Amazing & Extraordinary Facts: London by David & amp; Charles Editors of

Author:David & amp; Charles, Editors of
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781446354537
Publisher: F+W Media
Published: 2011-07-06T20:00:00+00:00

The Statue of Anteros

The large retail shops which now dominate the area appeared from the latter half of the 19th century, the major exception being Fortnum and Mason which opened as a grocery store in the 1770s close to its present site. It was founded by Charles Fortnum, a footman in the household of George III who used his knowledge of the needs of the royal household, and his friend John Mason, a groom, who organised the deliveries.

Savile Row’s first tailors arrived in its smart residences from the 1850s. In 1875 Arthur Liberty opened a shop in Regent Street, calling it East India House, and specialised in selling fine silks. In 1881 the shop became very popular when librettist WS Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan incorporated Liberty fabrics in costumes for their comic operetta Patience; its designs also became associated with the work of the Pre-Raphaelites and William Morris. The sports shop Lillywhites began to trade near Euston Station in 1863, the enterprise of a family of cricketers. It did not move to Piccadilly Circus until 1925 where it remains, still the nation’s largest sports store. In 1909 the flamboyant American Gordon Selfridge opened London’s largest department store on Oxford Street on a site which in 1765 had been occupied by a furniture store bearing the name of the Waring family (later Waring and Gillow). In the meantime Waring and Gillow had moved to new premises in Oxford Street. Sam Waring encouraged Selfridge’s new enterprise on condition that Selfridge did not sell furniture, a promise he kept. The Waring and Gillow stores closed in the 1980s but Selfridges continues to thrive.

THE LONDON PANTHEON

In 1772 the architect James Wyatt opened the Pantheon (Greek, ‘to every god’) on Oxford Street as a place of entertainment with card rooms, tea rooms and music rooms. Its design was based on that of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (now Istanbul). It became in turn an exhibition centre, theatre, opera house and bazaar, each of them being financially unrewarding. In 1937 the site at last became profitable when it was bought by retailer Marks and Spencer who kept the name Pantheon for the store.

Shops defunct – and Harrods

Some once well-known names have not survived. Jackson’s of Piccadilly was established as a wax and tallow chandler by the 1820s though it later became established as a food shop, famous for its teas. Its name survives on branded goods supplied to other retailers but the shop closed in 1980. The same is true of the men’s outfitters Simpson’s of Piccadilly which closed in 1999 and became bookseller Waterstone’s largest store. The TV scriptwriter Jeremy Lloyd worked at Simpson’s as a young man and drew on his experiences when writing the popular television comedy Are You Being Served? A name now forgotten is that of James Shoolbred, a large department store on Tottenham Court Road which specialised in fine furniture, much of it made in-house, and other wooden artefacts, notably jigsaw puzzles. It traded from the 1820s and closed in 1931.

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