Uploaded October 2019 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
If England is a nation of shopkeepers, London is a city of shopfronts. This delightful little book, which eschews the famous facades of London's West End in favour of her pretty and varied outlying "villages", is a singular addition to an illustrious procession of predecessors. The latter, which includes such illustrative jewels as "Edward Bawden's London", "Hugh Casson's London" and "London Sketchbook", all of which hold esteemed positions in the Hoare house library, and are discussed in the accompanying vignette, comprises an astonishing vade mecum to visitor and resident alike; but what sets this charmer of a book apart is its colourful attention to detail.
Whereas Sir Hugh Casson and, to a lesser extent, Graham Byfield, rely on a loose and feathery approach to their characteristic watercolours, Eleanor Crow deploys the same medium, but in warmer and richer tones. More particularly, she singles out the long-established, but largely unknown, shopfronts of neighbourhoods such as Hackney, Battersea and Shoreditch, which remain frequently - and lamentably - ignored.
May they no longer be. Dalston, Bethnal Green and Walthamstow (The East London Sausage Co., anyone?) remain hopelessly overlooked in the overall scheme of things; and this delicious little book sets us straight.
Your correspondent recognises more than a few of the author's selections (not least John Sandoe's remarkable bookshop on Blacklands Terrace), but is the first to acknowledge his shameful ignorance of others. Having already earmarked a shop or three to patronise on his next visit, however, this delectable little tome has whetted an ageing appetite for such things as little else of its type has in ages.
Hats off to Eleanor Crow. More, please! (Marylebone, perhaps?)
More videos at bookreviewsandvideos.com
If England is a nation of shopkeepers, London is a city of shopfronts. This delightful little book, which eschews the famous facades of London's West End in favour of her pretty and varied outlying "villages", is a singular addition to an illustrious procession of predecessors. The latter, which includes such illustrative jewels as "Edward Bawden's London", "Hugh Casson's London" and "London Sketchbook", all of which hold esteemed positions in the Hoare house library, and are discussed in the accompanying vignette, comprises an astonishing vade mecum to visitor and resident alike; but what sets this charmer of a book apart is its colourful attention to detail.
Whereas Sir Hugh Casson and, to a lesser extent, Graham Byfield, rely on a loose and feathery approach to their characteristic watercolours, Eleanor Crow deploys the same medium, but in warmer and richer tones. More particularly, she singles out the long-established, but largely unknown, shopfronts of neighbourhoods such as Hackney, Battersea and Shoreditch, which remain frequently - and lamentably - ignored.
May they no longer be. Dalston, Bethnal Green and Walthamstow (The East London Sausage Co., anyone?) remain hopelessly overlooked in the overall scheme of things; and this delicious little book sets us straight.
Your correspondent recognises more than a few of the author's selections (not least John Sandoe's remarkable bookshop on Blacklands Terrace), but is the first to acknowledge his shameful ignorance of others. Having already earmarked a shop or three to patronise on his next visit, however, this delectable little tome has whetted an ageing appetite for such things as little else of its type has in ages.
Hats off to Eleanor Crow. More, please! (Marylebone, perhaps?)
More videos at bookreviewsandvideos.com
