London's Disappearing Gems
Lebby Eyres discovers one of London's hidden treasures - then finds out it is about to disappear...
Earlier this year, I got into trouble for missing my goddaughter’s birthday.
“What does she want?”, I asked her mother. A ring, was the answer. I discovered it is hard to buy a ring for a 12-year-old girl. Everything I found looked cheap or tatty.
Then, a few weeks ago, I was wandering the back streets of Pimlico and Victoria when I found J McCarthy’s Jewellers - one of London’s oldest shops, I was to discover. The window was full of oddities and unusual pieces, and spying a tray of rings priced at £25, I went inside.
I was delighted, not only for my goddaughter but for me, too. I rarely buy modern jewellery, preferring instead to buy vintage pieces from antiques markets, charity shops or old school jewellers.
Until recently, there was a wonderful jewellers in Highgate Village, close to where I grew up. It was called, simply, The Village Jewellers. It was there that I picked out my Victorian confirmation bracelet aged 13, and my husband bought me my first Georg Jensen ring. When I’d slightly bent a bracelet out of shape, I took it to the owner and he pushed it down his trusty baseball bat to stretch it out again.
Shops like that are hard to find, and so I was overjoyed to find J McCarthy’s. I told the owner and he looked at me. “We’re closing on 24th December,” he said. I couldn’t believe it.
It turns out that J McCarthy’s has been in existence since 1798, making it one of London’s oldest shops. Yet it’s not one I’ve ever read about before. Now in Artillery Row, it used to be on a parallel street until it received a direct hit from a bomb in 1940, and moved to its current location.
The current owners’ surname is Mullings, but the business has been in the same family for ten generations, but passed through the maternal line a couple of generations ago. Now, they are having to close their physical premises because the lease is expiring and the landlord wants to knock through to the old Barclays Bank next door, possibly to create a restaurant.
I asked where the cabinets would go, and the owner told me they would most likely end up an at auctioneers. Happily, the business is not closing for good, but they will concentrate on their online shop. Perhaps, when the dust has settled, they will rent a space where customers can go to view items and have jewellery valued.
In the end, I bought my goddaughter a beautiful dress ring, and I also chose a miniature mirror pendant, a smaller version of one I inherited from my mother. There were so many beautiful items in there, and a plethora of bargains. I tried on a Victorian locket with a beaded edge – it made me look like the Countess of Grantham – but when we looked inside there was a single white feather. What a story that locket had to tell.
It’s heart-breaking to have discovered this shop mere weeks before its closure, but I’m grateful that I did – and as the owner pointed out, there will be bargains galore before they finally shut their doors on Christmas Eve.
It is undoubtedly one of London’s disappearing gems. Traditional shops like this are vanishing as the centre of London turns into one giant mall where useless tat shops come and go with depressing regularity.
Last year, Arthur Beale’s, the capital’s legendary chandlers, finally shut its doors after around 500 years. The owner Hugh Taylor told Esquire “It’s a bit ironic. Since people found out that we’re closing down, we’ve never been busier.”
What is also ironic is that across the road on Neal Street, vintage fashion shops are popping up left, right and centre. It seems our appetite for thrifting is undiminished, but that doesn’t extend to supporting the shops that are in themselves vintage.
If we don’t use them, then we <will> lose London’s most precious stores. Camden Passage in Islington is now a desolate hell hole of yoghurt shops and hawkers of CBD oil: the old covered market was pulled down and a Reiss built in its place several years ago. Annie’s vintage shop has relocated to the owner’s house because of rising rents.
Most of its famous antique shops have now disappeared. The old tram yard, once a hub of antiques merchants, is now an Amazon Fresh. Only the market stall owners keep the spirit of the past going.
We only have ourselves to blame of course. But it’s not too late. There are a few more shopping days left until Christmas. Get down to J McCarthy’s, head north to New Oxford Street to James Smiths and Son’s to buy an umbrella, buy yourself a hat at Lock and Co in Mayfair.
Here are some more of our favourite London shops
Wonderful cakes and bakes here
Please add your suggestions in the comments - we’d love to hear your discoveries.
Further information
J McCarthy 11 Artillery Row, Westminster SW1P 1RH. Website
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Agree wholeheartedly. I accidentally wore my 1930’s amethyst earrings (purchased from McCarthy’s) while swimming and some tiny marcasite pieces fell out. I took them in for repair and the lovely gentlemen in there replaced the pieces free of charge.