31 Princes Street

31 princes street

Formerly known as Albion House (West Side)

 

31 Princes Street was built around 1820 as a private town house, known as Albion House. Of three bays and three storeys, it is built of red brick under a Welsh slated roof, with a low coping to the south gable. There are three sash windows with 12-panes to the first floor, in plain reveals with gauged brick flat arches over, with three similar but shallower windows above.

By about 1850 it had been converted to shop premises with an ornate ground floor shop front and accommodation over and from the 1870s until the late 1960s it was the premises of Ebenezer Whitby a printer, bookseller and stationer trading as E Whitby & Son.

It later became the premises of the Halifax Building Society and from 1995 the premises of Frederick Mabb, gent's outfitters.

 

gallery

 

Ebenezer Whitby & Sons' bookshop, printers and stationers at (now 31) Princes Street with a pair of single Sugg lamps outside. This photograph was taken about 1900.

 

A photograph of the southern end of Princes Street dating to around 1900. Ebenezer Whitby's shop is at extreme right.

 

A photograph of about 1910 with Ebenezer Whitby's shop at extreme left.

 

A photograph of the northern end of Princes Street dating to around 1900. Ebenezer Whitby's shop is at extreme left. At right, at this time the Assembly Rooms were known as the 'Palace of Varieties' as indicated by the vertical sign attached to it. 

 

A 1930s postcard of the same view. Wyndham House retains its small front garden and young tree, but notice how the post-box has gone and part of the pavement of the previous photograph has been whittled away in front of Whitby's shop premises.



The following sequence of photographs, courtesy of Tracey Williams, were taken in the 1960s by Harold Tilzey at the time Whitby's left the premises and it was then fitted out and occupied the Halifax Building Society.

 


Courtesy of Tracey Williams

 


Courtesy of Tracey Williams

 


Courtesy of Tracey Williams

 


Courtesy of Tracey Williams

 


Courtesy of Tracey Williams

 


Courtesy of Tracey Williams

 


Courtesy of Tracey Williams

 


Courtesy of Tracey Williams

 


Courtesy of Tracey Williams

 


Courtesy of Tracey Williams

 


Courtesy of Tracey Williams

 

 



 

No 31 Princes Street photographed in 2013.