Coffee shops down the years

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In the UK in the late 1950s and early 1960s coffee bars became popular as places where you could get a non-alcoholic drink (coffee, tea, etc) and light refreshments. They didn't last very long as specialist retail outlets, often changing into general purpose cafes that sold a wider range of beverages and food. To those who remember such places it has come as something of a surprise to see the return of the coffee shop in the past ten to fifteen years or so. I imagine if one were to look at the growth of retail premises during that period, coffee shops would top the list in terms of the number of new outlets. Chains such as Costa, Cafe Nero, Starbucks and the rest have been joined by independents, all vying for the business of the coffee drinker.

It's interesting to note, however, that the surge in popularity of such establishments during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries was not the only time coffee shops have been popular. They first sprang to prominence in England in the seventeenth century, with the first coffeehouse opening in Oxford in 1650. By 1675 it is estimated that there were over 3,000 such establishments. Thereafter numbers declined but they continued to be found in cities and larger towns. In the nineteenth century the number of coffeehouses increased once again, this time at the instigation of the Temperance movement. The widespread concern  at the amount of drunkenness among the poor saw well-heeled and social connected people attempting to woo people away from gin and beer by promoting the virtues of coffee.

Today's photograph shows the Ossington Coffee Palace at Newark, Nottinghamshire. This striking building, a far cry from today's corporate creations, is described on a plaque attached to its walls as "a perfect copy of a seventeenth century hostelry", and is the work of the architects Ernest George and Peto. It was erected in 1882, funded by Viscountess Ossington who presented it to the town, and was intended to be a Temperance hotel. One of its aims was to lure farmers from the town's inns. Its accommodation was extensive and included an assembly room, a reading room, a library, a club room for Masonic meetings and other societies, a billiard room and bedrooms for travellers. The carriage arch on the right of the facade led to stabling for forty horses, a cart shed, tea garden and bowling alley. Everything, in fact, to distract people from the demon drink. Today it is occupied by a restaurant.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hither and thither and morning coffee

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Though the language police would wish otherwise, language changes. Over time spelling and grammar are modified by use. New words are introduced, existing words take on new or additional meanings and old words are cast aside. I was thinking about this the other day when, in a slightly self-conscious manner, I used the phrase "hither and thither". These two words, both singly and in this pairing, are rarely heard today; they sound old-fashioned, the sort of language you'd come across in Shakespeare or in the novels and poetry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The context for my use of the phrase was an explanation to someone that we'd been travelling about a lot in recent weeks and consequently much of my photography during this time had been done beyond the confines of Lincolnshire. As I uttered the phrase, I made a mental note to try and find out whether "hither and thither" was ever in widespread use and, if so, when it became replaced by "to this place and that" or, more colloquially, "here and there". A bit of research produced no satisfactory answer to the question. Most of what I discovered came from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and from that source I was interested to find the words had more meanings than I knew.

The word, "hither" has its origins and equivalents in Old English,Old Norse and the Germanic language. "To or towards this place" (now "here") is its principal meaning. However, it was also used to mean, "to, or or on this side of", "up to this point in time", "to this end" and "in this direction". A United States variant is, apparently, "Hither and yon" (or yond). The earliest recorded use of the phrase as I used it (though with somewhat different spelling), dates from the early A.D.700s. "Thither" has a similar lineage to hither, as does "whither" ("to what place" or "where").

One of our recent "hithers" (or was it a "thither") was London. Whilst there I visited the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and took this photograph of people taking morning coffee. The bird's-eye-view of the tables and chairs, the subtle colours and raking light that produced elongated shadows, appealed to me and so it became the subject of one of my better photographs taken at that location.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.2mm (38mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Cameras and coffee

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I've been idly thinking of replacing my Lumix LX3. Recent compact cameras, notably the Sony RX100, offer a much improved feature set in a similar sized body. In particular, the low light performance is considerably better, as is the video. Those are characteristics that would give me greater success in my evening photography in London and elsewhere, and with the photography I do with my grand-daughter.

However, though I could open my wallet and buy that particular camera, or another model that gave me better image quality, I won't at the moment. Why? Well, first of all there's the relative price. I judge the newer offerings to be too expensive. I'm sure others will disagree, but when it comes to spending my money then it's mainly about me! The manufacturers set the opening price of new cameras high, and they almost always fall, sometimes by an enormous amount. The Sony's price has dropped significantly already, and will, I'm sure keep going down. If it approaches my mental "guide price" I will consider it. Of course, the other thing holding me back is the fact that I know that while the surface qualities of low light shots from a new camera would be better than I get from the LX3, the more important photographic qualities will be no different. In other words, a new camera won't make me a better photographer. And lastly, while my old (in digital terms) camera produces shots like today's, this one, or this, that satisfy me greatly, then why bother.

I apply this kind of thinking to lots of things I buy. I have a guide price for coffee, for example, and won't pay what I think is the ridiculous amount asked by the bigger chains such as Costa, Caffé Nero, Starbucks etc (Starbucks' attitude to paying UK corporation tax is another reason to stay away from them.) As a consequence our coffee drinking is done in locally run shops and cafés such as the one above in Spalding, Lincolnshire. I took today's shot there as we ascended the stairs. The low viewpoint accentuated the coffered, concrete ceiling, and the single diner - others are out of shot - added the human interest I wanted in the photograph.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.8mm (60mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: 2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/160
 ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On