Fleet Street

I'd thought I'd shared this one before but cannot see it currently. Is this the section around 16-24 Fleet St? If so, why can't I see the George IV Pub?

The original George IV was quite a shy building that wasn't photographed much. It was just out of sight round the bend in your photo. The later building was tucked back from the road and would have been invisible from this angle anyway. The etching below has a later twin in photography but I can't find it. The George IV was the building on the right in the distance. The building was equally shy in photos taken looking the other way up Fleet Street. The best photo is from the pub section here. Here it is in Rob's collection, on the right, just behind the cart.

Oh, found it in the pub section. Again, it's the building on the right in the distance. In each picture the ground floor frontage looks different as larger panes of glass were developed.

The David Fry Postcard collection is now up on CD - some crackers!!

From reading the news papers, there is some suggestion that this was the third Bird brother home. In this state it's hard to imagine that it could have rivalled Kirby House.

I like the little sign that says "Madame Endall, Palmistry & Clairvoyance". I wonder if she saw what was coming ?

Well, she couldn't see any future😀

I like the one for 'Miss Kay Smith' ladies' hairdresser and all her many treatments offered, including henna, which must have been rather racy for the times (this shot is from 1941 just after the Blitz and I think was taken for the National Buildings Record). I also spotted a misspelling on Simmons fascia board - it should be woollens.

This time the information about who might or might not have owned the house comes from Parliamentry records. The story goes that although they can't identify where the oldest Bird brother lived, the assumption was that he might well have been the richest (hence the belief that the property on Priory Row might have been his). Also he was Coventry's MP for a while. 1734-1737. However the records seem to show that he lived in Kenilworth. Standing on the anti-excise platform. Returned with Sir Adolphus Oughton, against John Neale. All three men were Whigs. Neale petitioned against him, questioning his property qualification on the ground that he had acquired certain estates immediately before the election, disposing of them immediately afterwards, and that though he had later purchased an estate in Threadneedle Street, he had for several months sat and voted without being properly qualified. He accepted another job, stepped down and was replaced by Neale. This rather throws doubt on the idea that John Bird had a property in Coventry before 1734, and since the one above was built in the 1720s, it can't be his new build. On the other hand it might be referring to a need to have a London Property.