivalents.

Lamp, which originally hung outside the pharmacy, preserved as part of the display

Matlock Bath, Derbyshire

At the apothecary’s, 1

While the Resident Wise Woman dived into the Old Apothecary Shop on Matlock Bath’s North Parade, her brain switching automatically to present-buying mode, I stood in awe looking at the shop front and the interior fittings.*

Although this street of shops was first built in 1835, it was made over just after 1900, and the then resident apothecary, Alfred Newton, oversaw the installation of a new shop window and the outstanding shelves, drawers, and counters inside. This was just the kind of interior that would have suited the fashionable pharmacist in the early-1900s. One would expect to see big glass carboys full of coloured liquids on the top shelves, packets of patent medicines in the display cabinets below, and equipment such as pestles, mortars, and accurate balances on the counter. There must have been perfumes too, precious phials and bottles displayed securely in the glass-fronted cabinet: the word ‘perfumery’ still marks it out in carved wooden letters of an ornate and Art Nouveau style.

Such shop interiors are rare survivors, the sort of thing one is as likely to see in a place like the Black Country Living Museum as in a real, working high street. It’s remarkable to find this one, among neighbouring emporia selling beach balls and ice cream, still used for goods related to the ones first sold here.† A multiple pleasure, for social historians, architectural historians, and shoppers alike.

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* This is not the first time I have been indebted to the Resident Wise Woman for leading me into a shop of architectural or historical interest; I am forever grateful.

† Matlock Bath’s ‘retail offer’, as they say these days, seems, for an inland town, remarkably skewed towards businesses that are generally seen at the seaside. There are amusement arcades and candyfloss too.

Upton on Severn, Worcestershire

 

Continuity or change?

The small riverside town of Upton-on-Severn has one of those traditional high streets that has evolved over the years to meet local needs, with apparently few incursions in the form of multiple retailers or big brands. You’ll find early-19th century buildings (sometimes with Venetian windows above), Victorian shop fronts, and a scattering of Edwardian or later gilded shop signs, preserved against the odds. Here’s one that’s small and quite easy to miss. It is above the door of one of the few ‘big names’ in Upton, a branch of Boot’s. It’s a pharmacy now and clearly was in 1881, when John Gibbs put up his plate in this very building.

Were pharmacists in the 1880s still stamping out pills by hand using little brass moulds and pouring our lotions and tinctures from large glass carboys? I’m not sure, but if they weren’t, that time could not have been long past. Pharmacists still have to be well qualified of course, but these days the medicines are usually manufactured elsewhere and packaged in blister packs. The gilded lettering of Mr Gibbs’s sign certainly harks back to the earlier era. It’s shiny but not flashy – simple, clear capitals that have none of the curls and elaborations of other Victorian signs. The effect must have been traditional and reassuring even in the 19th century.

And of course, it’s personal. When this sign was made, local people would have known the pharmacist and would have spoken of ‘Going to see Mr Gibbs,’ for some advice and a remedy. Today, the premises bear the name of the best known high street chemist. But it’s still not impossible that the people of this small town know the people who work here, and speak of them by name, and think of them differently from those who live in a big town and speak simply of ‘going to Boot’s’ to pick up their prescription. I don’t know this to be the case, but there’s the possibility of such a connection and continuity, reflected by the gilded lettering of this sign. If it’s there, it’s worth hanging on to.

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

High Street heroes

At first glance, this striking shop front is confusing, first because it’s not the 17th-century building it might appear to be and secondly because the premises are occupied by W. H. Smith, a company once known for ornate facades. But it wasn’t built by Smith’s. Originally, this was a branch of Boot’s the chemist, who could also put on a bold front. In the early years of the 20th century, Boot’s did a number of revamped shop fronts using timber framing with ornate plaster infill, and some of these were festooned with eyecatching details such as carved bargeboards, fancy brackets, and even statuary.

I’ve long been a fan of the large former Boot’s in the middle of Derby, which is on a prominent corner site and has a succession of statues of local Derbyshire worthies that must be almost life-size. The former Boot’s in my photograph, in Bury St Edmunds, is smaller, but equally ornate, with a full compliment of woodcarving, pargetting, and four large statues. The design dates to 1910 and was the work of the company’s in-house architect, Michael Vyne Treleaven, who set this style for their shopfronts in this period.*

The statues set in decorated niches across the facade were the work of a London sculptor, Gilbert Seale & Co of Camberwell, who did more than one job for the company. They feature, from left to right, Agricola, St Edmund, Edward I, and Edward VI. These figures all have local relevance as well as their wider significance: Edmund was the local saint, Edward I held parliaments here, Edward VI founded a local grammar school, and the Roman general Agricola led his people’s conquest of Britain and crushed the uprising of Boudica, local queen of the Iceni; one source suggests that this figure is actually another Roman general, Trebonius, who accompanied Caesar on his Gaulish and British campaigns. Boot’s the chemist, under its gifted owner Jesse Boot and his successors, was well aware of the benefits of local publicity, and was keen too that his premises should be assets to the towns where they were located. It would be wonderful if today’s retailers took such care over their architecture.

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* Thanks to the reader who confirmed that the design of the Bury shopfront was Treleaven’s.

Bath, Somerset

Polish

I'm not sure if I'm right, but I associate these large brass shop signs particularly with chemists' premises. They were an elegant fashion of the 19th century, and the curving line of the sign catches the light well. No doubt the resulting glitter reflected that of the various medicine jars that were once displayed in the shop window. The use of brass perhaps also embodies the pharmacist's association with the medical profession. Doctors, after all, traditionally identified their surgeries with a brass name plate (the French talk about a doctor "putting up his plate" when a new practice is established). Whether or not this is the case, brass signs like this are certainly eye-catching, and I was pleased to find this one surviving on a shop long since given over to the purveying of cheese, coffee, charcuterie, and "fine wines".

The letters are cousins of the sans-serif or  "grotesque" capitals I noticed here, although they take an outline form and are maybe rather thin and spindly. Their details owe more to the metalworker than the sign-painter or stone-carver. But looked at from a distance, the outline form of the letters makes a clear and stylish impact. Examined more closely, they show the irregular impressions made by the metalworker's tools, as if the letters did not get the way they are without a lot of hard work. This is mark-making with a difference, and the result sets up a lovely counterpoint between the straight lines of the letters and the irregular strokes within those straight lines, between roughness and, what we first notice when the sign catches our eye, sheer polish.