Umbrella men
This is one of my favourite London shop fronts, and I expect a lot of my readers are familiar with it too. So, instead of the main double-fronted New Oxford Street façade, here’s a photograph of the part around the corner in West Central Street, which, like its bigger conjoined sibling, is largely from about 1870 (although the business was established 40 years earlier) and packed full of Victorian exuberance. Gone is the restraint of the Georgian and Regency periods, when shops often had rather discreet bow windows and shoppers had to peer through small panes of glass at the goods within. Instead there’s Victorian display in all its hyperactive glory. The Gothic iron cresting above the fascia, the use of mirror glass, the division of the glazing into large sections, the brightly polished metalwork just below the window, and, most of all, the lettering – it is all very much and very richly of its time.
Most of the signage consists of lettering painted on to the back of glass panels. This is done in a choice of letterforms that will delight anyone with an interest in 19th-century graphic art – I especially like the capital J with its branching top and all the ornate gold capitals in the upper part of the window (the transom light in shop-parlance).
The stock that’s being advertised also harks back to another world. Not just umbrellas, but sticks and whips are offered, and, on the New Oxford Street front, Malacca canes and tropical sunshades evoke the imperial past. Dagger canes and swordsticks are mentioned too – you’ll not be able to get those today – all lovingly lettered as only the Victorians knew how.
Swordsticks or not, there’s something satisfying about the fact that, after 170 years in business, the umbrella men are still plying their trade here, with ranks of brollies at the ready for a London downpour. And if your fabric’s torn or a spoke gets bent, the Victorian signage advertises repairs too: ‘Umbrellas recovered, renovated & repaired. Sticks repolished.’ Bring your parasol…
