The Blasted Heath

One of the great pleasures of sauntering through London is looking upwards. That is, at buildings beyond ground floor. Many interesting and bizarre ornaments and features can be discovered. The number of animal features, for example, is manifold. One particular feature that has intrigued me for years are the Beavers of Oxford Street. If you stand on the north side of Oxford Street outside the 100 Club and look over the road to the left, you will see a number of effigies of beavers, four in all,complete with flat tails, mounted on a tall building, on its pinnacle and further down on window tops. I always surmised that the beavers were a symbol of industry and that the building, 105-109 Oxford Street, housed some sort of society connected either with industry or labour. But in fact that building, which for a time was occupied by Burton's, was once the emporium for Henry Heath the Hatters, and of course, the unfortunate beavers were once used to make hats! The uppermost beaver holds a shield with H - for Heath- marked on it in gold.The building was built for Henry Heath's in 1887 by the architects Christopher & White and once featured a frieze of people engaged in hat-making activities by Benjamin Geswick, a disciple of John Ruskin.

Further along Oxford Street, you can turn south into a parallel road to find the Henry Heath Hat factory. I once had a photo taken of me in a Henry Heath hat outide here- Heath in a Heath outside Heath's. Must post it up here sometime.

Labels: Beavers, Hats, Henry Heath, Oxford Street