The 50th anniversary of Are You Being Served? was rightfully celebrated by Roger Lewis in our May issue, writes the Old Un
The 50th anniversary of Are You Being Served? was rightfully celebrated by Roger Lewis in our May issue.
Sadly, it’s not just the hallowed premises of Grace Brothers department store that are no more. In a new book, London’s Lost Department Stores: A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams, Tessa Boase celebrates their heyday.
Boase writes, ‘Today, we have little idea of the sheer dazzle of these “Halls of Temptation” during the golden age of shopping – their theatrical spectacle, assault on the senses, architectural élan. From the Art Deco of Derry & Toms, with its Moorish roof garden, to the startling Moderne lines of Holdrons of Peckham Rye, department stores led the way in fashion and design.’
Derry & Toms, on Kensington High Street began life as Toms family grocery in 1826. It was popular with suffragettes. In 1911, the store was advertising ‘Charming Hats for the June 17th Demonstration.’ The store was in its pomp in 1933 when that vast Art Deco building was erected. In 1936, it even had its own roof garden installed, with one and a half acres of soil hauled up to the roof, and a flowing stream and fountains pumped up from the store’s artesian well, 500ft below the High Street. There was even a flock of flamingos.
Sadly, in 1973, Derry & Toms closed. Richard Branson later set up a nightclub on the roof terrace – closed since 2018.
