Friday 19 September 2014

Tea, tiles and banking

Opposite the Royal Courts of Justice in The Strand you will find this magnificent entrance to believe it or not -a bank.




























You might easily walk past the glass doors thinking it was just an ordinary bank but once inside it is a feast for the eyes. Needless to say, this building did not start life as a bank but as a hotel -The Palsgrave. Built in 1883 it was decorated with Doulton tiles (see previous post here).



Above this flying fish you can see the flamboyantly styled letter P, a reminder of its previous life as The Palsgrave Hotel. All around the entrance there are tiles depicting animals, plants and figures.















The tiles were decorated by John McLennan who had worked for the Doulton Pottery factory for 33 years starting in 1877 at the age of 17.




In 1825 Twinings (the famous tea company) diversified into finance. needing more space The Twinings shop,which is next door to the bank eventually took over the Hotel next door and converted it into a bank. It was in 1892 that the bank merged with Lloyds but there was still a Mr Twining as manager until 1917 when he retired.








Sharing with James at Weekend Reflections

14 comments:

  1. How do you find these places? Thanks again for the tour.

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  2. interesting history...cool workmanship on all the ceramics

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  3. I would love to work in that environment surrounded by all that beauty every day.

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  4. You can tell it didn't start as a bank. And it's so beautiful, I wonder if anything could be created today that is so fine. :-)

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  5. Wow... That hall is really stunning.
    I'm very fond of the first picture : the mozaic work is so impressive !

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  6. The first photo is incredible, almost appearing to intimidate anyone entering, which is ok for a bank, but not for a hotel. It's a interesting find.

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  7. The decorations are so intricate and beautiful. The building has an interesting history and I hope it is never destroyed.

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  8. I'm glad the bank kept the décorations from the hotel . What a fabulous architecture !

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  9. Such a beautiful decoration... I like mosaic work very much... Great photos...

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  10. Very interesting, Twinings is my favourite tea producer!

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  11. Really amazing. Wouldn't it be something to work in a place that looked like that. MB

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  12. Great photos of such amazing creations ~ Wonderful!

    artmusedog and carol (A Creative Harbor)

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