One of the railway arches in the recently restored Findlater’s Corner at London Bridge that was once a tea room is to become a branch of a high street coffee chain.
Not the main corner site, with the large Findlater’s sign on it, which comes from the wine merchants who originally occupied the corner, but a side railway arch around the corner which recently revealed a very unexpected piece of history.
The railway arch was for many years home to a branch of William Hill, and it was only when Findlater’s Corner was being restored that a wide layer of white paint around the entrance was removed – and in doing so they found a richly decorated mosaic that had been painted over.
The arch had been occupied by Express Dairy as a tea room, and as the decoration explains, offered afternoon teas and luncheons, and fittingly for the time, separate ladies and smoking rooms…