Re-photo

It isn’t clear now whether the first Dickie Dirts, named after Cockney slang for shirts, was in the former ABC Regal in Walham Green which had closed in 1972 or in the small shop opened by former photographer Nigel Wright in 1977 on Westbourne Grove in this picture. But it represented a revolution in fashion retailing, selling casual clothes at low, low prices. If you wanted genuine Levi jeans and lumberjack shirts cheaper than anywhere else it was the place to go, and the shop drove a coach and horses through laws restricting trading hours, opening seven days a week from 9am until 11pm, even on Sundays. The fines he had to pay were simply a business expense, more than made up by the Sunday sales. Dickie Dirts shops opened in Camberwell in 1981 and in Stratford. Dirts was the first UK clothing store to engage in ‘parallel importing’, buying jeans in overseas countries where they were cheaper and then selling these ‘grey imports’ at below the prices the manufacturer charged for ‘genuine’ goods it brought to the UK.

Dickie Dirts didn’t last, though it was still in business in 1987, as others learnt from their example but kept up better with the fashions, but although the building is still there all of the shops have changed hands; where Dirts was at No 58 now offers reflexology.

‘John. p. dennis and by the Grace of God his 8 Children’ was on the shop front at 121 Westbourne Grove, though I think the shop was closed and empty. Dennis was a follower of Sir Oswald Mosley who ran a furniture and junk shop here and was interned for eleven months during the war. In 1931, 18 year old Miss Gladys Rogers moved in with him and remained living with him, apart from two short breaks, until 1949; they had 8 children together but he did not believe in marriage. As well as looking after the children she also helped in the shop.

While in internment, Dennis met Frederick Heyland who was interned for the whole of the war because his parents had been German. Heyland moved in with the couple after the war, and married Miss Rogers in 1947. She left Dennis in 1949 to live with Heyland who was then the owner of a café in Willesden Green. These details are given in from the report of an appeal she made in 1972 against a judgement against an order made against her in 1971 on behalf of Heyland.

Kensington & Chelsea is a borough of extremes as has been shown very clearly by the council’s failures over Grenfell Tower. Pembridge Square was built between 1856 and 1864 and the architect was Francis Radford.

Linden Mews is also part of the Pembridge Estate, and is now a private gated mews of just 8 houses. Where I could simply walk in (and did, though I don’t think I found anything I felt worth photographing) there is now a locked gate with notices marking it as private and banning vans and lorries. In 2014 a 3-bed terraced house here sold for £4.6 million.

On the wall of Red Lodge it recoreds that ‘George William Joy and Florence His Wife built this house AD 1889’ and I think the fine gate probably also dates from the same period. Joy (1844–1925) was an Irish painter and married Florence Isabel Mary Masterman, born in 1849 and, according to Google, now 171 years old. I think he painted her portrait before they were married and that she was the model in some of his other pictures.

Russian oligarch and friend of Putin Omar Murtuzaliev bought the £25million property around 2007 and had almost completed a massive six-year building project to make a home for his son. According to the Evening Standard report, “a marble swimming pool had already been fitted, and a basement excavation included a Turkish bath, plunge pool and gym, with a cinema and grand reception room being built in a two-storey roof extension” when a massive fire engulfed the property in January 2013.

Edward Orme, (1775-1848) was a painter and etcher, and made etchings of around 700 paintings, becoming engraver to Geroge III and the Prince of Wales, as well as producing many books of aquatints and etchings. He opened several shops in Mayfair to make and sell prints from 1801-1824. In 1808 he began purchasing plots of land in Bayswater, developing this area on St Petersburgh Place and Moscow road from 1815, the year after a visit to London by Tsar Alexander I. In 1824-6 he developed Orme Square.

This small block on the corner of Orme Lane is clearly from a later century, almost certainly the 1930s, and I think a very interesting building. I think it is probably four flats and I think the plot was probably previously a part of the garden of 1 Orme Square.

You can view more of my pictures of London from 1987 on Flickr. There are also pictures from some earlier years on my Flickr site – and more to come.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.