Alida Baxter

Renowned London journalist and author

 

View from Soho

Invisible Treasures

It may seem incredibly mean of me to point out interesting things to you that are no longer there, but sometimes the story of what has happened to them makes it worth doing after all, if I don't tell you about them, who will?

Let's start with something relatively recent, and for this (have patience) you'll have to begin in Oxford Street, about a third of the way East from Oxford Circus, on the way to Tottenham Court Road. Here you'll find the Plaza, which has ambitions to be a mall, where there used to be something far better: a landmark shop, whose floor area covered seven acres. At one time I lived in a quaint little flat in Wells Street , which runs up northwards to Mortimer Street from this point, and the great department store at the foot of the street was an integral part of my life.

From the time I can remember, the block that now houses the Plaza was one huge store called Bourne & Hollingsworth, whose origins dated back to the end of the nineteenth century.

In 1894 Walter William Bourne and Howard Hollingsworth had joined forces to open a drapery business, which, on a wave of success, they took from Westbourne Grove to Oxford Street in 1902. If you ransack the Internet, you'll find a picture of the first enormous and ornate West End building, with a date of 1923. But I'm very sceptical about the year quoted peer at the women in the photograph, caught and frozen for an instant on the thronged pavements in their elegant hats and dresses, and their clothes seem to hint at a distinctly earlier decade, probably around the time of the First World War. And the dresses aren't the only reason for my disbelief.

The fussiness and over-ornamentation of that first building disappeared when the store was rebuilt in the 'twenties, becoming another of London 's distinctive art deco buildings: a style I love, and memorable inside and out. On the top storey, at the North-West corner, is a plaque carved with the year 1922. Which somebody should have checked before they put that 1923 date on the antique photo, shouldn't they? Gone was the old architecture, replaced by a striking simplicity of grey stone and green carved panels, which you can still see above the souk that's swarmed over the ground floor. And oh, what an experience to shop there, even many decades later: chairs were set by the glass-topped counters in the departments of its upper storeys, where ladies could sit to look at the dainty things brought out for their inspection. Like other toddlers, I was perched on a chair by my mother, and watched her examining silk.

But that wasn't its unique, enticing attraction what struck me most about being taken into the place was seeing, by the glass doors, advertisements for unmarried young ladies who could apply to work there, offering them not only sales positions but also accommodation in the store's hostel. And what a hostel! Forget rucksacks and the YWCA, this was the Ritz. A fixture since 1912, it was updated in the 'twenties, like the store, and became simply amazing. For Heaven's sake it had a ballroom and an art deco indoor swimming pool! I didn't want to work behind a counter, but I did want to live in the hostel. It seems even more incredible now imagine that kind of accommodation in the heart of the West End , with no commuting and only a short walk to work for the staff. There had to be downside, which was that for decades the unmarried female staff were expected to live there and nowhere else, but given the home conditions of so many working people, I should think there were far more women hammering on the doors to get in than to get out.

The hostel building still remains, renamed Bonham-Carter House now, and it can be seen in Gower Street , where it provides accommodation for University College Hospital 's staff and social club.

Of course the store changed as I grew up, and the chairs disappeared, but it was still where you could get anything, and the best quality anything at that. From duck pate to bone china, from playing cards, books and engraved stationery to dress materials and exquisite lingerie, Bourne & Hollingsworth had it all, and more. I bought a dress straight out of Gone With The Wind there, for a publishing party, and it was one of the frothiest, loveliest indulgences of my life.

When I was living in Wells Street , I would run down from my flat and into Bourne & Hollingsworth's perfume hall, to spray myself with the most expensive scents on offer, before waving down a taxi in Oxford Street and meeting someone for lunch. I could always tell how late I was, because another of the store's features was the musical chiming clock which hung at its centre also pure art deco, and so finely made that anyone who saw it will never have forgotten. Inlaid with geometric, almost Egyptian patterns of enamel in pale greens and blues, and with, above all, gold, on each of its four faces, it hung on decorated and banded chains over the store's interior, its six bells chiming the time away. It was such a landmark that when news first leaked out of, unbelievably, the store's possible closure, it was what would become of the clock that everyone asked about.

And for a time, after the loss of Bourne & Hollingsworth, at least the clock was on loan to the Victoria & Albert Museum; I wish it were still there, so that you could go and see it in all its delicate distinction, but unfortunately it passed into private hands, and nobody seems to know whose. Somebody, somewhere in the world, is gloating over part of the West End's history in a sanctum we can't visit, and I care much more about that than I do about London Bridge having been moved to Arizona you can go to Arizona if you're that desperate (and I'm not), but for all I know, the art deco treasure I miss is locked in a bank vault.

And, incidentally, have you noticed that even the plainest clocks have disappeared from stores now? Owners and managers seem to have adopted the Casino technique don't let the customers know what the time is, and they'll stay longer and spend more money, unaware how late it's getting. The musical chimes that used to ring out as a reminder while I was spraying myself with perfume belong to an era when customers were considered, and not fooled.

Today's Plaza, a collection of shops jammed haphazardly together, and including a totally inadequate Post Office counter in a crammed and jumbled W.H. Smith, can never begin to match the atmosphere, range and quality of goods and especially the service offered by a store that was as reliable as its clock and supervised its staff to the extent of insisting on housing them only a few blocks away.

Take my advice and, leaving the site of what was once a great store behind you, stroll on up Wells Street . This is a walk worth making, because you can complete it by visiting All Saints Church, Margaret Street , which is one of the loveliest in London , but I want to point out something else that's missing now, and it's on your way, just a block north of the Plaza. On the right hand side of Wells Street , and before you reach Margaret Street , you'll see St. Andrews Chambers, a Victorian block of flats.

Now, beyond thinking that Victorian flats in such a central location can be charming (I certainly had happy times in mine, farther up into Fitzrovia), spare a thought also for the name of the flats you're seeing, because that name is the clue to what I'm going to tell you.

Once upon a time there wasn't just a Victorian block of flats here, there was also a Victorian church. A truly beautiful, elegant one called (you guessed it) St. Andrews . It was opened in 1847, and what happened to it is, I think, really curious. It's also an illustration of the way London changed and developed between the eighteenth and the twentieth century.

When St. Andrews first welcomed its congregation, central London was extremely residential, and the huge number of churches reflected how many people lived in the various parishes. But as the nineteenth century passed and the twentieth century dawned, public transport was being dramatically expanded and a great tram network was created. The population moved outwards, whilst the centre was taken over by more and more businesses. Here came the idea and the spread of the suburbs, from which people travelled to work. And they wanted to attend services in the areas where they were living. Many churches, in the heart of the West End particularly, saw their congregations dwindling to a fraction of their original size, and poor St. Andrews was declared redundant.

But, unlike others, it was not lost but saved. With extraordinary care, between 1931 and 1934 it was demolished and moved, stone by stone, to Kingsbury, where it is currently celebrating seventyfive years on its new site.

The intricacy and enormity of the task make me boggle, and every time I see the Victorian bulk of St. Andrews Chambers, and think of what once stood beside it, I admire the determination that took a whole church apart and preserved it by rebuilding it elsewhere.

It's staggering to learn just how many churches disappeared as London changed, and sad for me to remember one in particular the one where I was christened. And it wasn't far away. If you walk down from Wells Street and head for Regent Street , some serious retail therapy will be the natural attraction, but Kingly Street runs behind Regent Street and parallel with it, and I'd like you to spare a thought for that narrow byway and not just because it's where I was brought up. We lived behind Liberty 's, and towards the other end of the street lived the verger of St. Thomas 's Church, with his family. I went to primary school with his daughter, and directly opposite their home was the church, which he kept immaculately. I remember entering it quietly with my school friend, and seeing the glow of polished objects, and being aware of the special, exciting atmosphere, and feeling overawed.

Considering the history of the site, it's no wonder I was aware of something special. There had been a chapel here since the seventeenth century, with a charity school attached to it, and although only originally a wooden tabernacle, it was described as an established centre of religious life. John Evelyn often referred to it in his diaries: In the Tabernacle neere Golden Square I heard the Bishop of London he wrote, in 1692. Despite its popularity, though, it was falling apart, and by 1702 the decision was made to rebuild it, rather than simply wasting more money on repairs. The work steamed ahead, and while it was going on the congregation attended services at the French chapel in Swallow Street (the quaint little cut-through to Piccadilly, where you'll now find Bentley's Oyster Bar).

The results were lavish gilding, a ceiling ribbed from column to column, an organ, beautifully-worked altar cloths and plate, and the addition of separate housing for vestibules, a vestry and a schoolroom but it had all been accomplished so quickly that it began, almost as quickly, to need significant repair. Yet nobody quibbled in the end; they just marvelled at the galleries, the marble, and the ornaments: it was a chapel now.

And there it stood, for a century. Which brings us to the Regency, and the formation of Regent Street as we know it. The line of the street passed very close to the chapel, and this was the era of grand ideas it was to be rebuilt, with an entrance on Regent Street , where it would have a ninety foot frontage! The façade was specially designed, and by 1824, as though a wand had been waved, it had happened. What had once, an incarnation or so ago, been a mere tabernacle was an impressive place of worship, although it would be decades before it was given an appropriate name. It became a district church in St. James's parish in 1869, when it was dedicated to St. Thomas .

But what unexpected changes had taken place by that time. The congregation had begun decreasing not so much in numbers, if you read between the lines, as in quality. The middle class were leaving the area, which had become increasingly commercialised, whilst the poor stayed and increased. What was still a chapel at that stage had depended on pew rents for its income, but that resource had dwindled, and during the 1840s especially there had to be many economies. The charity school, for instance, tried to attract fee-paying pupils, and the clergy's stipends were reduced. But still it was in financial trouble.

And in 1853 a new rector came along, with revolutionary ideas some of them more pleasant than others. It was largely due to him that negotiations were commenced for the chapel to become a church, but it was also his idea to persuade the trustees that the Regent Street entrance and the schoolroom above it could become a source of income if they were converted to a shop and a dwelling house.

Now the entrance would be from Tenison Court , a little alleyway which had run beside the building from the beginning (at one time it was called Chapel Court ), and this was the entrance that I knew, and which was used until there was no more church to enter.

The loss of the Regent Street entrance created protests in the newspapers and from the congregation, but the rector was adamant. The grandeur might be gone, but St. Thomas 's was on a secure economic footing, and from 1869 onwards, right into the next century, its parochial responsibilities increased. Kingly Street changed too it only got that name in 1906, having been King Street up till then.

It's intriguing to discover that once there was a church of St. John the Baptist in Great Marlborough Street , and a St. Luke's in Berwick Street, (both were demolished in the 1930s and not a trace remains of either of them) but by the time we get to the period after the Second World War, St. Thomas's was the only Anglican parish church in the area bounded by Regent Street, Oxford Street, Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue. The famous St. Anne's Church, off Dean Street , had suffered a direct hit from a bomb in 1940 and had been completely burned out just its tower was left standing. Only St. Thomas 's remained.

Yet whilst St. Anne's fought on, despite being homeless, holding services here, there and everywhere in St. Thomas's, in the Chapel of St. Barnabas, Manette Street, in an upper room in St. Anne's House (which had contained the administrative offices, churchwardens' accommodation, etc.), and even as far afield as St. Paul's, Covent Garden, something strange happened to St. Thomas's. St. Anne's battled for decades, until eventually a new church was built, and re-dedicated and opened in l991. But St. Thomas 's gradually faded into a sepia image of its former self.

The verger and his family moved away, so that I lost my school friend, and maybe that was the beginning of the end. Who knows, but by the late 'sixties the curate of St. Anne's was living in what had been their flat and St. Thomas 's had changed out of all recognition. It had lost every remnant of its atmosphere, and was very bare when I last saw it. My friend's father would have been heartbroken. It looked sad, as though it knew what was coming, and what came was demolition. Unbelievably, it became a car park.

But, for a long time, no-one knew what would happen next. Redevelopment was scything up the buildings here would it come to this site? Of course the answer was yes. A vast new block of stores now stretches down Regent Street beyond Hamley's, with imposing offices on the Kingly Street side. And, as so often, there is nothing to tell you what was here before.

But I do ask you, please, when you're shopping or just looking in Esprit, or Levi's, or Reiss, to walk through Tenison Court (that, at least, is unchanged) and into Kingly Street, and realise for a moment that a lovely church once stood here, that once upon a time it even had a Regent Street entrance and façade, and that, well within living memory, people could be christened, as I was, and many can still remember the glow and the scent and the love within it.

© Alida Baxter

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