2 Pearson Street, E2

While wandering around Hoxton recently, I nipped to Pearson Street, where there is an early mid-19th century Grade II-listed terrace, including a shop at number 2.

The shop isn't in a good way, and as I haven't had time to do more than research the address on Google, I'm not sure when it was last a shop. However, it's available to let at the moment, should anyone be interested, and willing to refurbish it!

The shop dates from the period the terrace was built, and although the shop front has since been altered, according to English Heritage, it is a standard, simple Victorian design.

However, it's difficult to see what is original and what isn't. It's ramshackle to say the least, with the pilasters sat unevenly on rough plinths, battered stall boards, and everything is heavily painted in battleship grey (apart from the console brackets and door).

There are lots of these types of Victorian shop fronts around, as their simple, inoffensive designs have proved less likely to offend the changing tastes of developers than the gaudier efforts also produced by the Victorians. What makes 2 Pearson Street interesting is its survival within the terrace as a whole, rather than the shop on its own merit.

In 1876 a furniture salesman, George Rolfe, was listed at number 2. The Post Office Directory in 1895 and 1899 records Edwin Merrill, a marble mason, at the address.

An advertisement in the Hackney Express & Shoreditch Observer of October 21, 1905, shows that "brake proprietor" and "cartage contractor" Thomas Cook was based here.

Thomas Cook's signage can still be seen on the side of the building.

The 1915 and 1921 directories list Lavington Bros, carmen, as the occupiers. Carmen were drivers of carts who were hired to transport goods around the city, so it seems to have been a continuation of Thomas Cook's business, but under a different name/ownership. Clearly these businesses would have all had use of the yard behind, with the entrance next to the shop.

16-20 Barter Street, WC1

Tucked away behind High Holborn is Barter Street. The street name has only existed since 1937 – before then this was Silver Street, built as part of the Bloomsbury Square development in the 17th century. The street has a terrace of three early 19th-century shops.

All have neat, identical wooden shopfronts, with pilasters, unremarkable entablatures and bracketed cornices.

The fact that the street is hidden away means many of the past shop tenants seem not to be of the type that relied on passing trade. In 1882's Post Office Directory, only one of the shops is listed – number 16, occupied by blind maker Edward Jinks.

But by 1894 number 16 is occupied by John Hawley, tailor, who has been joined at 18 by bootmaker James Claridge. Number 20 is shared by Charles James Evans, a mathematical instrument maker, and wine merchant WJ Hollebone & Sons.

Leap forward to 1919 and confectioner Jane Owen has taken over number 16. At 18 is chimney sweep James Christopher Catlin, while at 20 is a printer, Jules Petit, and still WJ Hollebone & Sons.

In the 1951 Post Office Directory, Marine & Overseas Services Ltd's mail order office is the only shop listed, at number 16. This is the only business I've been able to find any significant remains of amid the depths of the internet. The exact nature of the company is unclear, but it did sell all sorts of bits and bobs such as watches and mathematical instruments, usually by mail order through adverts in newspapers and magazines. This one is from 1950 and was in Model Engineer magazine (from Grace's Guide):

I don't know about being the "ideal gift", but slide rules seem to have been a major part of its business for some time – it called itself The British Slide Rule Co at some time, judging by a classified ad in The Times (April 25, 1942). This is one of the company's slide rules (found here):

Perhaps a better gift idea was this "unique bed table", as advertised in Picture Post (November 5, 1949):

Another ad in The Times (December 1, 1949) offers "Swiss ex-RAF" watches for sale:

Perhaps this, from The Watch Forum, is one of them? Look closely and you can see Marine & Overseas Services Ltd written on the face:

Collage has a pic of the shops from 1956, but there doesn't appear to be much going on...

Today, numbers 16 and 18 are one business – London City Print. Number 20 is occupied by a solicitor, Brion & Co, which specialises in immigration law.

207 High Holborn, WC1

I set out last Sunday to take pics of Staple Inn on High Holborn, only to find it under scaffolding. So instead I walked a short way up the street to number 207, an early 19th-century Grade II-listed shop and terraced house clinging to the corner of Newton Street.

What stands out most about the shop, which has a wooden frontage, is the wrought iron cresting above the entablature. This was commonly used in the late 19th-century, so was most likely added around that time. According to Alan Powers in Shop Fronts, iron cresting was intended to catch the eye as shop fascias became weighed down with an accumulation of intricate details.

For most of its life the shop was a pawnbroker or antiques shop, under different owners but most famously under the name Shapland.

Back in 1834 it was a tobacconist, but the Lloyd's Weekly on September 16, 1849 has a court report involving pawnbroker G Webb of 207 High Holborn, who accused 40-year-old Jane Sinclair of trying to defraud him of 12 shillings by "tendering a spurious ring".

In Reynold's Newspaper on November 10, 1861, the shop was still a pawnbroker but now seemingly under the name Joshua Harding. The paper reported a case at Bow Street Magistrates' Court in which a young man named Henry Lewingstone stole a silver watch from Harding. A post office carrier, Thomas Bentley, told the court: "I was coming out of West Central District Office, at the the corner of Southampton Street and Holborn, when I heard a smash of glass in Holborn. I ran across the road, and saw the prisoner at the window of 207, with his hand through a hole in a pane [of] glass into the window. He had a watch in his hand. At that moment the assistant came out of the shop and seized him."

The shop crops up in a number of court reports down the years, due to its jewellery trade. In The Standard of May 5, 1879, the pawnbroker was now Mr John Allan, but this time it's the pawnbroker who is the defendant, with Allan accused of unlawfully detaining a gold watch. Allan was cleared but ordered to share the cost of the loss of the watch with the complainant.

At some point very soon after, diamond merchant Charles Shapland must have taken over the shop, at some stage also working jointly with someone called Cloud, as there are early advertisements (eg The Times, February 25, 1891) naming the business as Cloud & Shapland.

Shapland ran the shop as a pawnbroker specialising in old jewels and also as a clockmaker. A clock of 1880 (the 1833 visible is the clock number) is engraved with Shapland's address:

But Shapland eventually took sole control, and the shop traded under the Shapland name until the 1980s, specialising in antique silver. Here's an ad from The Daily Express in 1921, which sat on the front page beside the masthead:

Shapland was clearly a jeweller of some repute – the store had its own silver makers' mark.

The renowned Times wine correspondent Pamela Vandyke Price (who died just last week, aged 90) was clearly a fan, recommending the shop for silver tasting cups, brandy saucepans, toddy ladles and fine coasters in a few of her columns.

The City of London's Collage picture library has a great picture of the store, taken in 1974 – click here.

After Shadland closed in the 1980s, for some time it remained a jeweller, run by the Goldsmiths chain. When Goldsmiths moved out, its long association with jewellery ended, and instead of fine silver it now peddles distinctly non-precious greetings cards, One Direction face masks and 'Keep Calm and Carry On' tat as a branch of Cards Galore.

49 Gough Street, WC1

Number 49 Gough Street is a small shop with a big history. Situated behind Gray's Inn Road, it seems to have thrived for a number of years within the furniture industry, particularly as an outpost of larger furniture firms.

The house and shop, built in the early 19th century, were previously part of a terrace. Although altered at some point, the wooden shop front is original – English Heritage describes it as "exceptionally fine", with its dentil architrave, cornice and entablature atop fluted quarter columns.

It's no longer a shop. A Google search brings it up as the company address of the director of the British Parking Association, so perhaps it's an office, though there didn't look much happening when I visited on a Tuesday afternoon, and it looks more residential.

I don't know who the first retail tenant was, but in 1891 it was cabinet maker Baldassare Viscardini & Sons. Born in Como, Italy in 1831, Viscardini was living in the East End by 1841, working with his brother and father – the 1851 census shows all three were looking glass frame makers.

In 1857, Viscardini married 19-year-old Rose Martin, daughter of a carpenter. However, Rose must have met an unfortunate end – in 1867 Viscardini, now a widower, married again, this time to Eliza Sheppard, daughter of a boot maker. The wedding was in Holborn, and then the 1871 census has the family at Mount Pleasant, a stone's throw from Gough Street. In 1881 they're at 54 Gough Street, and by 1891 at 49.

Viscardini seems to have had two addresses at this time, the other being 15 West View in Islington, which must've been the family home. The census listing shows the whole of the family firm:

Baldassare Viscardini, 60, cabinet maker
Eliza Viscardini, 40
Amelia E Viscardini, 20
Carlotta B Viscardini, 18, jewel case liner
Baldassare G Viscardini, 17, cabinet maker
Giacomo Viscardini, 15, cabinet maker
John W Viscardini, 13
Beatrice C Viscardini, 10

However, life for Viscardini wasn't just about furniture making. He was clearly a patriotic Italian, as back in 1859 he went back to his homeland to fight alongside general and politician Guiseppe Garibaldi in the Army of the Red Shirts during the Second Italian War of Independence, helping Garibaldi form a united Italy. The Anglo-Italian Family History Society website actually has a picture of Viscardini from his time with the Red Shirts:

Clearly a remarkable man, Viscardini died in 1896 at West View, and is buried in New Southgate Cemetery.

Viscardini's business is still listed as occupying 49 Gough Street in the 1898 Post Office Directory – along with Frederick Nutt, an architectural modeller – but next to move in was possibly E Kahn & Co, listed as an artistic furniture maker in the 1906 directory.

E Kahn was a prestigious French furniture manufacturer, renowned for its copies of 18th-century French furniture, such as this E Kahn commode, which sold at Sotheby's in April 2012 for 37,500 US dollars:

However, there's no suggestion furniture this opulent was made at 49 Gough Street, as this was a smaller branch said to have produced pieces in an English Edwardian style. The company also had premises in St Andrew Street and Charlotte Street (the Shoreditch one) in London, and in about 1884 opened a New York office.

I've no idea what happened to the business, but here's an ad found on Grace's Guide, which lists E Kahn as still at number 49 in 1922 (this ad appeared in the British Industries Fair brochure):

The next Post Office Directory I checked was for 1951, and by this time shopfitters Frederick Sage & Co had installed themselves in number 49. Founded in 1860, the business was based around the corner on Gray's Inn Road until the Blitz in 1941, when its premises were destroyed. Whether it shifted some of its operations to Gough Street after that or was already there before then, this can't have been more than a small limb of a much bigger operation. A picture of the shop in 1947 can be seen here.

It may not look much in that picture, but Frederick Sage was a major shopfitting firm – it was responsible for the original shopfit in Harrods, and for many historic shop fronts on Regent Street, Oxford Street and Bond Street, such as Dickins & Jones, Selfridges and DH Evans on Oxford Street (now House of Fraser).

Remarkably, during each World War the company switched to manufacturing wooden airplanes, before picking up where it left off with shopfitting in peace time.

The business was global, with offices throughout Europe – Printemps in Paris was one job – the US and South America, as well as a factory in Cape Town, South Africa. It wasn't just shopfitting either – interiors were constructed for hotels, restaurants, and P&O and Cunard cruise ships. After the Second World War, Frederick Sage worked on the reconstruction of the bombed House of Commons.

The company struggled through the 1960s, and in 1968 was swallowed up by British Electric Traction. No doubt plenty of its work is still around today – in fact, I found these haberdashery shop drawers for sale on eBay...