Category: Uncategorized

Piccadilly, London

This photograph was taken in 1927/8. The photographer was standing in Piccadilly, looking towards Piccadilly Circus. The revue at the London Pavilion is ‘One Dam Thing After Another’ which opened in May 1927. The roadworks in the foreground was started in February 1925 and was part of the plan to construct a new booking hall and pedestrian subways due to a massive increase in tube usage. The work was completed in 1928.
While the work was being carried out, the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain – otherwise known as Eros – had been moved to Victoria Embankment Gardens.
Image: Photographer unknown
The upward extension of the London Pavilion (now the Trocadero) can clearly be seen in this photograph from September 2020. Eros had been restored to its original position but can been seen here in its current position – 40 feet away from the original spot. It had been moved in the 1980s.
Image: © Steven Miell (TimeViews)
A merged version of the two photographs. Use the slider in the centre.

Meard Street, London

Meard Street in Soho is known for the row of surviving early-Georgian townhouses. In the 1950s and 1960s, the basement of number 23 was home to one of London’s best-known coffee houses – Le Macabre. It was known for having coffin lids for tables, as well as skull for ashtrays. Skeletons, bones and cobwebs hung from the walls and ceiling. The only songs on the jukebox were ‘funereal’ in character. It was a mecca for ‘hip’ teenagers in its time. This photograph was taken in the 1960s.
Image: Photographer unknown
In September 2020, Meard Street’s character remains with the preserved Georgian terrace. Number 23(a) is now a film production company.
Image: © Steven Miell (TimeViews)
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Piccadilly Circus, London

A photograph taken by Allan Hailstone in 1956 when the film ‘Rock Around The Clock’ was showing at the London Pavilion in Piccadilly Circus.
Image: © Allan Hailstone
In the intervening years, the London Pavilion (now the Trocadero) has been structurally altered and the neon has long since gone. Image: © Steven Miell (TimeViews)
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Derby Gate, London

The Derby Gate entrance to the Metropolitan Police Headquarters in Scotland Yard – just off Whitehall – photographed in 1964. The building was designed in 1896-98, and built between 1904-06. It is built in red brick with a Portland stone banding. There is a slate roof with lofty banded chimney stacks. There is a segmental arched bridge to the North Building.
Image: AP – Photographer unknown (1964)
From approximately the same position in July 2021. A lot more security in evidence.
Image: © Steven Miell (TimeViews)
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55 Broadway, London

This building was designed in the late 1920s by Charles Holden as the new Headquarters of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London – which eventually became Transport for London (TfL). It was completed in 1931 and, at the time, was the tallest office building in London until overtaken by another Holden building – Senate House at the University of London. The building was occupied by TfL until 2015 when they moved to a new HQ building in London’s Olympic Park.
55 Broadway was initially listed as Grade II in 1970, but was upgraded to Grade I in 2011. 
Image: London Transport Museum (1932)
There was a plan to convert 55 Broadway into luxury apartments (2013), but plans changed in 2020 when Blue Orchid Hotels announced that it will be converted to become a luxury hotel.
Image: © Steven Miell (TimeViews)
A merged version of the two photographs. Use the slider in the centre.

Trafalgar Square, London

A view of Trafalgar Square – probably from the 1890s – with the National Gallery on the right-hand side. Canada House is on the left. Image: Photographer unknown
From the same position in January 2020 – taken from the steps of St Martin’s.
Image: © Steven Miell (TimeViews)
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Covent Garden, London

Colin O’Brien’s 1973 photograph shows the outside of St Paul’s Covent Garden during the last days of the Covent Garden market. The columns of the church have graffiti and the remains of posters attached to them.
Image: Colin O’Brien
Covent Garden is now the heart of tourist London. I took this photograph in September 2020 at the time of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Image: © Steven Miell (TimeViews)
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Aldwych, London

Bush House is situated in Aldwych at the southern end of Kingsway in London. It’s a Grade ll listed building constructed between 1925 and 1935. It was envisaged as a trade centre by an American industrialist – Irving Bush.
Bush House was the HQ of BBC World Service from 1941 until the BBC’s lease expired in 2015. It is now used by King’s College London as part of their ‘Strand’ Campus.
The building’s opening ceremony was on July 4th 1925. The two statues (seen in both photographs were unveiled at the same time and represent Anglo-American friendship. The building bears the inscription “To the friendship of English speaking peoples”.
During the latter stages of WW2, Bush House suffered some external damage from a V1 flying bomb.
I would estimate that this photograph of Bush House was taken in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
Image: Photographer unknown
f you ignore the temporary roadworks in the foreground, the view of Bush House in September 2020 looks much greener and cleaner. Image: © Steven Miell (TimeViews)
A merged version of the two photographs. Use the slider in the centre.

Ludgate Hill, London

A view of Ludgate Hill towards St. Paul’s Cathedral in the 1850s. The ‘Lovegrove Family Hotel’ can be seen on the left-hand side. One of the oldest photographs of a London street scene.
Image: Historic England
By August 2020, the only buildings that remain from the 1850s are St. Paul’s Cathedral and St. Martin’s, Ludgate. Also, please note the statue of Queen Anne – in front of St Paul’s Cathedral – which was only erected in 1886, and is absent in the first photograph.
Image: © Steven Miell (TimeViews)
A merged version of the two photographs. Use the slider in the centre.

Prince’s Street, London

A view along Prince’s Street, with the Bank of England building on the right. The photograph shows the aftermath of a German bomb which fell on Bank station in 1941 during World War 2. Over 50 people were killed in this incident.
Image: Photographer unknown
A photograph taken from the same position in January 2020.
Image: © Steven Miell (TimeViews)
A merged version of the two photographs. Use the slider in the centre.