The Fitzrovia Mural at Whitefield Gardens shows life in the 1970s and 1980s on Tottenham Court Road

The Fitzrovia Mural fills a gable end facing onto the Whitefield Gardens and Tottenham Court Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I was discussing yesterday a recent visit to the Whitefield Memorial Church and the American International Church on Tottenham Court Road, London, with the colourful food stalls lining the footpaths in front of the church.

On the south side of the church, the Fitzrovia Mural is a huge mural that fills the gable end of a building at the east end of Whitefield Road, off Tottenham Court Road and faces onto the Whitefield Gardens.

The former graveyard the Whitefield Memorial Church is now an open plaza, and has been left as an open space for the past 80 years, ever since the last V2 bomb in World War II destroyed many buildings in the area on Palm Sunday, 25 March 1945.

Today, Whitefield Gardens is a popular place to sit and relax on these sunny summer days for shoppers strolling between Euston Road and Oxford Street or between Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia and Soho and for people enjoying the fast food stalls that line the stretch of Tottenham Court Road in front of the church.

Simone the charismatic Italian waiter says the Fitzrovia Mural was painted in 1980 by Mick Jones and Simon Barber, working as the Art-Workers Co-Op (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Fitzrovia Mural was commissioned by Camden Council for the Fitzrovia community and was painted in 1980 by Mick Jones and Simon Barber, working together as the Art-Workers Co-Op. It was financed by the Greater London Artists’ Association and Camden Town Council.

The two split the work between them, with Mick Jones working on the top half and Simon Barber creating the images lower down. Inspired by local life and people, as well as wider themes in the area, they took six months to plan out the mural, and another 10 weeks to execute.

They used highly-figurative, narrative, cartoon-style humour, and acknowledge the influence of the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (1886-1957). Their work comes together as one whole cohesive work of art, with a montage of scenes frozen in time, all telling the story of this part of Central London half a century ago. All of Fitzrovia life is there, from bars and restaurants to local market workers.

There to be seen are building sites, the Post Office Tower, now the BT Tower, an angry cat, a television ad for cigarettes, footballers, and people around a table, others ironing, reading a newspaper named Tower, reading a book or writing. Here too is the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who lived in Fitzrovia and drank regularly in the pubs. He died in 1953, long before the mural was painted, and is seen with his wife Caitlin Macnamara (1913-1994), whose family were from Ennistymon, Co Clare.

Horace Cutler is dressed like Dracula, while Dylan Thomas sits to dinner, bills are churned out and an architect plans more buildings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Horace Cutler was the leader of the Greater London Council (1977-1981) before it was abolished when Ken Livingstone was in office. The mural depicts Cutler dressed like Dracula, as though he was a vampire sucking the life out of London, dangling from a crane, pointing at Council Hall plans for skyscrapers and clutching blueprints for even more tower blocks.

There are many references to people with money riding roughshod over the common people: a greedy developer is worshipping his pile of money, which looks like a tower block; a clockwork architect on roller-skates at a drawing board churns out new plans; and a man in a fur coat reaches for a stack of bank notes with dice and cards nearby.

Office workers using early computer-like machines may be council workers or civil servants, churning out bills, rent demands and final notices.

Memories of the Middlesex Hospital, once part of life in Fitzrovia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

There are scenes that refer to the Middlesex Hospital, where Peter Sellers died in 1980, the same year the mural was painted, and there is a nurse holding an umbrella for a pregnant woman as she gets into an ambulance.

For 260 years, the Middlesex Hospital was part of life in central Fitzrovia, and in 1747 it was the first hospital in England to provide maternity beds. The hospital was closed in 2005, and the site has been redeveloped as office and hospitality complex, with the former hospital chapel, the Fitzrovia Chapel, at its heart.

There is an array of men and women in non-European clothes such as saris: Fitzrovia and neighbouring parts of Camden have long been home to a thriving South Asian community and some of the best Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants in London.

Fitzrovia is known for its restaurants, especially around Charlotte Street and Goodge Street. Food is well represented on the mural with diners and waiting staff. The bow-tied epicure to the right of the mural shows how the area was increasingly attracting a more affluent clientele.

There some drinkers in a pub, there is a man mixing cocktails, and there is a central section of rush-hour traffic in the rain with taxis, buses, motorbikes and a cyclist.

Rush-hour traffic in the rain on Tottenham Court Road, with taxis, buses, motorbikes and a cyclist (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

If you click on my images, they come up in full-screen size. See if you can spot Simone the charismatic Italian waiter, an ace window-cleaner behaving like a Peeping Tom as he catches a glimpse of a woman in the shower, the disk jockey, the innocent-looking boy, or the tailor who is part of a trade that has long been part of life in the area.

Over time, the mural suffered damage and had problems with mould, bleaching from the sun, peeling paint peeling and graffiti on parts of the lower section. But the mural has been rescued and restored recently, with help from Global Street Art, and its vivid colours have been refreshed.

The Fitzrovia Mural at Whitefield Gardens on Tottenham Court Road is a short walk from Goodge Street station and it continues to offer a window onto life in the area in 1980s and earlier decades.

The Fitzrovia Mural has been refreshed and continues to offer a window onto life almost half a century ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Whitefield Memorial Church on Tottenham Court Road lives on as the American International Church

The American International Church, behind the trees and the food stalls Tottenham Court Road, was once the Whitefield Memorial Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

During my ‘church crawling’ adventures in the Bloomsbury, Soho and Fitzrovia areas of London in recent weeks, one of the interesting churches I have stopped to look at is the Whitefield Memorial Church on Tottenham Court Road, now the home of the American International Church.

On these sunny, summer days, the church is partly hidden behind the spreading trees and the many food stalls along this stretch on Tottenham Court Road. But many people are familiar with the open space on the south side of the church, now known as the Whitefield Gardens, one of the last undeveloped bomb-sites in central London.

The American International Church was formed to cater for American expatriates living in London. It was originally the American Church in London but changed its name in 2013 to reflect the 30 or more nationalities involved in its membership and supporting its activities. The church is particularly known for its soup kitchen, which feeds around 70 people a day.

The south side of the church faces onto the former burial ground, now Whitefield Gardens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

But the church building itself dates back to 1756, when the first chapel on the site was built for the evangelical preacher George Whitefield (1714-1770). Whitefield had been driven to seek a place where he would be free from opposition from the Vicar of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields at the Long Acre Chapel where he had been a minister.

Whitefield got a lease of the site for his chapel in Tottenham Court Road in 1756, and the first chapel, between Tottenham Street and Howland Street, was surrounded by fields and gardens. The foundation stone was laid by Whitefield in June 1756, and the dedication service took place on 7 November 1756.

The chapel was funded by Whitefield’s patron the Countess of Huntingdon, and it was built and probably designed by Matthew Pearce, with burial grounds to the north and south. The initial popularity of the chapel led to it being enlarged in 1759-1760, and a vault was also prepared beneath the chapel.

Whitefield hoped he could be buried there along with his wife Elizabeth and the brothers John and Charles Wesley. But Whitefield died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on 30 September 1770 and was buried there. John Wesley preached Whitefield’s memorial sermon in the chapel later that year.

The Church of England had refused to consecrate this ground so after Whitefield’s death in 1770 his successor, the Revd Torial Joss, took a creative, if unusual approach. Saint Christopher-le-Stocks Church, near the Bank of England was being demolished to allow an extension to the bank. Joss arranged for ‘several cartloads’ of earth to be transported from that consecrated churchyard to Tottenham Court Road.

When the original lease expired in 1827, the freehold was bought by trustees, who refurbished the chapel, and it reopened in October 1831.

Some of the graves from the former burial ground can be still seen in Whitefield Gardens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The burial ground was in use from 1756, apart from an interval of eight years in 1823-1831, but was closed in 1851. Notable burials at the church included the writer and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, who died in 1797; the surveyor George Gauld (1731-1782); the hymnwriter Augustus Toplady (1740-1778), author of ‘Rock of Ages’; and the great clown and harlequin JS Grimaldi (1802-1832).

The chapel was refurbished yet again in 1856, only to be almost wholly destroyed by fire in February 1857. The property was then bought up by the London Congregational Building Society who built a new church designed by John Tarring.

By 1860, the chapel had bought its own site plus the burial ground to the south. However the site to the north was sold to an unscrupulous businessman, Nathan Jacobson. He bought the land expecting to be able to develop it, but removing coffins and bodies was not a straightforward task and he repeatedly failed to do it in a way that satisfied the law.

Jacobson died in 1881, and while the ownership of the land was disputed it was leased by a fairground operator who moved noisy machinery onto the site in 1887, disrupting services in the Tabernacle, leading to complaints and legal proceedings that continued until about 1890, when the council bought the land, landscaped it and turned it into a public garden with a playground. The burial ground on the south side was treated in the same way at the same time.

Meanwhile, the foundations began to give way in 1889, probably because the many burials inside the building had disturbed the filling to the pond underneath. The chapel was closed, the building was taken down, and the grounds were eventually laid out and opened as a public garden in 1895. The coffins in the crypt – including that of Elizabeth Whitefield, but not the lead coffin of Augustus Toplady – were moved to Chingford Mount Cemetery in north London in 1895.

In those intervening years, while the chapel was closed and being rebuilt services took place in a temporary iron structure until the new building was opened in November 1899 as Whitefield’s Tabernacle or Whitefield’s Central Mission. Toplady Hall, below the church, was named after the Revd Augustus Toplady.

The Revd Silvester Horne, who was the minister from 1903 until his death in 1914, was the father of the broadcaster Kenneth Horne.

The church was used as a hostel during World War II, and a deep level bomb shelter was built in the east section of the old northern burial ground.

The building was totally destroyed on Palm Sunday 25 March 1945 by the last V-2 rocket to fall on London during World War II. The bomb also destroyed the five houses on Tottenham Court Road and the old Chapel Street, but left what is now Caffé Nero relatively intact.

A new church, the Whitefield Memorial Church, designed by EC Butler, was built in 1957 and the grounds became a public thoroughfare.

‘Love London’ … the church adopted a welcome statement in 2022 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The American International Church, an independent congregation within the Thames North Synod of the United Reformed Church, has been at the building since 1972. Its history begins with members of the US military worshipping at the Grosvenor Chapel, close to the US Embassy then on Grosvenor Square, during World War II, with services led by US Navy chaplains.

After the war, the congregation grew with US diplomatic and military personnel and their families still relying on military chaplains. The church became independent of that support in 1969, became the American Church in London and called the Revd William Schotanus as its first minister.

After worshipping in several places, the American Church moved to the Whitefield Memorial Church in 1972, when it was offered by the United Reformed Church. The URC was formed that year from the union of the Congregational Church in England and Wales and the Presbyterian Church of England.

In 1986, the church launched the Soup Kitchen, serving a hot meal to people in need. Still housed in the church, the Soup Kitchen now serves meals six days a week. The community outreach has expanded to include a seasonal night shelter staffed by volunteers from the congregation in partnership with the C4WS Homeless Project.

In the mid-1990s, the American Church formally joined the United Reformed Church, which owns building. The premises also house the London Chinese Lutheran Church.

The congregation has become more international iIn the 21st century, bringing together people from every continent. In 2012, the congregation voted to change its name to the American International Church to reflect the broad range of membership. The church adopted a welcome statement in 2022 and registered for same sex and opposite sex weddings, as a clear sign of inclusion to the LBGTQ+ community.

The north side of the church, looking towards Tottenham Court Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The adjoining grounds have recently had a series of interpretive panels designed by Groundwork Camden. They depict scenes in the history of the chapel, Whitefield’s links to Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, and the abolition of slavery as represented by Olaudah Equiano, who was buried there.

Some of the original graves remain on the south side of the church on the west side of Tottenham Court Road. The Fitzrovia Mural towers above the paved open space now known as Whitfield Gardens. This is one of the last undeveloped bomb-sites in central London, and the colourful mural, created in 1980 by Mick Jones and Simon Barber of the Art-Workers Co-Op, is a story worth telling another day.

• The main Sunday service is at 11 am, with Holy Communion on the first Sunday each month, followed by coffee and tea. The Revd Jennifer Mills-Knutsen has been the Senior Minister since 2016. The Revd Jared Jaggers has been the Associate Minister since 2020.

The colourful food stalls in front of the church on Tottenham Court Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Fitzrovia Chapel, ‘one of the most beautiful hospital chapels’, is a survivor from the former Middlesex Hospital

Inside the Fitzrovia Chapel, an enchanting jewel of Byzantine-inspired architecture and the former chapel of the Middlesex Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

During my walking tour of churches and chapels in Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia, Soho and Mayfair earlier this month, I visited the Fitzrovia Chapel, an enchanting jewel of Byzantine-inspired architecture in the heart of Fitzrovia. This is the former chapel of the Middlesex Hospital, and today it is an enriching cultural space.

The Fitzrovia Chapel is a registered charity without public subsidy, and the chapel’s charitable activities and the preservation of the building are mostly funded through commercial hire. This includes weddings, exhibitions, book launches and shoots. The chapel is open to everyone of all faiths, beliefs, backgrounds and cultures.

The site of the former Middlesex Hospital is now occupied by Pearson Square, a development of apartments, restaurants and office space. The chapel is the one main survivor of the hospital, located at the core of the new development. The chapel is in a central square, partly behind a row of trees, looking very different from the buildings that surround it.

The exterior of the Fitzrovia Chapel is relatively plain, built mainly of red brick with very little in the way of exterior decoration, but a very different experience awaits you once you step inside.

The exterior of the Fitzrovia Chapel is relatively plain, built mainly of red brick, but a very different experience awaits you once you step inside (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Fitzrovia Chapel in Pearson Square stands in the centre of Fitzroy Place, a site that borders Mortimer Street, Cleveland Street, Nassau Street and Riding House Street in Fitzrovia. The chapel was built in 1891-1892 as the Middlesex Hospital Chapel. It was designed by the architect John Loughborough Pearson (1817-1897) in the Gothic Revival style with colourful interior decor and mosaics.

The Middlesex Hospital was founded in 1745, moved to Mortimer Street in 1757, and remained there until 2005.

Before Pearson designed the chapel, the Middlesex Hospital had little non-clinical or non-administrative space. Wood-panelled boardrooms hosted chaplaincy services, but there was no space specifically set aside for peace, prayer and reflection. The chapel was commissioned by the hospital governors in the 1880s as a memorial to Major Alexander Henry Ross, who chaired the hospital’s board of governors for 21 years.

Initial funds were raised through donations, and Pearson was engaged by the hospital board to design the small building in the heart of the hospital complex. Pearson was a Gothic Revival architect who worked primarily on churches and cathedrals. He revived and practised largely the art of vaulting, and acquired a proficiency that was unrivalled in his generation. He worked on at least 210 church buildings in England over 54 years.

The colourful interior decor and mosaics in the Fitzrovia Chapel, designed by John Loughborough Pearson in the Gothic Revival style (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Pearson was born in Brussels on 5 July 1817 and was brought up in Durham. At 14, he was articled to Ignatius Bonomi, a Durham architect whose clergy clientele helped develop Pearson’s long association with religious architecture, particularly of the Gothic style. He moved to London, where he became a pupil of Philip Hardwick (1792-1870), the architect of the Euston Arch and Lincoln’s Inn.

From the erection of his first church at Ellerker, in Yorkshire, in 1843, to that of Saint Peter’s, Vauxhall (1864), Pearson’s buildings are geometrical in manner but show an elegance of proportion and refinement of detail. Holy Trinity, Westminster (1848), and Saint Mary’s, Dalton Holme (1858), are notable examples of this phase. Charles Locke Eastlake described Christchurch at Appleton-le-Moors in North Yorkshire as ‘modelled on the earliest and severest type of French Gothic, with an admixture of details almost Byzantine in character.’

Pearson is best known for Truro Cathedral (1880), the first Anglican cathedral built in England since 1697, and incorporates the south aisle of the ancient church. Many consider Saint John’s Cathedral in Brisbane, Australia, his finest work. There, he employed a broad mix of styles, using Spanish Gothic extensively in the internal design of the nave and sanctuary, drawing inspiration from Barcelona Cathedral.

Pearson also worked on the cathedrals in Bristol, Chichester, Exeter, Gloucester, Lincoln, Peterborough and Rochester, and at Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, Westminster Hall, Westminster Abbey, and Saint Margaret’s Church at Westminster Abbey. He succeeded Sir George Gilbert Scott as surveyor of Westminster Abbey, where he refaced the north transept and designed the organ cases.

His other churches include Saint John the Baptist, Peterborough; Saint Lawrence, Towcester, Northamptonshire; Saint Peter’s, Vauxhall (1864), his first groined church; Saint Augustine’s, Kilburn (1871); Saint John’s, Red Lion Square, London (1874); Saint Alban the Martyr, Birmingham (1880); Saint Michael’s, Croydon (1880); Saint John’s, Norwood (1881), Saint Stephen’s, Bournemouth (1889), and All Saints’ Church, Hove (1889).

Pearson died on 11 December 1897, and his son Frank Loughborough Pearson (1864-1947) followed in his footsteps, completing much of his work before embarking on his own original designs. Pearson’s work on the Fitzrovia Chapel was overseen by Frank Loughborough Pearson, and the chapel was completed 32 years later in 1929.

The chapel took 32 years to complete and was completed in 1929 by Frank Loughborough Pearson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

One reason why it took so long to complete the chapel was a commitment that no money meant for patient care would be used for the chapel. Time was needed for building and for the complex decoration, but time was also needed to collect sufficient donations to finish this beautiful building.

Construction began on the red brick exterior in 1891, when Pearson was already near the end of his life. His son and apprentice, Frank, took over after his father’s death, writing to the board of hospital governors to tell them of his father’s death, and his own wish to complete the project.

The finished chapel is a combination of both their designs, and it is a fine example of Gothic Revival architecture, designed by Pearson in the Italian Gothic-style. Unusually, the chapel is aligned on a north-south axis instead of the traditional liturgical east-west alignment.

The rib vaulted ceiling is richly decorated with blue stars against a gold background (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The rib vaulted ceiling is richly decorated with polychrome marble and mosaics, with blue stars against a gold background representing the firmament and bands of decoration meeting at the centre.

The wall mosaics are lined with green onyx and a zigzag pattern. The mosaics were completed in the 1930s by Maurice Richard Josey, assisted by his son John Leonard Josey.

There is a Cosmatesque pillar piscina in the arched chancel. An aumbry set into an ogee arch is adorned with an image of the Pelican in her Piety carved in white marble, erected in memory of Prince Francis of Teck, younger brother of Queen Mary, who died in 1910.

There are 23 windows in the chapel, and all have stained glass. Nine of the windows are on the liturgical north side, and with 12 on the south side, there is the east window and the other is on the staircase. Eleven windows have two lights and the others are single-light windows.

The early stained glass is the work of Clayton and Bell. When the chapel was restored in the early 2010s the windows were removed and restored by Chapel Studios Stained Glass of Kings Langley, Hertfordshire.

Sculpted busts of the Twelve Apostles and the Old Testament prophets are set into roundels beneath the arches.

The organ gallery and west end with a mosaic inscription of the opening words of ‘Gloria in Excelsis Deo’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The organ gallery at the west end is surmounted by an arch decorated with a mosaic inscription of the opening words from Gloria in Excelsis Deo: Gloria in Excelsis Deo et In terra pax hominibus bonæ voluntatis, ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of goodwill’.

The baptismal font is carved from a solid block of green marble and is adorned with the symbols of the Four Evangelists. The inscription, Nipson anomemata me monan opsin, is a palindrome in Ancient Greek inscribed on a Byzantine holy water font outside the Church of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople: Νίψον ἀνομήματα, μὴ μόναν ὄψιν, ‘Wash the sins, not only the face’.

A brass monastery bell hangs outside the vestry door and is adorned by an angel adorns the front. The Latin quotation is: Qui Me Tangit Vocem Meam Audit, ‘He who touches me hears my voice’.

The baptismal font is carved from a solid block of green marble and is adorned with the symbols of the Four Evangelists (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The first service in the chapel was held on Christmas Day 1891, with an official opening by the Bishop of London in June 1892.

The chapel took more than 25 years to complete. It includes more than 40 types of marble used in its finished design. In its early life, it had candlesticks, effigies, pews and altar cloths – all bought through fundraising by the medical community.

The vestibule between the entrance to the chapel and the nave is lined with plaques recording the names of people who donated towards the costs of the chapel, eminent hospital staff, as well as hospital staff who died on duty, including nurses such Dorothy Adams, Maudie Mason, and Grace Briscoe who died from influenza and scarlet fever in 1919.

The chapel hosted regular services throughout the week, led by the Middlesex Hospital’s resident chaplain. Sermons were broadcast throughout the wards over hospital radio so that those too sick to visit could be a part of the chapel’s activity. On two occasions, the BBC broadcast from the chapel as part of a series of national hospital radio shows.

The decaying 18th century hospital building was gradually demolished between 1929 and 1935, and rebuilt around the chapel.

The most unusual funeral in the chapel was probably that of the poet Rudyard Kipling in January 1936. Kipling was taken to the chapel, where his coffin was draped in a Union Jack and was placed before the altar. A bunch of violets on his coffin was sent by Lucy Baldwin, the wife of the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, who was Kipling’s first cousin. His body was later cremated and his ashes were interred in Westminster Abbey.

Saint Peter and Saint Paul in a window by Clayton and Bell … 29 June is the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Although the chapel was not consecrated, and there was no legal Deed of Consecration, it was dedicated by Archbishop Cosmo Gordon Lang of Canterbury on 31 January 1939, when he described it as ‘without question one of the most beautiful hospital chapels in the realm’.

After the Middlesex Hospital was amalgamated into University College Hospital, the hospital buildings other than the chapel were completely demolished in 2008-2015, and were replaced by a new residential development.

When the hospital was demolished, the chapel was preserved as a Grade II* listed building and was renamed as the Fitzrovia Chapel. Today the chapel stands within Pearson Square, a privately owned public space belonging to Jones Lang LaSalle.

• The Fitzrovia Chapel no longer holds religious services and is managed by a charity, the Fitzrovia Chapel Foundation. It is a venue for non-religious ceremonies such as weddings and memorials, and has regular guided tours, exhibitions, quiet days and a cultural programme. It is open most Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 11 am to 5 pm, on one Sunday a month from 12 noon to 5 pm, and takes part in Open House London in September and the Fitzrovia Arts Festival.

The Fitzrovia Chapel stands within Pearson Square, a privately owned public space (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Rising Sun’s stucco Gothic work in Fitzrovia has been rescued from a disaster in the 1980s

Ihe Rising Sun is Victorian stucco pub in the Elaborate Art Nouveau Gothic style at corner of Tottenham Court Road and Windmill Street in Fitzrovia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Perhaps the work of my great-grandfather on buildings in Dublin such as the Irish House on Winetavern Street and the Oarsman in Ringsend has left me with an abiding interest in Victorian stucco pubs, and I find myself looking out for them when I am walking through a city or town.

In London in recent days, I have stopped to look at the Rising Sun is an ornate, 19th-century pub at 46 Tottenham Court Road in Fitzrovia. I returned again yesterday to look at its elaborate façades and to see what happened in the 1980s and the 1990s to its interiors.

The Rising Sun dates back to 1730, and was rebuilt in the Elaborate Art Nouveau Gothic style in 1897 to designs by the Victorian architects Treadwell and Martin. It has survived a drastic rebuilding in the 1980s, and is now a Grade II listed building.

Because of its associations with good weather and good fortune, the Rising Sun seems to be a natural name for a pub. But it also forms a large part of the coat of arms of the Distillers’ Company, which makes it even more popular as a pub name.

The Rising Sun was rebuilt in 1897 to designs by the Victorian architects Treadwell and Martin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Tottenham Court Road runs a distance of about three-quarters of a mile (1.2 km) from Euston Road in the north to Saint Giles Circus and the junction of Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road in the south, with Tottenham Court Road tube station just beyond the south end of the road. Tottenham Court Road is sometimes used to distinguish Fitzrovia to the west from Bloomsbury to the east.

The street takes its name from the former Manor of Tottenham Court, whose lands lay to the north and west of the road, in the parish of Saint Pancras. Tottenham Court had no direct connection with the district of Tottenham, now part of the London Borough of Haringey. The manor house of the former Manor of Tottenham Court lay just to the north of the road’s junction with Euston Road.

The Rising Sun dates back to a pub that was first licensed as the Sun in 1730. It is one of the pubs Karl Marx is said to have requented in the 1850s, at a time when there were 18 pubs along the length of the Tottenham Court Road.

The Windmill Street frontage of the Rising Sun (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The pub was rebuilt in the Elaborate Art Nouveau Gothic style by FA Rhodes in 1897 to designs by the Victorian architects Treadwell and Martin. The partnership was formed by Henry John Treadwell (1861-1910) and Leonard Martin (1869-1935), and was in practice for 20 years from 1890 to 1910.

Henry John Treadwell was born in Lambeth in 1862. He was articled to Franklin and Andrews of Ludgate Hill, and was then an assistant to the Giles Gough and Trollope in London. He practised with Leonard Martin in London from 1890 to 1910, specialising in developing small, narrow-fronted sites in London’s West End. He died in London on 24 October 1910.

Leonard Martin was born in London on 12 July 1869 and he too was articled to Giles Gough and Trollope. He attended the National Art Training School in South Kensington, London, and Lambeth School of Art. He met Henry John Treadwell at Giles Gough and Trollope and they formed a partnership in 1890.

The Treadwell and Martin partnership was dissolved after Treadwell died in 1910. From 1929 on, Martin was in partnership with EC Davis. Later, Martin exhibited at the Royal Academy in London between 1912 and 1929. He died in Surrey in 1936.

A plaque on the Tottenham Court Road frontage reads ‘Built by FA Rhodes 1897, Treadwell & Martin’(Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Stylistically, Treadwell and Martin worked in an eclectic mix of Art Nouveau, Baroque, late-Continental Gothic, and dashes of other styles, used in a very free way. They designed several public houses and breweries, and left a ‘trail of remarkable little buildings across London’s West End,’ according to the architectural historian A Stuart Gray.

The firm designed Scott’s restaurant, 18-19 Coventry Street (1892-1894), the Old Shades, a Grade II listed pub at 37-39 Whitehall, and 80 Fetter Lane, built for Buchanan’s Distillery, as well as the Rising Sun on Tottenham Court Road. Among their best buildings are 23 Woodstock Street, 7 Dering Street, 7 Hanover Street, 74 New Bond Street, 20 Conduit Street, 78 Wigmore Street, 106 Jermyn Street and 61 Saint James’s Street, all in the early 1900s.

Other works by the firm include the rebuilding and later addition of Saint John’s School, Leatherhead, Surrey (1890s); Sandroyd School, Cobham (1905-1906), hospitals in Carshalton and Cobham, Surrey, and Dartford, Kent, and Saint John’s Hospital, Lisle Street, Leicester Square, London (1904).

Their churches include the Presbyterian Church in West Norwood, the Holy Trinity Mission Church at Tulse Hill, London, and Saint John’s Church (1910), Herne Hill, Surrey. Their design for the Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum was shortlisted but unsuccessful.

Rising from the first to the third floor on a splayed corner is a bartizan with a corbel including a male figure (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Rising Sun is a late Victorian stucco pub designed by Treadwell and Martin in an Elaborate Art Nouveau Gothic style. The pub has four storeys and a basement; one bay has a three-bay return and there is a one-bay extension to Windmill Street.

It has a ground floor pilastered frontage and an entrance in a splayed corner. There are three-light transom and mullion windows with leaded panes on the first floor, and two-light windows on the second and third floors.

Each bay is separated by tourelles with pinnacles. The gables over the window bays are surmounted by segmental pediments. There is lavish use of vertical strips, scrollwork, heraldic beasts, cupids heads, and similar features in relief.

Rising from the first to the third floor on a splayed corner is a bartizan with a corbel including a male figure. To the right of this, a plaque reads ‘Built by FA Rhodes 1897, Treadwell & Martin’.

The brick extension has three-light transom and mullion windows and a stone-capped Dutch gable.

The interior of the Rising Sun was entirely remodelled in an historicist style after the Victorian interior was destroyed in the 1980s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Their pub was the victim of one of the worst excesses of brewery greed in the early 1980s when the pub was renamed ‘The Presley’ and decorated with images of Elvis Presley. The owners lowered the ceiling and destroyed the Victorian interior, including the Grade II listed high ceilinged interior.

The litigation the followed led to the forced restoration of many of the original features in 1993, when the interior was entirely remodelled in an historicist style.

The pub was renamed the Rising Sun by the next owners, the intricate stucco exterior remains, and the current decor is much more welcoming. The Rising Sun is one of the pubs on the many Karl Marx-themed pub crawls based on the pubs Karl Marx was known to have frequented or, more speculatively, may have visited when he lived with his family in abject poverty nearby at 21 Dean Street from 1848 to 1856.

The Rising Sun is one of the pubs Karl Marx is said to have frequented in the 1850s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Liberty’s 100-year-old Tudor-revival store has outlived the critics and continues to inspire

Liberty’s department store on Great Marlborough Street, off Regent Street, was built with the timber from two old wooden sailing ships (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Book shops, yes. Coffee shops, yes. Greek or Italian food shops, most times. Wine shops and bread shops, generally. Antique or curio shops, sometimes. But that’s too long a list. Most of the time, I have a strong aversion to shopping. Even when I need to go shopping. Shopping for food, clothes or furniture is a necessity and functional, but seldom if ever a pleasure.

Perhaps I may soon have to admit to exceptions. On the other hand, I admit to particular aversions to big department stores and brand names. So, for example, I have never in my life been inside the doors of Harrods or of Fortnum and Mason, and I don’t think I’m missing out on anything.

I appreciate 19th century arcades, from Paris, Milan and Brussels to London, Birmingham and Norwich. But, while I have visited them to appreciate their architectural beauty, that does not mean I have gone shopping in any one of them.

Liberty’s was started on Regent Street by Arthur Lasenby Liberty in 1875 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Some days ago, when we were visiting west London, Charlotte suggested I would enjoy Liberty’s, a well-known luxury department store on Great Marlborough Street, off Regent Street and close to Oxford Street, not to go shopping, but to see its architecture and its interior. And she was right – the experience became an interesting afternoon.

The vast mock-Tudor building spans from Carnaby Street in the east to Kingly Street in the west, where it forms a three-storey archway over the northern entrance to the Kingly Street mall. At the centre of the archway is the Liberty Clock.

Liberty’s is a vast shop known for its close connections to art and culture, artists and designers, and it is celebrated for its print fabrics. The shop sells men’s, women’s and children’s fashion, beauty and homewares from a mix of high-end and emerging brands and labels, and is known for promoting the work young, emerging designers.

Liberty’s has a history of collaborative projects – from William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the 19th century to Yves Saint Laurent and Dame Vivienne Westwood in the 20th century.

Liberty’s has a history of collaborative projects – from William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti to Yves Saint Laurent and Vivienne Westwood (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The business was started 150 years ago in 1875 in by Arthur Lasenby Liberty (1843-1917). He was born in Chesham, Buckinghamshire and began working with Farmer & Rogers in Regent Street in 1862, the year of the International Exhibition. He decided to start his own business in 1874, and with a £2,000 loan from his future father-in-law in 1875, he took a lease of half a shop at 218a Regent Street with three staff members. The shop sold ornaments, fabric and objets d’art, especially from Japan and the Far East. Within 18 months, he had repaid the loan and acquired the second half of 218 Regent Street.

As his business grew, Liberty bought and added neighbouring properties. In 1884, he introduced the costume department, directed by Edward William Godwin (1833-1886), an architect and a founding member of the Costume Society. Together, Godwin and Liberty created in-house apparel to challenge the fashions of Paris.

Liberty acquired 142-144 Regent Street as the Eastern Bazaar in 1885 to sell carpets and furniture, and he named the property Chesham House after his home town. Later that year, Liberty brought 42 villagers from India to stage a living village of Indian artisans.

He encouraged many English designers in the 1890s, including Archibald Knox. Many of these designers worked in the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau styles and Liberty’s became associated with the Art Nouveau style, to the extent that in Italy Art Nouveau became known as the Stile Liberty.

Liberty’s was designed at the height of the fashion for Tudor revival architecture in the 1920s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Liberty’s Tudor revival building on Great Marlborough Street was first built so that Liberty could continue trading continue while his other premises were being renovations.

The shop was designed in 1922 by Edwin Thomas Hall (1851-1923) and his son Edwin Stanley Hall (1881-1940). The father ET Hall is known primarily for his design of Liberty’s, but he also designed the Old Library at Dulwich College (1902-1903) and several hospitals, and the flats designed by his large practice included Sloane Mansions in Sloane Square and Saint Ermin’s Mansions, later Saint Ermin’s Hotel in Westminster.

Hall was a vice-president of the Royal Institute of British Architects and was an active participant in drawing up the institute’s charter in 1887. He was known as ‘Bye law Hall’ because of his incisive legal mind and for the major part he played in drafting and updating the London Building Acts in the 1890s. He also provided the initial concept for the Sunray Gardens Estate. This advanced concept advocated a garden city layout with innovative integral community facilities.

Three light wells form the main internal focus of the building (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Halls designed Liberty’s at the height of the 1920s fashion for Tudor revival architecture. Although the landowner, the Crown Estate, required all buildings on Regent Street to be in a classical style, Hall built the black and white timber Elizabethan-style frontage of Liberty’s so that it was facing onto Great Marlborough Street instead.

The mock Tudor style was designed by the Hall around Arthur Liberty’s ideas. Both Liberty and Hall died before the shops were completed: Arthur Liberty died in 1917, Hall died aged 72 on 15 April 1923; and the shops were completed in 1924.

The timber for the outside façade came from two old wooden sailing ships: HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan. The frontage on Great Marlborough Street is the same length as the Hindustan.

The longest chandelier in Europe is best appreciated fully on the back stairs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Three light wells form the main internal focus of the building. Each of these wells was surrounded by smaller rooms to create a homely atmosphere. Many of the rooms had fireplaces and some of these are still in place.

A series of miniature glass paintings in the windows in among the wood-panelling was taken straight from the captain’s quarters. Carved wooden animals are hidden around the store, especially on the third floor central atrium.

The longest chandelier in Europe is best appreciated fully on the back stairs from the fourth floor down or the lower ground floor up.

The gilded copper weathervane represents The Mayflower taking migrants to the New World in 1620 – it is more than 4 ft high and weighs over 112 lb.

The Liberty Clock, completed 100 years ago in 1925, is almost as well-known as the shop building (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Halls also designed the Liberty Clock, which was completed 100 years ago in 1925 and is almost as well-known as the shop building. It protrudes from the three-storey archway that spans the north end of the Kingly Street mall and is part of the west end of the Liberty department store.

The clock face is round and slightly recessed into the stonework. It is a deep blue in colour and is decorated by concentric gold bands on either side of the numbering that runs around the perimeter of the face. A ion of the radiant sun in gold fills the bulk of the centre of the face. The clock is numbered with golden, radially oriented Roman numerals in an otherwise plain serif typeface. The hands are ornate, coloured gold and feature deep blue insets.

Set into the relief panels on either side of the clock are stone sculptures of birds. The bird on the left panel, representing dawn and daylight, is a cockerel with the sunrise behind it. The right panel represents night and includes the nocturnal owl and the moon. Around the clock face, in each of the four corners, winged heads represent each of the four winds.

Above the clock, in an opening in the stone, is a mechanical depiction of Saint George in combat with the dragon. It is activated every 15 minutes and on the hour the dragon is ‘slain’. Under the clock face in golden upper case lettering are wise words: ‘No minute gone comes ever back again, take heed and see ye nothing do in vain’.

Beneath the inscription, Father Time is carved in relief, holding an hour glass in his hands.

Sir Nikolaus Pevsner was critical of the building's architecture ‘and the goings-on of a store behind such a façade and below those twisted Tudor chimneys’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner was very critical of the building's architecture, saying: ‘The scale is wrong, the symmetry is wrong. The proximity to a classical façade put up by the same firm at the same time is wrong, and the goings-on of a store behind such a façade (and below those twisted Tudor chimneys) are wrongest of all.’

Despite its critics, the design was a success with the public, and the shop became a Grade II* listed building in 1972.

Meanwhile, Liberty’s continued its tradition for fashionable and eclectic design during the 1950s, promoting and encouraging new designers, and several shops were opened in other cities.

Liberty’s has a tradition for fashionable and eclectic design and of promoting and encouraging new designers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Later, the influential designer Bernard Nevill became the design director. He reinvigorated Liberty’s textile collections and attracted clients including Yves Saint Laurent, who bought 13 different designs from the winter 1970 collection.

Liberty’s closed the 20 shops outside London in 1996, and in 2006 closed the Regent Street outlet, moving all operations into Hall’s Tudor revival building on Great Marlborough Street.

As for the Liberty clock, the clock and its mechanical display were fully restored in 2010 by Gillett & Johnston. The track unit has been fitted with new electronics and a radio signal monitoring system to ensure the accuracy of time keeping.

Liberty’s moved all its operations into Hall’s Tudor revival building on Great Marlborough Street in 2006 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

How Charlotte Street in London became the ‘spine of Fitzrovia’

Charlotte Street was first laid out in the 1760s and has become the ‘spine of Fitzrovia’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

During one of my recent strolls through Fitzrovia in London, I found myself on Charlotte Street, where the Fitzroy Tavern gives its name to the area of Fitzrovia.

Charlotte Street has been described as the ‘spine of Fitzrovia’. Fitzrovia is known for its bohemian and artistic history, known as a meeting place for artists and intellectuals, and the Fitzroy Tavern, on the corner of Charlotte Street and Windmill Street, became a celebrated meeting place for intellectuals, writers, artists, craft workers and immigrants.

I am well-acquainted with Charlotte Street in Wexford, Charlotte Street and Charlotte Way in Dublin, Charlotte Quay in both Limerick and Dublin, and I have walked along Charlotte Street or Charlottenstrasse in Berlin, and I have gone in search of Charlotte Street in Prague, Franz Kafka’s location for Metamorphosis.

The Fitzroy Tavern, on the corner of Charlotte Street and Windmill Street, has given Fitzrovia its name (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Charlotte Street in Fitzrovia was first laid out in 1763 and was named after Queen Charlotte, who married King George III in 1761. She was Britain’s longest serving queen consort, serving for 57 years and 70 days.

The street was originally residential but it later attracted a literary and artistic community, and became popular with craftsmen. The area has been home to many prominent figures, including writers like Dylan Thomas and George Orwell, and artists such as Augustus John.

Charlotte Street is historically part of the parish and borough of Saint Pancras, in central London. The street’s northern and southern extensions are Fitzroy Street and Rathbone Place.

The southern half of the street has many restaurants and cafés, and a lively nightlife; the northern part is more mixed in character, and includes the former offices of the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, and a University College London student hall of residence, Astor College. The street also has its own residential population, living above the ground floors.

The Queen Charlotte on the corner of Goodge Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Charlotte Street, together with Charlotte Place, previously Little Charlotte Street, was one of four streets in and around Fitzrovia that took Queen Charlotte’s name. The other two have since been renamed Hallam Street and Bloomsbury Street.

From the 19th century on, the parish and borough of Saint Pancras was home to a large, mostly middle-class, German population. Charlotte Street and the surrounding locality was a thriving centre of this community, and the street acquired the nickname Charlottenstrasse, after its famous namesake in Berlin.

The parish and borough boundaries of Saint Pancras is now part of the London Borough of Camden and the parish and borough of Marylebone ran through the area, mostly along Cleveland Street. These ancient boundaries are many centuries old, and they have been inherited by the modern boroughs in London.

Charlotte Street and Charlotte Place were wholly in Saint Pancras, but a minor adjustment to that boundary around 1900 now means that a small part of the boundary separating the London Borough of Camden and the City of Westminster runs along a short section of Charlotte Street.

The Charlotte Street Hotel opened at 15 Charlotte Street in 2000 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The nearest tube station is Goodge Street to the east. Goodge Street itself crosses Charlotte Street halfway up. To the east and parallel with Charlotte Street is Tottenham Court Road, to the south is Oxford Street.

The street has a mixture of 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century buildings and is known for its many restaurants with a wide range of cuisine. At the height of the Jewish West End, there were numerous Jewish businesses in Charlotte Street, including Rudin, the trimming merchants, Resnick the butcher, Kahn’s salt beef bar, drapers, dairies, hosiers and tobacconists. French restaurants included l’Etoille, which opened in 1904, and Italians opened Bertorellis in 1912.

The Scala Theatre, opened in 1905, was located on Charlotte Street. A theatre first stood on the site in 1772. From 1865 to 1882, the theatre was known as the Prince of Wales’s Theatre. It was rebuilt in 1904 and was famous for Christmas productions of Peter Pan. The Jewish community once used the theatre for High Holy Day services, fundraising events for the West Central Clubs and Yiddish film shows. It was destroyed by a fire and demolished in 1969.

The Charlotte Street Hotel is a boutique hotel that opened at 15 Charlotte Street in 2000, its interiors decorated with modern British art, including works by such artists as Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell, and Roger Fry.

It was once the location of Schmidt’s Restaurant, which opened as a deli in 1901 and it became a restaurant after World War I. The spy Donald Maclean, a key figure in the Cambridge Five, is said to have spent his last night in England there before fleeing in 1951, and it remained one if the ‘in places’ until it closed in the 1970s.

The Fitzroy Tavern was known to Dylan Thomas, Lawrence Durrell, Augustus John and George Orwell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Queen Charlotte is a pub on the corner of Goodge Street. It was first licensed in 1767, and was once known as the Northumberland Arms. The present building dates from 1897 and the name was changed to the Queen Charlotte in 2018.

The Fitzroy Tavern at 16 Charlotte Street was built as a coffee house in 1883, and became a pub in 1887. Judah Kleinfeld, a Polish-Jewish immigrant became the landlord. Kleinfeld had a novel way of encouraging chariry: customers threw money to the ceiling on darts, it was taken down annually, counted and the ‘pennies from heaven’ were used to give local children a fun day out.

His daughter and son-in-law took over the pub in the 1930s, and continued running the pub into the 1950s. While they were there it became famous from the 1920s until the mid-1950s as a meeting place for artists, writers, intellectuals and bohemians, including Dylan Thomas, Lawrence Durrell, Augustus John and George Orwell.

Later, Donovan’s Sunny ‘Goodge Street’ was a moving romantic song depicting Fitzrovia and the area around Charlotte Street in London in the mid-1960s.

Happy Birthday Charlotte!

Charlotte Street was one of four streets in and around Fitzrovia that took Queen Charlotte’s name (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)