Added 16 May 2020
Across the Common, August 1914
The Hope pub, Miller butcher, unknown draper, Pooley fishmonger, Post Office and Orton grocer/off-licence, Minnard shoes, Bouts newsagent & stationer, Pike confectioner.
[Photo: Wandsworth Heritage Service]
Some of the boards outside Stanley Bouts Newsagent (no.7) are just about legible - I can see "Daily Telegraph: Russian March on Danzig" on the left, and the word "Warsaw" on the board second from the right.
These suggested to me that the photograph was taken in March 1945, during the "East Pomeranian Offensive".
But in October 2020, Jason Hazeley wrote suggesting that I was out by a whole war: "I looked at the photo and thought, 'that just can't be 1945 - those dresses look Edwardian'." As he discovered, the headline "Russian March on Danzig" had already been used on a number of British newspapers on 27 August 1914.
My thanks to Jason for his better clothing sense, and for not assuming the old cliche that "history never repeats itself". (Au contraire, it rarely does anything else).
I really should have know better. Or at least checked. If we look at at the shop names, we see several that were around through both wars - Minnard's the bootmakers (1874-1950), Stanley Bouts stationers and newsagents (1881-1945) and Geo. Pike, tobacconist and confectioner (1907-1945). But Pooley's fishmongers from 1907 was taken over by the Mac Fisheries chain in 1922. So that settles it.
Incidentally, notice e.g. the bell sign with the word "telephone" above Stanley Bouts newsagent and stationer. Few people had telephones in their homes until the 1960s, but this walk-in service ended in the 1920s.
Hope pub, Bennet Court, Chez Bruce restaurant (2 shops combined), James Pendleton estate agent, Caffe Nero, Lucy dry cleaning, Pizza Da Valter, ShonaMac women's clothing
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