Monday 26 August 2013

5 and 7 Tower Court, WC2

At the back of Ambassador's Theatre in Covent Garden sits Tower Court, a small terrace of former shops.


The buildings date from the late 18th century but today are all houses. However, the original wooden shop fronts have survived on numbers 5 and 7. Here's number 5:


And here's number 7 (should've moved the beercan):


Number 8, which was under scaffolding when I visited, also has a wooden shop front but it's a 20th-century reproduction. Number 10 also used to be a shop, but lost its shop front sometime after 1973.

English Heritage says all the windows have been altered for domestic use. I wonder how different they are to the originals? Based on my limited knowledge, the shop front styles on 5 and 7 are pretty much in keeping with the late 18th-century date of the buildings.


Neither are elaborate, just bracketed entablature and cornices (the best on number 7, below). Despite these shops' ages, I can't imagine they get much attention - there was only a council road sweeper having a fag break in Tower Court when I took a look.


4 comments:

  1. Thisis Steve, the blog owner. Someone posted a great comment on here anonymously but it was accidentally deleted! I've found the text so reposted but the screen capture link is gone. If that person sees this, please repost it!

    'The frontage of number 5 is not original, the building was used as a location in a 1957 movie called Count Five and Die. As you can see from the screen capture linked below, there was originally two entrances to the building'

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  2. Hi! The film itself obviously shows a little more than one capture but have a look at the film on our www.Reelstreets.com capture 003 that certainly shows how it was in 1957, having just found the location all I need do now is visit and take a "now" shot for our website.

    I enjoyed your Site Steve, I must clearly refer to it more often.

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  3. Don't know if this blog is still maintained any more, but just in case - Tower Court was used in The Stranglers 1982 video for Strange Little Girl. It's towards the end of the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDpNhgIq0pg

    And a still from the production with the street in view can been seen here: https://i0.wp.com/punkgirldiaries.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Stranglers_SLG_Video_set_2.jpg

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  4. Was there a record shop selling jazz vinyl?
    What was the name of the shop?I bought a few record there in the 1980s.But it wasn't Ray Jazz shop, that was in Shaftesbury Avenue.
    Any body remembers the name of the shop?

    ReplyDelete