A keen photographer since childhood, Allan Hailstone’s beautiful images are a tribute to London at what he remembers as a magical time. Fogs, Soho at night, the remnants of St Giles, lost theaters…

Hailstone’s photographs were taken from between 1950 to 1962 paint a picture of England’s multifaceted capital in a decade of great change and development. From grand monuments to innocuous street corners, famous faces to passers-by, this selection of evocative photographs captures the very essence of London life in the mid-twentieth century.
Here is just a taste of how things were.

Warner Cinema, Cranbourn Street, London, 3 January 1957

Trafalgar Square, London, 5 November 1955

Trafalgar Square CND London, 24 September 1960

The Strand, London, 1 August 1955

Southampton Row, London, 2 August 1955

Piccadilly Circus, London, 2 April 1956

Outside Foyle’s Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London, around mid-1961

Near Tottenham Court Road tube station, London, 1 August 1955

Men outside shop Charing Cross Road, London, 5 November 1955

Leicester Square, London, 11 April 1955

Leicester Square, London, 2 April 1956

Aldwych, London, 1 August 1955

Museum Street cnr. New Oxford Street, London, 1 August 1955

Charing Cross Road, London, 5 November 1955

Charing Cross Road, London, 5 November 1955 looking south

Charlie Gracie posing for promotional photos in London, c.5 August 1957

Foyle’s Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London, 5 November 1955

High Holborn, London, 2 August 1955

Kingsway cnr. High Holborn, London, 1 August 1955

The Empire Theatre on the north side of Leicester Square. The Queen’s Corner bar had no toilets and customers had to use the public conveniences in the Square, 1955

Café de Paris on Coventry Street, 1955

Leicester Square tube station looking south on Charing Cross Road, 1955

Charing Cross Road, 1955

Coventry Street corner, Haymarket, 1955

Coventry Street, 1955

The Silver Snack Bar on Cranbourne Street, where in 1955 you could buy sausages, chips and beans costing 2 shillings and 3 pence, 1955

The Odeon cinema at Marble Arch, 1955

Piccadilly Circus, 1955

C&A’s on Oxford Street near Marble Arch. It’s a Primark now, 1955

Selfridges on Oxford Street, 1955