Heal's Tottenham Court Road

Last Wednesday I had planned to visit The Building Centre just off of Store Street, Bloomsbury to look at the Pipers Central London Model before it is replaced. On my way through Tottenham Court Road on this incredibly windy and wet day I decided to visit one of my favourite stores Heal's.

After being blown away by the new furniture ranges in store I wanted to take some pictures of the building itself inside and out. The shop has been in existence since 1810 and has been on this site since 1854.  The front that we all know and love was added in 1916 along with the Brewer Staircase designed by Cecil Brewer, a cousin of the Heal family.

As usual when I got home I put some of the pictures out on social Media and sent the last picture to Heal's Twitter account asking the question...'was there once a canopy?'

The next day I received a response from Heal's saying yes there were canopies and to watch this space as they were likely to be reinstated soon! A new message arrived from them with this picture.....

..from the 1940's and asking me to send them my address as they would like to send me a book on Heal's heritage!  After a few Direct Messages on Twitter I found out that I was 'chatting' to their Digital Manager and that her name is Victoria.

I received the book yesterday afternoon and it is beautiful, full of glorious pictures of the building, advertisements and photographs of their wonderful products from days gone by.  Heal's celebrated their bicentenary in 2010 and this book was part of the product range in celebration of that.  I only managed to pick up a few commemorative tea towels at the time!

The book is beautifully produced and will take pride of place on my London bookshelf.  A very big thank you goes to Victoria for making my day with such a fantastic gift.

Tower Hamlets at Street Level Bank Holiday Walks

Way back in April I mentioned that I was going to be doing an Introduction to Guiding Course in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and I don't think I've mentioned it again since... well a lot has happened since then....

I've walked an enormous number of the streets of TH, learnt the wonderful history relating to areas, buildings and people, met some great people who are also as mad about London as myself and as a result of the course I'm doing a stop on a guided walk very very soon!

After our course finished a core group of about 10 of us plus five guides who did walks for us each Saturday decided that it would be great to keep the momentum going and start looking into the possibility of putting a Tower Hamlets Guiding project together and the Tower Hamlets Walkshop evolved!  Course leader David Charnick discussed the possibility of starting with a series of  FREE walks over the Bank Holiday Weekend 23rd to 25th August 2014 one of which would involve six of the trainee guides.  This particular walk will take place on Sunday afternoon at 3pm and covers Bethnal Green and Mile End.

The other walks look at the very different areas around Mile End, Bow, Poplar, Limehouse, Stepney and a different side of Bethnal Green.

There is still more to learn about Tower Hamlets but I feel I know it as well as my home Borough now!

Here is the link to book these free walks on Eventbrite.  There are limited spaces so please book early!

There is also a page on Facebook with further information TH Walkshop