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- W Plumb the butchers shop
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- The cashier’s booth
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- Beautiful tiles
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- The looking towards the front of the shop
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- An Art Nouveau door handle
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- Inside the cashier’s booth
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- ditto
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- ditto
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- Steel racks and more lovely tiles
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- A glimpse of the floor tiles with one tile a different colour and an ‘error’ in the pattern because only the gods could be perfect,so tilers always made a ‘mistake’
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- Foreign Office – A Great Hall
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- Ornate fire places
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- The Muses stairwell
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- Very shiny floors
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- and a very shiny conference table
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- One of many beautifully ornate ceilings
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- An enormous door hinge
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- The ceiling of a very ornate stairwell
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- Palmerstone The Cat, himself, much photographed!
This weekend is Open House in many and diverse properties around London. We picked two to visit today. First we headed to W Plumb at 493, Hornsey Road N19 http://takeabutchers.uk/history.html, beautifully preserved examples of a number of architectural styles, including Art Nouveau, in a shop opened as a butchers in c. 1900. A description and its history can be found on the website. If you are anywhere near there tomorrow it’s an unexpected gem in a sadly down at heel area.
From Holloway, via a very good fry up in a greasy spoon on Junction Road, Archway, by bus(es) to Westminster and the Foreign Office. Interesting to get a glimpse at some of the corridors of power, all on a massive scale and very, very, shiny. Reassuring security and although the queue was long, it moved quickly and in such a vast building there was plenty of room for all!
Please click on the pictures for captions.