Burberry's, 18-22 Haymarket, SW1

The Burberry building at 18-22 Haymarket is, like so many grandiose stores of the Victorian era, a testament to one man's commercial success.

After founding his company in Basingtoke in 1856, aged just 21, and inventing the weather-proof gabardine fabric, Thomas Burberry arrived on London's Haymarket in 1891, and in 1912 constructed this grand premises.

Designed in a Beaux Arts style by architect Walter Cave, the three-storey, stone-faced building stands on the corner with Orange Street. The entablature, supported by Doric columns, runs all around the building and still bears the traces of its former occupant.

The large unaltered display windows on the ground floor also turn the corner to Orange Street. These must have turned plenty of heads in their day. Upstairs, huge arches support the first floor windows and also the second floor windows, which are curved into the arches. A narrow staircase – I imagine a staff one – sits at the lefthand side of the building (behind the lamp-post in the picture below).

Signalling the store's presence to those approaching along the street is an ornate clock, which juts out bearing the Burberry name.

Round the corner on Orange Street is the trade entrance.

As well as a shop, Burberry made this its head office. It traded from here throughout the rest of the 20th century. This is a pic of the store from 1913:

The Haymarket address became a familiar sight on its advertising. This ad is from the Daily Express on 21 September, 1959, with the address bottom right.

When Cherie Blair and her lifestyle guru Carole Caplin brought Lyudmila Putin shopping here in 2003, Burberry had shaken off its chavvy image of the 1990s and was on the brink of expansion. Hence the company moved out in 2008, just a few years after spending millions on a revamp of the building's interior. Its HQ is now at Horseferry House in Millbank, although it is strictly offices, with no shop.

And 18-22 Haymarket has stood empty since, apart from being pressed into action as a party venue now and then, most recently during the London Olympics. It was bought by a mystery Russian businessman for £20m in 2011 - and there was some talk about TK Maxx moving in - but it changed hands again and is now owned by The Apprentice star and Mrs Tiggy Winkle lookalike Lord Alan Sugar's Amsprop Group.

364-368 Kingsland Road, E8

While in Hoxton, I walked up Kingsland Road to see if some other shops were worth getting excited about. A Grade-II terrace of early 19th-century houses, from numbers 362 to 368, has three shops at 364, 366 and 368.

English Heritage lists 364 as having an altered 19th-century shop front, "with pilasters and console brackets to mutuled fascia cornice", and also mentions its six-panel door, which either doesn't exist any more (the door to the upstairs accommodation certainly wasn't it), or was hidden behind the shutters when I visited. The shop is now Shangri-La tattoo parlour, based in the basement, but retail space is also advertised on temporary store lettings website www.appearhere.co.uk

However, 366 and 368 haven't retained their 19th-century shop fronts, although there is some older ones hidden behind the modern fascias. Number 366, now occupied by vintage designer fashion retailer Storm in a Teacup, does still have a mutule cornice that dates from the 19th century though. Pictures of the store interior can be seen here.

As for their history, I've not had chance to research back into the early 19th century, but the 1882 Post Office Directory says number 364 was occupied by Alexander Towne, a junior surgeon - not an obvious shop tenant, but no one more obvious is listed. At 366 there was James Brown, who ran a library, no doubt as a commercial interest charging a fee for book lending.

William Catt, grocer and tea dealer, is at 368. Interestingly, an obituary in The Standard of November 6, 1884, records the death of Elizabeth, wife of William Catt, at the age of 43. It turns out Elizabeth was the fourth daughter of Alexander Towne, the junior surgeon at 364.

In 1895, James Brown and William Catt are still there, but lithographer Jani T Maffuniades is at 364.

And finally, the 1910 Directory has no record for number 364, but at 366 is a tobacconist, Jas Tomlinson Jr, and at 368 is Bernard George Hyatt, umbrella maker. A&W Hyatt, a manufacturer of trimmings, girdles and tassels, was a family business based in Hackney. It expanded into umbrellas in the early 20th century, opening four stores, including the one at 368 Kingsland Road.

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.

56-58 Artillery Lane, E1

In the 18th century, rising prosperity and social mobility meant shopping began to change from something done almost entirely out of necessity, to a leisure pursuit whereby luxury items and fripperies became objects of desire. As a consequence shop fronts around the mid-century became increasingly elaborate as they competed to turn shoppers' heads.

Surviving shop fronts from this mid-Georgian period are rare, which makes 56 Artillery Lane, London's best example, all the more remarkable. Its neighbour, number 58, is also noteworthy. This is number 56:

The building dates from 1690, but in the 1750s Huguenot silk merchants Nicholas Jourdain and Francis Rybot inserted two shop fronts on the ground floor, in a spectacular rococo style. Number 56 still dates from this time, but 58 was updated with a plain Regency-style front in 1827.

The shop front at 56 has five Doric columns (the one on the left smaller than the others) set on plain stone pedestals. These divide the frontage into four bays, occupied by two bow-fronted windows, the shop door and house door. The windows have architraves and triglyphs along the top, and stallboard gratings below. A rococo cartouche flanked by palm branches is fixed above the shop door.

Classical design is big on symmetry, but as is usually the case with shop fronts their efforts are compromised by the need for a door leading to upstairs accommodation. However, the moulding above the house door is even more spectacular than the cartouche above the shop, in my opinion, with drapery hung around an Aurora mask surrounded by rays and scrolls below.

Before 1895 the street was called Raven Row, and 56 and 58 were numbers 3 and 4. Originally a mercer's shop run by Francis Rybot, 56 remained in the Rybot family until around 1782, by when Thomas Blinkhorn, a silk weaver, was here. Blinkhorn stayed till 1799. Grocer Edward Jones moved in around 1813, staying till 1858. In 1859 it was occupied by another grocer, Cornelius Barham, and remained a grocer's until 1935. After that the building went into a decline, although at one point was an insurance office.

Number 58's original occupier Nicholas Jourdain left around 1772, when it was taken over by grocer and tea dealer Andrew Fowler. The area's dominant silk trade soon returned to the shop though, as from 1817 to 1836 silk and satin dressers Perry & Co (or Perry & Archer) were here. Following the collapse of the Spitalfields silk trade around the 1830s it became a glass warehouse until 1857, then from 1858 to 1935 was occupied by cigar maker IS Wilks & Co – although the 1910 Post Office Directory has a sign writer, Joseph Leopold Wolfson, also sharing the building.

The whole building was damaged by a fire caused by paraffin lamps in 1972.

For a comprehensive history of the two buildings up until the early 20th century, see British History Online.

Art collector Robert Sainsbury, using architects Dezeen, restored the building between 2005-09, turning it into a not-for-profit art gallery, named after the street's old name, Raven Row. Here's a picture from inside number 58, taken by David Grandorge (as are the two further down).

Parts of an 18th-century room from number 58 were shipped to the US in 1927 and stored at the Art Institute of Chicago - they were originally used in an exhibition on English interiors. In the 1980s they came back to England (minus about 25% of it), where they sat in an Essex warehouse for a couple of decades before they were discovered by the architects and reinstalled.

The pale stone colour of the exterior paintwork on the restoration is in keeping with that used until the 1870s, after which some dark reds appear to have been used, and then later, following the fire, dark greens.