Friday, 31 July 2009

Tesco comes to Town

Walking past the new retail unit at the south east end of the High Street (where Learndirect used to be sited) this evening I did a double take at the various Tesco signs in the windows, and a planning application notice. Checking the Lewisham Planning site confirmed that a Tesco Express is on the way to Deptford High Street.

Whilst not a particular fan of Tesco - I find their customer service is the poorest of all the major supermarkets, rarely if ever getting Green Clubcard Points for bag reuse even when I point this out (rant over) - hopefully it will provide Iceland with a bit of competition in this area without affecting the welcome variety of smaller stores on our local High Street.

Sunday, 12 July 2009

Shelter Signs: West End

As promised, more old Second World War shelter signs, this time from the West End. Although all of these are at eye level they are much harder to spot than their Deptford equivalents, being a fraction of the size and badly weathered. Fortunately I had the very informative book London's War by Sayre Van Young to help guide me. All of these signs point down to vaults and basements...

At 25 Longmoore Street Pimlico (stretching the definition of "West End" a bit):

And just down the way at 36 Longmoore Street:

To save straining your eyes, (I think) it reads "public shelters in vaults under pavements in this street".


Moving on to between 42 and 48 Brook Street, near Grosvenor Square:


And at 72 Brook Street:


And similarly at 43 Upper Brook Street: