For those few of you who haven’t and might wish to, a visit to Gray’s Antiques Centre, just off Oxford Street and adjacent to the Bond Street Tube Station, has become much, much harder to do. With building works at the tube station and the construction of a new luxury shopping complex adjacent, hoardings will cover Gray’s distinctive Victorian terracotta, flatiron shaped façade for three years. Dependent for a large degree upon the Oxford Street shopping traffic, occlusion of Gray’s cannot have anything but a damaging impact on the dealers inside. Besides the stand for our good friend and trade stalwart Elliot Lee all the 200 or so dealers offer silver, items of virtue, gems, and antiquities of a quality one would expect from a Bond Street dealer.
While some effort has been made by the management of the tube to install signage to direct punters inside Gray’s- now that the main entrance is now severely restricted, the result of the building works- those efforts have been ineffective and, it’s reported, the trade inside has already suffered.
Unfortunate, but not surprising, and all this seems too representative of how little concern is given the trade these days. In this time of too big to fail, the trade in art and antiques, composed as it is- and as it always has been- of independent business people, whose responsibilities for acquiring quality stock, restoring it, presenting it properly, and maintaining a base of expertise in order to interface knowledgably with the collector public generally reside in one or two individuals- generally the eponymous gallery owner- necessarily limits the size of the business to a small one. Consequently, it always seems that the dealers, despite a certain amount of organization through trade associations are always given short shrift by local authorities and elected officials. I would be surprised to find, say, Selfridge’s just across Oxford Street bedeviled by offsite building works in the same way Gray’s is.
The irony is that, although I like Selfridge’s, it is a department store and hardly unique, while Gray’s, and indeed the entire trade in London, represents something of longstanding importance, as one of the handful of surviving venues in one of the world’s primary centres for the trade in art and antiques. Given the times, one would presume that some effort would be made to husband a resource that, once it’s gone, it’s gone. Already the trade in the West End is rapidly disappearing, with Mallett’s selling their Bond Street leasehold, and dealers like Stair, Pelham Galleries, and M. Turpin, now only of blessed memory.
Jenna Garner
November 29, 2011
Once the Crossrail project is complete (due in 2017-we’ll see how it goes!) there is no doubt it will be an incredible transformation for Grays and the entire area. The artists impression of the top of Davies Street and South Molton Street look fantastic and I am confident that Grays will benefit immensely as a result. However the pressure on the 200 independent antique dealers within Grays, that started early last year and will continue until 2017, continues to mount. Grays was opened in the 1970s and is now sadly one of the largest remaining antique centres of it’s kind in London. It is so important for external bodies to recognise the historic importance and fragility of the antiques trade and the impact large scale projects can have on these very small, often one man, businesses. The Portobello Road arcades and Antiquarius are prime examples of this fragility. As Michael Chappell states in his article above, once it’s gone, it’s gone.
The sad part is that these projects also come at a time of worldwide economic crisis, increased parking restrictions and large new shopping developments, such as Westfield Stratford, drawing away potential customers from central London. Times are hard for not only the antiques trade but the West End in general. The New West End Company and Westminster Council, as well as other organisations such as the Regent Street Association and South Molton Street Association have created a great network where small and large businesses in the West End can work together to support and promote the area. Grays is lucky to be a part of this network and we hope it will help during the difficult years that lay ahead for our antique dealers.
On a lighter note Grays IS still open for business throughout the Crossrail works and is almost at full capacity with a diverse range of specialist antique dealers. We hope that you will continue to support Grays dealers throughout the Crossrail works and come and say hello this Thursday at our late night Christmas shopping event on the 1st December, 5pm-9pm. If you are planning to visit please contact us on 020 7629 7034 or email info@graysantiques.com for up-to-date details of the works in the area how to get here.