London
Small Shop

Fish & Chips - or What?

In early August 2004 Clay wrote:

A recent eBay auction had The Old Bookshop, below left. I figured it was an early version of Fish and Chips without people, ie like The Clock Shop, below right. Then I noticed two things:

• There is no window in the roof (F&C, Clock Shop and small PO do)
• The decoration above the windows is straight like F&C, but on my Clock Shop they are rounded. The small PO has rounded too.

So are there 3 moulds of this? F&C (people), Clock Shop (rounded no people) - Old Bookshop (straight - no people - no window in roof)?

Marilyn replied:

With or without people, the earliest models of London Small Shop had no window in the roof, straight lintels over the windows and a drainpipe, as seen in The Old Bookshop above left.

The buildings without people eventually had rounded lintels, no drainpipe and a dormer window projecting from the slope of the roof as shown in The Clock Shop above right.

Above left: an original Fish & Chips with the early blue trim.

Above right: the current Fish & Chips. Always with people, later versions kept the straight lintels and drainpipe but a skylight was inserted in the roof slope. At first the queue was cast separately and added with glaze, but after a couple of years it was an integral part of the mould. At some point Fish & Chips got a modelled wall plaque.

Above left: Post Office with pillar box added.

Above right: Roding Arts (No 1) LP50: In 2000 fifty old bisques were found in the workshop. They were like Fish & Chips with straight lintels, drainpipe, skylight and central plaque. But the front was fully modelled so people couldn't be added.

Karen D replied:

Marilyn, you have definitely cheered me up now! I have just been to look at my “F&C” and it must be an early one, as it has a dormer window, no drainpipe, and the people have been stuck on. It was one of my earlier purchases, mainly because you can’t live in Yorkshire and NOT have a fish and chip shop in your street!

Karen subsequently emailed a photo:

From Marilyn:

It actually looks like a Small Shop model shown as the PO and Clock Shop above - haven't seen that as F&C before... nor have I seen yellow curtains on it!

Clay then added:

London Small Shop - Structural Variations

Based on recent emails and photos, there appear to be seven elements involved:

• Existence or not of people queue outside (and may be separate casting)
• Existence or not of drain pipe
• Lintel is straight or rounded
• Roof has skylight, dormer or no opening
• Post Box outside
• Existence or not of plaque in center
• Roof Bevel*

The variations can be seen in the following:

From Marilyn on 9th December 2006:

Roof Bevel* is a recent variant which can be seen in Santa's Workshop LP50 on the Harvey Weston 2006 event page. It started life as a mistake when a corner got knocked off a Fish & Chips roof at the greenware stage.

Hazle thought it would make an interesting variation for the Santa piece (issued in 2004) but it has been used for some Fish & Chips too. Instead of grinding down the edges, nowadays a glass worker at Barleylands uses a machine that cuts through fired bisques like butter!