1 · Position
Harrods began in 1834 as a single room selling groceries, perfume and stationery. The Food Halls' decoration was made in 1902 by William Neatby — a Barnsley-born disciple of William Morris who ran the architecture department at Doulton & Co — and unveiled in 1903. The room was built in nine weeks, originally under a glass roof, with a frieze of pastoral and hunting scenes, wild boar, geese and sheep. The tiled ceiling was a rarity: Neatby wrote about grooving the backs of the tiles so they would stick overhead. The halls were reworked in 1925 with painted ceilings, brass and glass cabinets and Carrara marble, and are Grade II* listed.
2 · ⚑ The argument it started
Glowing notices reached Vienna, but less sophisticated critics scorned such a level of artistry being applied to a transitory retail space. That objection is the reason this group exists in Part X. If a room where food is sold can be worth a church comparison, then retail is a hospitality subject, and the Library has been arguing the same point in modern terms all week.
3 · What the century did to it
Photographs from the 1920s show the hall so full of plucked turkeys at Christmas the interior is barely visible. The 1970s were dire. At some point in the 1990s the hall held what one account calls questionable sculptures. It was restored by David Collins Studio with Craven Dunnill Jackfield, Victorian specialists, who repaired and replicated damaged tiles including the gilded cartouches of pheasants.
4 · Candour
⚑ The restoration's own production director makes the point the marketing does not: matching the plain coloured tiles was the hardest part, because the ceramic industry is on its knees in terms of raw supply and historic pigments are increasingly hard to source. A listed interior of this kind may not be restorable a second time. The studio was also explicit that the aim was not to take Harrods back to Edwardian times, so what a visitor sees is a 2018 room that quotes 1902 accurately.