When I’m traveling and therefore don’t know anything about most of the structures around, I simply take pictures and hope that I’ll be able to identify them later. Sometimes it’s quite easy. I came across this little Victorian masterpiece last week and it turns out it’s listed, which is to say it’s a designated landmark.
It was a dairy supply company – AKA a place that sold milk – constructed in 1888. The designation description is here, and a nice history is here. Amazingly, the pizzeria at the ground floor was built in 1965 and is still operating. With one exception (see below) this isn’t about structure, but rather architecture. That’s some great brickwork livening up a building that is, essentially, a box. And some great terra cotta at the signage:
The much smaller and plainer building next door, also owned by the same company, has the same quality of brick and terra cotta.
The one place that the structure it interesting is that the four big arches at the ground floor are pretty clearly real arches. In a twentieth-century building, or one in the US, I wouldn’t be so certain, but look at this beauty:
Note the beam that appears to be supporting the rear facade at the courtyard beyond. It’s not like people in London in 1888 couldn’t use a big iron beam to support a wall (as I’m used to seeing in NYC), it’s that they thought the architecture called for something else.
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