13 May 2023:

The sex shop on Acland Street left this little Victorian shop some time ago, looks terrible – but the interesting thing is that the rear, all exposed because it’s a corner, is very intact, with nice brown bricks and verandah, complete with cast iron, which looks to have been larger upstairs, part infilled in at some point. And under all the paint, the shop windows look to intact 1910s or 1920s too, hope they stay ! Another interesting point is that this was the only shop on Acland street in the 19thC – the rest down to Barkly was terraces and big houses in big gardens (and a cable tram barn); some of the terraces had shops built on the fronts (like the ones right next door), but mostly the shops were built new after 1900, some nice art deco ones, with flats upstairs, and some are 60s/70s.

7 May 2025

The ex-Club X on Acland Street has been revamped and partly restored – the probably 1920s corner door in particular looks good. Pity it’s all painted dull grey on grey, but at least the door frame is the original copper, burnished. The rear which was visible due to the corner site was a complex collection of bits, mostly still there, but the cute little verandah was replaced rather oddly by a wedge shaped extension, though nice they used second hand bricks. There’s two more shops on the Acland Street side, clearly lost all their detail ages ago, and have stayed that way.

From the 50s, seems it was a newsagent, with a big neon sign !

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