Tony's Hemp Corner is no more and stripping out at No10 Caledonian Road a while ago revealed this lovely old signage in a 1950s, possibly earlier typeface which I snapped in the lovely light today. I think this is in a conservation area so hopefully the style will be retained. Do any readers or friends remember this as a cleaners or know when it last traded like this?
I don’t know about the cleaners but I miss Tony’s cafe. Do you know if he opened somewhere else? He sold the best and cheapest raw chocolate ever!! I wish someone would sell healthy food in Kings Cross again.
I moved in to Keystone Crescent in 1980. I cannot recall what this shop was then but definitely no longer a dry cleaners. The nearest dry cleaners at that time was in Grays Inn Road.
From:
Albert Beale
5 Caledonian Rd
Kings Cross
(020-7278 4474)
No 10 first became a wholefood shop in the 1980s (originally called Peacemeal and set up by people connected with Housmans and others at No 5), and later changed hands twice, ending up with Tony.
Before this, in the 1970s, I remember it as some sort of clothing shop – though perhaps it hadn’t been actively in use for the whole period between my arrival at Cale Rd (beginning of the 70s) and the start of No 10’s wholefood era.
Albert
From Albert again…
In terms of Tony opening elsewhere, I think he is/was behind the “alternative medicine” place up at No 90 Cale Rd – but he had said that he planned to re-open at No 10 as well at some stage… If I see him on the streets, I’ll ask him!
As for healthy food in Kings Cross: well, there’s the vegan place on the left on the way up to the end of the one-way system from the Kings Cross end of Cale Rd – vaguely opposite No 90 I suppose, but I can’t remember the number.
And there are certainly a couple of interesting – in the sense of very-non-chain, and friendly, and “different” – places for a snack or drink at my end of Cale Rd … ie Simmonds opposite Tesco, and the gang at No 9 (more than a snack, in their case). Neither is specifically wholefood or veggy or organic, or whatever, but they’re both a breath of fresh air in terms of being unconnected with a large corporation, and being nothing like the average local greasy spoon or pub/bar.
Albert
PS:
I’ve checked a 30-year-old Kelly’s Post Office Directory (do people remember them?!) I have tucked away. In 1980, No 10 was a boutique called Stuarts Separates…
(At the same time, No 8, across the other side of the Omega Place turning, was Tony’s Wig and Drug Store, “wig specialists” – though I presume the Tony was a different one!)
Albert