- W Plumb the butchers shop
- The cashier’s booth
- Beautiful tiles
- The looking towards the front of the shop
- An Art Nouveau door handle
- Inside the cashier’s booth
- ditto
- ditto
- Steel racks and more lovely tiles
- 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’
- Foreign Office – A Great Hall
- Ornate fire places
- The Muses stairwell
- Very shiny floors
- and a very shiny conference table
- One of many beautifully ornate ceilings
- An enormous door hinge
- The ceiling of a very ornate stairwell
- 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 andĀ 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.