Sunday 21 August 2011

A trip down Memory Lane (Camden Passage actually)

We’ve just got back from a really great weekend break in London that included a trip to Apsley House (Wellington’s pad) and The Tower of London amongst other things. However, the most surprising item on the agenda was the result of Mrs S wanting to visit a particular knitting yarn shop that turned out (unknown to me) to be in Camden Passage, Islington.


Marcus Hinton outside the old Hinton Hunt shop

The diehards amongst you will of course know that Hinton Hunt had a shop in Camden Passage in the early 1970s. I’ve mentioned before in this blog that I visited the shop in 1973 with high expectations and was disappointed because there were no wargame figures on show, only the larger 54mm collectors items. I bought a figure of a Caledonian warrior that came in a nice box but to be honest I didn’t really like it and made a hash of painting it anyway.



Me in the same place a good few years later

The old Hinton Hunt shop (No 27) now sells frozen yoghurt and, it being a rather hot day, Mrs S and I availed ourselves of its facilities. She had a strawberry one with fresh blueberry and raspberry topping and I had a mango one with kiwi fruit and chocolate brownie topping. We sat inside to eat them and I have to say the overall experience was much better than the one I had on my last visit to the place 38 years ago. The frozen yoghurt really was very, very good – and low fat too.

6 comments:

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

Yes, but did the yogurt clerks inside wear bowler hats?

Best Regards,

Stokes

Anonymous said...

Did you offer to check out back for any old boxes of stuff from 40 years ago they might not need for their yoghurts?

Good to see the bollard is still standing too!

Stryker said...

Stokes - no the yoghurt clerks had no bowler hats or even any sense of the history of the place, which was a shame on both counts.

Matt - I did think about asking but didn't quite have the nerve. It would have been neat if they gave away a free Hinton Hunt figure with each yoghurt!

Ian

Paul said...

Hi Ian

Interesting to see the shop as it is today
Thanks for posting

Paul

Lee said...

Hi Ian,

Great post once again! I always enjoy those 'then & now' shots. Wonderful stuff.

Lee.

Stryker said...

Thanks chaps!

It really was quite bizarre that the one place Sharon really wanted to visit on this trip was just a few doors away from the old HH shop. I really had no idea about this until we were checking out the address the night before. I guess it was meant...

Ian