91-101 Worship Street, EC2

On the borders of the City and Shoreditch, the terrace at 91-101 Worship Street looks somewhat unloved. Yet as the steel and glass of the City flows ever onward, it has probably survived thanks to its architect, Philip Webb.

Of the shops with National Heritage listing, almost all will be Grade II - but this tatty block is Grade II* (a category only 5.5% of listed buildings have). This is because of Webb, friend of William Morris and at the vanguard of Arts and Crafts architecture - most famous for The Red House in Bexley.

Details on 91-101 Worship Street such as the pointed window arches and steep roofs are typical of Arts and Crafts architecture.

Webb usually stuck to domestic buildings, but accepted a commisson to design 91-101 Worship Street, a terrace of workshops, shops and housing for artisans. Originally the craftsmen would have lived and worked here, displaying their wares in the windows of the shops that project outwards on the ground floor. Windows let light into the basements so work could be done down there. A gothic drinking fountain on the southeast corner provided a final dash of Victorian philanthropism.

As standalone shops, there's not much to describe. The shop fronts have no ornamentation, the shop windows are basic, and the doorways with wide porches more residential than retail. The Builder magazine praised the use of "sound real materials" in the terrace's construction but complained that the finishings inside had a "degree of rudeness" that it predicted would deter those tenants able to afford the rent, meaning take-up of the properties may be slow. This pic is from The Builder's review of Webb's work.

When I visited, the gate had been left open so I nipped in to get a pic of the rear, although as regards the shops there's not much to see.

Today, all of the block has been split up into single floors with various uses such as a sandwich shop and offices, so Webb's original intention of artisans living above and working below has been lost.

However, in a retail sense it's a fine example of Victorian social ideals and the Arts and Crafts movement's focus on artisan traditions.

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.

1-8 Goodwin's Court, WC2

Strolling down St Martin's Lane in Covent Garden, it's easy to miss the narrow opening into Goodwin's Court. But duck down it into this gas-light lit alley and you'll find one of London's most-intact rows of 18th-century shops.

The houses were erected in 1690, but the wooden bowed shopfronts from numbers 1 to 8 were added in the late 18th century. They're typical late 18th century, when window displays were becoming more eye-catching yet the shopfronts still had little architectural elaboration.

The London Building Act of 1774 restricted protruding bows to ten inches or less - these ones look well in keeping with that...

Look closely at some of the shopfronts and there are holes at the bottom of some of the frames, which often on old shopfronts is evidence of the wooden shutters that were used before the introduction of iron roller shutters in the 1840s. Pins holding the bottom of the shutters were inserted into the holes.

The original gas lights are 19th century.

The shops are offices now - the street has a more recent history of being home to theatre and entertainment agents (Dawn Sedgwick at number 3 represents Simon Pegg and Catherine Tate, among others). The Post Office Directory of 1855 lists numbers 2, 4 and 7 as occupied by piece brokers, who bought off-cuts or shreds of cloth and other materials to sell on, so it was clearly not a lucrative street. The long-gone shopkeepers, such as a tailor and piece broker at number 2 called Frederick Bartens, who was in court for insolvency in January 1855, were probably left to rue the St Martin's Lane shoppers who strolled on by...

The Old Curiosity Shop, 13-14 Portsmouth Street WC2A

It would be nice to believe the claim painted on the front of this shop - that it inspired Charles Dickens - but like his novel, it's fiction. It was renamed The Old Curiosity Shop in 1868 when it was a bookshop, 30 years after the novel's publication and no doubt to cash in on Dickens' fame.

Nevertheless, this is a rare 17th-century timber-framed house and shop, with overhanging first floor and tiled roof.

 
Some say it's London's oldest shop, but there's no evidence it's always been a shop since it was built. Its current occupant, Japanese designer Daita Kimura, told me it was originally two small houses, which were later knocked through to make a shop. At various stages it's been a dairy, a bookshop, and a stationer and waste paper merchant.

Alterations were made in the early 19th century, but the wooden-framed shop windows appear to be mostly 17th century or early 18th century. The glazing is early 19th century. Kimura told me that when he moved in 21 years ago, he had to pull up many layers of lino to uncover the wooden floor, which he says is about 150 years old.

Since 1992, it's been leased by Kimura. He uses the downstairs as a shoe shop - you have to ring a bell to be let inside - where he sells beautiful handmade shoes, hats and accessories, some of which are made upstairs. Kimura says most of his business is wholesaling to overseas, although he does have a handful of UK stockists, including Dover Street Market. He also has a long-running collaboration with English shoemaker Tricker's.

English Heritage has The Old Curiosity Shop listed as Grade II* due to its literary associations, so whether it's true or not, we must thank the man who renamed it - apparently a "chatty fellow" named Palmer (the bookshop owner) - as otherwise the shop wouldn't have survived the demolition of Clare Market, of which it was part, when it was cleared in 1900 to make way for Aldwych and Kingsway.