What colour were W H Smith bookstalls?

[Steamport Southport]

And from the classic to the "What are you doing?"...

 

 

 

Looks like a drop in centre!

 

 

Jason

[Philou]

Before the actual green question was settled, I was going to add that the Smith's seemed remarkably similar to the dark green used by Marks and Spencer years ago.

[AY Mod]

2 hours ago, NVRWagons said:

The kiosk was also built for a film and retained.

 

Was that Shadowlands?

[Nearholmer]

That NHS-like thing is bizarre, isn’t it?

 

Have they actually deployed it now? I thought they’d dumped the idea after negative feedback.

 

Getting back to nicer colours …….

 

This won’t be a true rendering (screens and all that), but it should give some idea of the difference between two colours.

 

The top one is what is widely cited as the nearest modern equivalent to SR No.3A, and the second is cited as nearest modern equivalent to LNER Buckingham Green, and presumably WHS Buckingham Green, and also seems to match Dulux Weathershield Buckingham Green.

 

The colour names have changed over the years, and I’d bet a pound to a penny that these don’t exactly match whatever went on “back in the day”, which was probably slightly variable anyway, but …… 

 

 

They are rather similar, aren’t they!

 

What I find interesting is that both the Horsted Keynes and Loughborough restorations look a lot lighter in the photos than either of these swatches, while the SVR does seem to look similar to No.227, and we know that all three restoration teams have researched their colours, and almost certainly used these. Which just goes to show that lighting conditions make a huge difference, and probably that little colour swatches are no great guide to how a colour will look when used over a large surface, especially in gloss finish.

 

 

 

Edited January 19 by Nearholmer

[The Stationmaster]

17 hours ago, Philou said:

Before the actual green question was settled, I was going to add that the Smith's seemed remarkably similar to the dark green used by Marks and Spencer years ago.

Wymans used a darker green that that and if you were in (G)WR land it is Wymans thatn uyou would have seen (until their eventual demise/takeover (I think) by WHS)

[MidlandRed]

Talking of GWR land, I’m pretty sure I remember a WH Smith at B’ham Snow Hill that was in a mid brown wood panelling with gold coloured letters - that’s if my memory isn’t slightly skewed 60 yrs later.

 

I do recall there being others like this as I remember being slightly miffed that my Airfix version came in a sort of mid green Coloured plastic and as with quite a few other Airfix building kits, didn’t really look like the buildings I was used to one way or another - those in the south east would have been more likely to recognise them - in fact I had to visit an estate in Thanet once and was quite surprised to see houses more or less the same as the Airfix detached house. 

[45655]

By chance last year I discovered the W H Smith branch in Newtown (Powys).  The sales floor downstairs uses old shop fittings and signage and upstairs is a museum illustrating the history of the company.  Well worth a look if you get the chance.

 

There was certainly something on station bookstalls, and typography, but I'm not sure about colour schemes.  

 

Keith

Alton.

 

 

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

At the National Railway Museum

 

Quote

Uncovering the secrets of WHSmith’s railway bookstalls

 

https://blog.railwaymuseum.org.uk/uncovering-the-secrets-of-whsmiths-railway-bookstalls/

[KeithMacdonald]

Does anyone know when WH Smith &/or Wymans started cutting back on their station kiosks?

I have a vague memory of their (perhaps) being one on Teignmouth station c.1960, but if so, it was gone by c.1965.

[bécasse]

It was a gradual process. The one at Bembridge IoW was there pre-war but gone post-war, for example. In many cases, the W.H.Smith bookstall at the station served as a (small) town's newsagent - remember, W.H.Smith wasn't just a retailer but a major wholesaler/distributor.

The W.H.Smith bookstall at Bembridge drawn to 4mm scale (large grid squares are 1cm x 1cm), note the three trestle tables and a board on an easel.

[Nearholmer]

I’ve been trying to find a precise date * for when the big WHS bookstall at my childhood local station was replaced by a trestle-table with piles of newspapers and an honesty box, in the ticket hall, and it seems to have been early-1960s. They pulled out of the High Street at roughly the same time, maybe a year or two later, and the shop was taken over by the erstwhile manager of the station bookstall to be his own - he continued the “well-stocked newsagent, bookseller, and stationer” tradition until retirement in the late 80s, for a few years along the way I was one of army of delivery boys, and he passed away only very recently, much lamented by all who’d known him.

 

Bit of a ramble, but the point is that they’re a canny firm that has “adjusted the offering” many times over the years.

 

*I now have, almost to the hour, from the granddaughter of the chap I’m talking about. It was in 1967.

Edited January 21 by Nearholmer