Old times, gentlemen, please

This inviting glass sign lured us into the Museum Tavern in Bloomsbury, London - right opposite the British Museum. I’d heard it was a bit of a tourist trap so I had fairly low expectations, but inside it’s a relaxed Victorian pub, with a good mix of customers and some rare cockney accents.

The Tavern was expanded in 1855 and pleasing original features – such as this cut glass window, carved wooden fittings and pretty coloured glass – still survive.

It’s hard to believe now, but the area was full of swamps and ponds in the early 18^th century. The pub on the site was called the Dog and Duck, and the area was a hunting ground for the Duke of Montagu, whose house later housed the first British Museum. 

Gorgeous Gaskell house

If you live anywhere near Manchester, get down to the Elizabeth Gaskell house, recently restored and open to the public. The house is shown as a home, as if Elizabeth had just left the room to write a quick chapter or to welcome another guest. As well as displays on Gaskell and Victorian Manchester, there is a great library full of titles the family read - and you’re actually allowed to touch things. They also do a nice line in quotes on the wall and really excellent cake. Check it out here. 

Pioneering picture taking

A visit to the Rochdale Pioneers Museum today reminded me that I had a picture of this rather fine old co-op sign, taken on holiday in Devon last summer.

The museum has a great exhibition of photos of co-op signs – old, new and international. It’s on until 28 February 2015. Catch it if you can, and follow it on #coopography.

Going nowhere

I love this redundant sign. It’s at the back of a building in Salford which has reinvented itself several times over. Starting as a Scottish Presbyterian Church in 1846, it was given a new life in 1912 as a cinema. It closed in the 1950s, and reopened in 1967 to serve as a bingo hall for 18 years. Now, it’s a church again, home to the New Harvest Christian Fellowship. You'll have to go in at the front, though. 

Withy Grove Stores

I love this decrepit old Manchester building and its once-fine sign. And its history is more colourful than the sign suggests. In 1723, a group of Spanish steel workers were working their passage to New York. They stopped in Liverpool and put their steel skills to good use, joining a company which supplied the maritime trade with iron clad strongboxes and seaman’s chests. When the Leeds and Liverpool canal was opened, the business expanded with this store in Withy Grove, Manchester, which opened in 1850, and in Leeds. The business is still trading today.

The Liberty of Norton Folgate

A Liberty was an area in London considered independent of the city’s normal administration. They tended to attract people eager to be unrestricted by the usual rules and regulations – actors, writers and criminals, for example. Norton Folgate, in Spitalfields, was home to Christopher Marlowe in 1589, and later boasted a playhouse which specialised in Victorian melodrama. The Liberty ended when it became part of the borough of Stepney in 1900.

The land for these Norton Folgate almshouses in Puma Court was bought in 1851 and the houses were built in 1860. Recently modernised, they are governed by Church trustees and Tower Hamlets council.  

Sshhh

Brave little sign at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Completely ineffective, of course. 

And all the better for it. The courtyard was full of tourists and children expressing delight, and the atmosphere was really rather nice.