Former Kennedy Shop, 20 Westow Hill, Gipsy Hill, London

Summary

A shop consisting of a commercial unit to the street with residential accommodation above, of around the 1910, with Kennedy chain shopfront and interior, installed around 1934.

Description

A shop consisting of a commercial unit to the street with residential accommodation above, of around the 1910, with Kennedy's chain shopfront and interior, installed around 1934.

MATERIALS: brown brick with metal casements above a hardwood shop front with tiled stallriser.

PLAN: the building occupies a narrow commercial plot on the southside of Westow Hill. The shop is a single open space accessed off the street, with storage rooms behind (now offices and consulting rooms), a cellar below, and a storeroom, kitchen and bathroom to the first floor, which are accessed by an internal stair.

EXTERIOR: the shop front has a pair of entrance doors to the left and a display window to the right. The stallriser is faced with green tiles and capped with bronze coping. Some of the tiles have a foliage pattern in relief and are grouped together for decorative effect. The single-pane main window has a slim aluminium frame. It is surmounted by three, timber transom lights which have patterned, multi-pane glass, arranged around a green stained-glass panel.

The late-C20, paired entrance doors stand inside a recessed lobby which repeats the high-set transom light design on the right side. To the left side, it has green tiles to the dado level, above which there is a timber mirror. To the right-hand side the stallriser tile treatment of the shop front is repeated. The geometric ceiling is formed of white panels, set within a slender metal frame. The floor is formed of black and white chequerboard tiles within a triangular border. The doors have a tall glazed panel to the upper section and a single timber panel below. They are set into a timber architrave which has a stepped headrail and a later sign (Opticians), surmounted by a square fanlight.

A functional, modern fascia board with ‘opticians’ signage, surmounts the shop front. Behind this, the original streamlined type fascia survives. The original ‘J Kennedy’ sign was replaced by an ‘Opticians’ sign to a similar design and this is thought to still be in situ. The brickwork above is laid in Flemish bond and there are two, multi-paned, metal casement windows. The top of the wall has a shallow, brick pediment with a stylised keystone formed of three vertical courses of brickwork.

INTERIOR: the walls of the shop are clad in green tiles up to dado level, some of which have a decorative foliage design, and are grouped to form a cross. The tiles above dado level are white with a frieze of buff tiles surmounted by a darker green border. The walls have fitted mirrors in timber frames, some of which are late-C20 additions. The originals are set into arches of buff tiles with an inner border of green decorated with a white diamond pattern. The wall to the eastern side has two shelves made from grey marble. Atop the upper shelf there are two early-C20 timber display cabinets with inset mirrors. They are joined together by later timber display cabinets, shelves and a plain timber frieze which runs around the shop and connects to late C20 display units on the western wall. The shop counter is late C20 and is constructed of timber and glass. The ceiling is covered in white geometric panels, supported by a slender metal frame. There are C21 pendant lights which hang from the ceiling on metal stems. The floor has a C21 covering.

To the rear of the shop space there is a centrally located, four-panel solid door. It has a fitted mirror to the shop side. The rooms to the rear are functional and laid out to a later plan. The cellar and rooms to the first floor are plain with functional fixtures and fittings.

History

The Kennedy's shop at 20 Westow Hill is one of few branches that survive of a small chain of shops in operation in South London for nearly 140 years. It is shown on the 1910 ordnance survey map when it is thought to have been in use as a stationery shop. Around 1934 it was purchased by the Kennedy chain and given a branded shopfront and interior.

Kennedy began trading from 140 Rye Lane, Peckham in the 1870s, though nothing remains of their premises there now. The proprietor from the 1890s was a John Kennedy, who died in 1895, when the company was taken over by his two sons Sion and Alexander. The business appeared in trades' directories as 'ham and beef dealers' but Kennedy also ran a fishmongers at 128 Rye Lane and at 297 New Cross Road, which was joined in the succeeding years by a ham and tongue shop at 301 New Cross Road. The trade in pork products was clearly prosperous, for in the intervening years Kennedy had opened another ham and beef shop at 13 Dartmouth Park Road, Forest Hill, although this was short-lived and had closed by the 1920s. In 1920, Sion died and the family business was split between Alexander (Alex Kennedy Ltd) and Sion’s son Herbert (J Kennedy Ltd). The inter-war period saw the great expansion of the brand, including the opening of; 85 Rye Lane, 86 Peckham Road, 319 Railton Road, 10 Denmark Hill, 305 Walworth Road (about 1923, listed at Grade II), 18a High Street South Norwood (1926, listed at Grade II), 64 Deptford High (about 1929) and 27 Church Street, Croydon (1929).

The chain expanded further in the 1930s with shops at 137 High Street, Penge (1934), 20 Westow Hill (1934) a J Kennedy store, 161 High Street, Bromley (1935) and 11 High Street, Bromley (1936). One post-war shop was established at 23 High Street, West Wickham (1962). The shops sold sausages for cooking at home, but also pies for consumption straight away. Like today, such readily available and filling food was a staple of working people's diets in the 1920s and 1930s.

The J Kennedy shops were all sold off during the 1980s, including 20 Westow Hill which was converted into an opticians in 1993. Around eight Alex Kennedy shops continued to trade until 2007.

Just as other shops like WH Smith and Boots were developing the notion of branding and in-house style in the early C20, so Kennedy deployed a consistent design in shops across the chain. Similar materials and decoration were used in each building, including: shop fronts with polished glass signage, granite stallrisers and Art-Deco sunburst or multi-paned transom lights; and green and yellow tiled interiors with marble-topped counters, wood cabinets and mirrored panels. Most of the fascia signs used at Kennedy's were made with the brilliant process, whereby letters of V-section were impressed into copper sheets with steel dyes and then covered in glass. The shop fitters, whose mark is on some of the fascias, were Messrs A Walter Piggott and Co Ltd, based at 7 Phoenix Place in Clerkenwell.

Chains of shops rose in prominence from the 1870s, by which time transportation, in particular the railway network, facilitated centralised warehousing and the supervision of widely-separated branches. The trend towards chains was prevalent in shops selling day-to-day purchases; in 1880, for example, only two grocers had more than 25 branches whilst in 1910 there were 44 with such a large chain of shops. As a result of the importation of frozen meat from the 1880s, butchers also began to operate as multiple-branch businesses; there were over two thousand branch butcher shops by 1900. The Kennedy chain followed this trend by opening a processing and distribution factory in Peckham.

The inter-war period saw the greatest expansion of multiples; it was then that firms like Boots, WH Smith, Woolworth and Marks and Spencers consolidated their nationwide chains of shops. Yet smaller chains of shops in a particular city or area, like Kennedy in the suburbs of South London, were still able to grow and prosper; something which has proved more challenging, for independent shops too, in the period since the Second World War.

At 20 Westow Hill, the rear area (former cold store and storage) has been converted to offices and consulting rooms. The shop counter has been removed and replaced in timber and glass. A number of cabinets, drawers and matching mirrors have been introduced between the original Kennedy's fixtures and fittings. Externally, the main 'J Kennedy' sign has been removed and has been replaced with an ‘opticians’ sign of similar style. This in turn has been covered over by a modern sign board. A smaller 'Kennedy' sign is stored in the basement, which was hung above the entrance doors. Another smaller ‘Kennedy’ sign has been removed from the top of the stallriser. The original stripped awning with metal frame is no longer present and a steel security shutter has been installed in front of the replacement entrance doors. The light fittings above the shop floor are also late C20.

Reasons for Listing

20 Westow Hill, a shop consisting of a commercial unit to the street with residential accommodation above of around 1910, with Kennedy's chain shopfront and interior installed around 1934, is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest

* it is a rare survivor of a once common, high-street, branded chain of food shops;
* it has a good quality Kennedy's shop front with the added interest of decorative tiles, multi-pane glass and streamlined architectural detail to the fascia and above;
* despite some refitting, it displays the characteristic decorative tiling, geometric ceiling and bespoke cabinets that are representative of the Kennedy chain;
* while there has been some change to the interior and plan, the original function of the sales floor is still legible.

Historic interest

* it is a rare survivor of a once common, high-street, branded localised chain of food shops of the inter-war period.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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