The glory of glazing in London pubs.

The #irises enjoyed this long, dry spring. No rain to spoil the blooms. Here's their last hurrah! Allegiance, Tempting Fate, Rajah, Fort Apache.

A very brief blog post on the (very long and complicated!) history of House of Fraser. buildingourpast.com/2025/05/21/hou…

#cleethorpes #artdeco This is the former Electricity Board Showroom of 1937, a really striking design on a corner site with fantastic original glazing. Grade II listed #1930sarchitecture

Chain Stores is here! It's Publication Day - and my first copies arrived in the morning post! Here's a glimpse inside the covers. Over the next couple of weeks I'll post some of the material that I couldn't fit into the book, including extra pictures.

A favourite story from the 'Chain Stores' book - Mazawattee's disastrous and short-lived attempt to open a chain of shops! Only open for a few months in 1905-06 - yet (astonishingly!) at least two survive. buildingourpast.com/2025/05/28/the…

New post on the history of #Sainsburys shops and stores. buildingourpast.com/2025/06/02/sai…

A Burton store in Swindon called the Poirot Building. Can’t imagine Hercule shopping at Burton’s!

liverpooluniversitypress.blog/2025/06/20/cha…

Another historic #Letchworth landmark bites the dust - Lloyds & Co. (mowers, agricultural implements etc) built a new factory on Birds Hill in 1915. Burnt down rather dramatically last night.😥

New CRSBI entry for #Portsmouth Cathedral. Rather more Early English than Romanesque, I’m afraid, but it’s all about contextualisation! Also new #Hampshire entries for #SouthHayling and #Wickham. crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=14…

Fish on Friday! Here's some light weekend reading - a new blog post on the shops of Mac Fisheries (not sure how many of you will remember them!) tinyurl.com/33zxm9zb

Other work of the Ladybird artists. ‘Eastbourne’ (circa 1950) Artist: Ronald Lampitt

DE BIJENKORF DEPARTMENT STORE, 1926, Grote Marktstraat, The Hague (Den Haag), Netherlands 🇳🇱 Amsterdam School. Architect: Piet Kramer (Photo credit: Jan Sluiter on Flickr)

'Kensington High Street' (1930) by Tirzah Garwood

Hoping that #TGJones will cherish the early C20th shopfitting of #WHSmith - the tile panels, newsboy signs, decorative leadwork and fine lettering. New blog post: buildingourpast.com/?p=11422&previ…

Well, this would certainly NOT have been the case in an early C20th #WHSmith - they were beautiful shops.

Great discount on ‘Chain Stores’ until 20 July. Grab a bargain! bit.ly/HELUP

#MomentsOfBeauty in #Glasgow: It’s a nice touch that the new Paesano Pizza in Shawlands has incorporated the WH Dinwoodie #ghostsign into their shopfront fascia while including a pizza chef uniform clothesline mural. It certainly lifts this classic Glasgow corner tenement 🥰!

As I have noted before, Cardigan has some nice shop fronts Kathryn Morrison