A keen photographer since childhood, Allan Hailstone’s beautiful images are a tribute to London at what he remembers as a magical time. Fogs, Soho at night, the remnants of St Giles, lost theaters…Hailstone’s photographs were taken from between 1950 to 1962 paint a picture of England’s multifaceted capital in a decade of great change and development. From grand monuments to innocuous street corners, famous faces to passers-by, this selection of evocative photographs captures the very essence of London life in the mid-twentieth century.Here is just a taste of how things were.
Warner Cinema, Cranbourn Street, London, 3 January 1957
Trafalgar Square, London, 5 November 1955
Trafalgar Square CND London, 24 September 1960
The Strand, London, 1 August 1955
Southampton Row, London, 2 August 1955
Piccadilly Circus, London, 2 April 1956
Outside Foyle’s Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London, around mid-1961
Near Tottenham Court Road tube station, London, 1 August 1955
Men outside shop Charing Cross Road, London, 5 November 1955
Leicester Square, London, 11 April 1955
Leicester Square, London, 2 April 1956
Aldwych, London, 1 August 1955
Museum Street cnr. New Oxford Street, London, 1 August 1955
Charing Cross Road, London, 5 November 1955
Charing Cross Road, London, 5 November 1955 looking south
Charlie Gracie posing for promotional photos in London, c.5 August 1957
Foyle’s Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London, 5 November 1955
High Holborn, London, 2 August 1955
Kingsway cnr. High Holborn, London, 1 August 1955
The Empire Theatre on the north side of Leicester Square. The Queen’s Corner bar had no toilets and customers had to use the public conveniences in the Square, 1955
Café de Paris on Coventry Street, 1955
Leicester Square tube station looking south on Charing Cross Road, 1955
Charing Cross Road, 1955
Coventry Street corner, Haymarket, 1955
Coventry Street, 1955
The Silver Snack Bar on Cranbourne Street, where in 1955 you could buy sausages, chips and beans costing 2 shillings and 3 pence, 1955
The Odeon cinema at Marble Arch, 1955
Piccadilly Circus, 1955
C&A’s on Oxford Street near Marble Arch. It’s a Primark now, 1955
Selfridges on Oxford Street, 1955