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.
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| Warner Cinema, Cranbourn Street, London, 3 January 1957 |
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| Trafalgar Square, London, 5 November 1955 |
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| Trafalgar Square CND London, 24 September 1960 |
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| The Strand, London, 1 August 1955 |
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| Southampton Row, London, 2 August 1955 |
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| Piccadilly Circus, London, 2 April 1956 |
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| Outside Foyle’s Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London, around mid-1961 |
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| Near Tottenham Court Road tube station, London, 1 August 1955 |
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| Men outside shop Charing Cross Road, London, 5 November 1955 |
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| Leicester Square, London, 11 April 1955 |
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| Leicester Square, London, 2 April 1956 |
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| Aldwych, London, 1 August 1955 |
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| Museum Street cnr. New Oxford Street, London, 1 August 1955 |
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| Charing Cross Road, London, 5 November 1955 |
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| Charing Cross Road, London, 5 November 1955 looking south |
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| Charlie Gracie posing for promotional photos in London, c.5 August 1957 |
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| Foyle’s Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London, 5 November 1955 |
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| High Holborn, London, 2 August 1955 |
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| Kingsway cnr. High Holborn, London, 1 August 1955 |
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| 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 |
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| Café de Paris on Coventry Street, 1955 |
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| Leicester Square tube station looking south on Charing Cross Road, 1955 |
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| Charing Cross Road, 1955 |
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| Coventry Street corner, Haymarket, 1955 |
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| Coventry Street, 1955 |
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| The Silver Snack Bar on Cranbourne Street, where in 1955 you could buy sausages, chips and beans costing 2 shillings and 3 pence, 1955 |
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| The Odeon cinema at Marble Arch, 1955 |
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| Piccadilly Circus, 1955 |
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| C&A’s on Oxford Street near Marble Arch. It’s a Primark now, 1955 |
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| Selfridges on Oxford Street, 1955 |