Arthur Beale Chandlers to close

[ashtead]

That’s a shame as Plymouth has little else I seem to recall from my rare visits.

 

[mjcoon]

I bought my University camera gear at Fox Talberts across the road.

If that was William Henry Fox Talbot FRS FRSE FRAS, inventor and photography pioneer who died 17 September 1877 he had a good run!

 

[Seashoreman]

If that was William Henry Fox Talbot FRS FRSE FRAS, inventor and photography pioneer who died 17 September 1877 he had a good run!

Well this firm did 450 years.
Battle lost to save historic Whitechapel bell foundry | East London Advertiser

 

[Sandy]

That’s a shame as Plymouth has little else I seem to recall from my rare visits.

Off the top of my head, Force 4, Marine Bazaar and Gaelforce, there will be others.

Whenever I tried to visit Captain Watts they were closed. Still moving to the South Hams is going to do little for passing trade.

 

[mainsail1]

That's because they moved.

Captain Watts is Moving

That's a really useful place to move to for sailors at Mayflower Marina!..... Clearly the needs of the customer do not come first.

 

[JumbleDuck]

I bought my University camera gear at Fox Talberts across the road.

Is that the one which became the Morgan Camera Company and then the Morgan Computer Company?

 

[Blueboatman]

When I lived in Gower st , within walking were Buck and Ryan for tools , Arthur Beales and Telesonic, next to a good Fr movies cinema , Tyzacks snd Crispin a short motorcycle ride away for , respectively , saws +sharpening and veneers of any wood on this planet , a bit further away Brick Lane market where my more esoteric woodworking tools were acquired over the years one by one.
And just before Beales, you could buy banjo skins and guitar nuts . As ya do ?
And plethora of nut and bolt shops, sculptural armature suppliers, Lawrence Corner for army surplus ..
proper useful service shops that made an undramatic, steady living
And and .. lots of Italian coffee?
What a throw away / hands off society we have become . Just coffee now

 

[JumbleDuck]

And plethora of nut and bolt shops, sculptural armature suppliers, Lawrence Corner for army surplus ..

The Lawrence Corner catalogue was a thing of joy and the Boffin Shop was my temple. I always regret not buying a complete apparatus for filling met balloons with generated hydrogen. Until it moved to York, BR Collectors' Corner was in two different places nearby. And of course there was Proops Brother on Tottenham Court Road.

<sigh>

 

[pvb]

Wow, Laurence Corner, Proops, real memory lane stuff. I remember a little catalogue of army surplus stuff, a lot of electrical bits, must have been in the 1950s. Think the catalogue had a red cover. Any ideas?

 

[Daydream believer]

When I lived in Gower st , within walking were Buck and Ryan for tools , Arthur Beales and Telesonic, next to a good Fr movies cinema , Tyzacks snd Crispin a short

The crispin family still are involved in veneers in a big way but you have to go to Becton to find them. If one is offered several £m for an old building & can retire in comfort the options are limited
As a child i used to acompany my parents to our accountants to sign off the company accounts. My prize for a boring afternoon was to cross the road & buy something for my boat from captain o m watts on the other side of the street. The best days were going with dad to thomas foulkes under the leytonstone arches. A veritable gold mine. I still have some hooks attached to some wire loops. No idea why we bought them. But they had a great heap of them and they seemed handy even if one never needed one

 

[bromleybysea]

What memories. Buck and Ryan, London Yacht Centre just down the road, Lawrence Corner, Thomas Foulkes I used a lot when we were fiting-out for a transatlantic and I lived in Hackney. OM Watts, Potters in the Minories, a really good fastening shop over Clerkenwell way- can‘t remember the name. I intended to pop into town and visit Beale’s before it closed for good but it was a Saturday and it was shut. I ordered a couple of bits from their on-line store instead. And that’s the problem isn’t it? I hardly ever buy anything in a proper shop these days- even our weekly shop comes in a jolly green van from the supermarket. Generally, online shopping is more convenient than schlepping to a shop the other side of town, which won’t have what’s you want when you get there.

 

[Gary Fox]

What memories. Buck and Ryan, London Yacht Centre just down the road, Lawrence Corner, Thomas Foulkes I used a lot when we were fiting-out for a transatlantic and I lived in Hackney. OM Watts, Potters in the Minories, a really good fastening shop over Clerkenwell way- can‘t remember the name. I intended to pop into town and visit Beale’s before it closed for good but it was a Saturday and it was shut. I ordered a couple of bits from their on-line store instead. And that’s the problem isn’t it? I hardly ever buy anything in a proper shop these days- even our weekly shop comes in a jolly green van from the supermarket. Generally, online shopping is more convenient than schlepping to a shop the other side of town, which won’t have what’s you want when you get there.

'Clerkenwell Screws' was the fastenings shop, always busy in there.

 

[Cardinal]

Those wire loops with hooks were in Captain Watts’ catalogue referred to as being so cheap that “finding a use for them was a secondary consideration”.

 

[7Cboy]

I seem to recall he called them "wim woms"