29 October 2007

The Jolly Butchers

When I first saw this shopfront, I had no idea what type of business it was, but Beaucatcher is a hair salon:
(I still don't really understand the name though--is a new hairstyle supposed to catch you a new beau?) On an equally random note, for some reason the scrap of paper remaining on the left-hand door here intrigues me; I don't know what it was originally, but the leftover bits look like the profile of a cute, running cartoon character:
The last street photo for today is of a faded neighbourhood tile mural that I've never quite been able to make out:
Apparently, the extremely faded lettering at the base of the panel reads, "The Duchess of Devonshire canvassing the jolly butchers for their votes for Fox," and the candidate in question, Charles James Fox, ran in the general election of 1784, winning narrowly thanks to campaigning by the Duchess. The relevance of such a mural in Stoke Newington, when Fox's riding was Westminster, was lost on me until I learned that the building on which the mural stands used to house the Jolly Butchers pub, and that the Duchess used to canvas butchers in Fox's riding, kissing them along the way. What a strange story and tenuous connection to the present-day mural--I wonder how old it is?

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