The art of the high street

I can no longer remember when it was that high streets did not all look the same. The architectural writer James Maude Richards bemoaned the disappearance of local character from our shops as early as 1938, but even so he could include a plumassier, submarine engineer and shop of model transport in his winsome introduction to the high street. With the exception of some of the specialists, subs included, these were shops that could still be found in many towns beyond London.

Eric Ravilious did the illustrations for the book (which, alongside three of the original prints, is on show at the Arc gallery in Winchester from 18 February to 15 May). Ravilious depicted with characteristic charm the rows of model sail boats lining the windows of Bassett-Lowke, and the submariners’ diving suits — so otherworldly in their vast dimensions — and the exotic premises of Mr A. Pollard, who was also a furrier, with its pelts of leopard and bear dangling in the shop front and concealing the less edifying activities within (see p33). Pollard had experience of stuffing big game, though by the 1930s, his business was largely in the preservation of family dogs.

‘What makes a shop so exciting as a thing to look at,’ wrote Richards, ‘is, of course, the quantity of goods.’ He praised the sight of cheeses packed tightly into shop windows, and the patterns formed by like objects arranged in order. The whiff of fromage from Paxton & Whitfield, also captured by Ravilious, still hits you long before you see the rounds in the Jermyn Street window.