Piccadilly Circus - BIG MOMENT. The occupant puts signs on their building that are not relevant to the owner in 1908

A very important stage in the Rake's Progress in Piccadilly Circus was therefore reached in 1908–10, when signs advertising goods not connected with the trade of the occupant were attached to Piccadilly Mansions (at the northern corner of Piccadilly Circus and Shaftesbury Avenue), whose freehold was owned by the London County Council.

A photograph of 1910 shows that signs with letters eight feet high advertising Bovril and Schweppes had been erected there.


'The rebuilding of Piccadilly Circus and the Regent Street Quadrant', Survey of London: volumes 31 and 32: St James Westminster, Part 2