Treasure.

The above photograph - click on it to see a larger version - shows Erith Pier Square Gardens. The gardens are a pleasant and picturesque place to spend some time when the weather is good, although at this time of year the weather can make a visit to the gardens somewhat of a challenge. Over a few months, I have had messages from a number of readers commenting that some of the people using the Pier Square Gardens are somewhat problematic. Since the small park in West Street was closed for redevelopment as a block of apartments, the group of street drinkers that used to congregate there appear to have migrated their group Eastwards into the Pier Square Gardens. They do not currently appear as frequently as they do when the weather is more clement, but I feel that the situation needs to be monitored. Comments to me as usual at hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

Four local Wetherspoons pubs have won awards for their toilets. The New Cross Turnpike in Bellegrove Road, Welling, The Wrong ‘Un in Bexleyheath Broadway and The Furze Wren in Market Place, both in Bexleyheath, as well and The Tailor’s Chalk in Sidcup High Street, have each been awarded a platinum grading by inspectors for The Good Loo Awards. The awards are aimed at highlighting and improving standards of “away from home” toilet provision across the UK. I know that the public share concerns about the lack of provision of public toilets all around the UK. The search for public toilets in towns and cities has become more and more desperate in recent years because the number of lavatories has fallen markedly. Campaigners say that many have had to be closed because of councils have to pay onerous business rates on them. The British Toilet Association has estimated that 40 per cent of local authority run public conveniences have disappeared in the last decade, taking the number down from 12,000 to 6,000, in part because councils have to pay business rates on them. The Daily Telegraph reported recently that Public toilets have traditionally been liable for business rates in the same way as non-domestic premises such as shops and offices, while churches and premises used to care for disabled people are exempt. Four out of five councils have cut spending on public toilets since 2011, when records began. 

The upper of the two photos above was taken on the 17th July 1966; it shows Erith High Street. In the far left distance you can see The Prince of Wales pub, which was on the site of what is now the McDonald's drive through. The block of shops in the middle of the photograph is now the Sherwood House residential home, and the Tip Top Bakery was on the site of what nowadays is Erith Health Centre. The story of The Prince of Wales (in the lower of the two photographs) was documented by local historian Jim Packer, who wrote of it:- "A lease was granted on 1st January 1863 by the Wheatley Estate Trustees to John Starling, Wine and Spirit Merchant of Bexleyheath (at the Lord Bexley Arms), stating: “In consideration of costs of said John Starling had been in erecting and finishing .... was granted lease of the land with the messuage tenement and buildings lately erected thereon intended to be used as a Public House to be called by the sign of the Prince of Wales.” The Prince of Wales, then, was Albert Edward, eldest son of Queen Victoria, who was to marry Alexandra of Denmark that year. The building was substantial and ornate, many of the window keystones bearing the initials JS. Perhaps it was the stress of such a large undertaking - the mortgage in March being some £1200 - but John died on 26th May aged only 45 leaving a widow and 7-year-old son. Widow Elizabeth had made sufficient money that, in 1871, she sold property in Pier Road for £1150 and for an additional £50 cleared the mortgage on the pub. She ran the pub until she, too, died in 1891 and then it was run by her son, John Henry Starling, who later went bankrupt through property speculation. It was one of the premier pubs in Erith and later became a Watneys house. In the 1990's permission to demolish and redevelop the site of this locally-listed pub was refused several times. At Easter 1992 the pub was gutted by a mysterious fire which burned the ground floor and second storey but left the first storey relatively unharmed. It was then demolished and a McDonalds now occupies the site.

From the Kentish Chronicle and General Advertiser, 20 July, 1861. Price 1 1/2d. "SINGULAR DISCOVERY OF TREASURE AT ERITH. A few days since a party of seven men were employed in grubbing up several decayed trees on the estate of Captain Wheatley, at Erith, when they discovered a bar of metal some feet below the surface, and completely embedded in the roots of an old oak. The bar was taken to the “Running Horse Tavern,” when it was discovered to be solid silver, value about £125 and bearing date 1532. As it appears that the lord of the manor declined to claim the property, the finders took it to a bullion dealer in London, who offered to purchase the bar provided that the consent of the Treasury was first obtained. A statement of the case was then forwarded to the Lords or the Treasury, from whom an answer was received to the effect that no claim would be made on the part of the crown, and the property has, therefore, been sold, and the amount shared amongst the fortunate finders of the treasure". According to the Bank of England online inflation calculator, £125 in 1861 would be worth £12,574 nowadays!

Over the last few days, residents in Slade Green, Belvedere, Erith, Bexleyheath and Barnehurst have received advertising leaflets through their front doors from a number of high end takeaway services. These are not the usual kebab or pizza offering leaflets that are so often spammed through front doors locally; instead these are upmarket takeaway offerings from usually central London based outlets, including but not limited to LDN Dessert Co, Jerk Brothers and Smash Burgers. These three companies are now operating a business using delivery services provided by both Uber Eats and Just Eat out of what is known as a Dark Kitchen, Ghost Kitchen or Virtual Restaurant based on an industrial estate in Manor Road, Erith. A virtual restaurant, also known as a ghost kitchen, cloud kitchen or dark kitchen, is a food service business that serves customers exclusively by delivery and pick-up based on phone and online ordering. Virtual restaurants are stand-alone businesses that either operate out of an existing restaurant's kitchen or from a separate kitchen set-up away from a restaurant. By not having a full-service restaurant with a storefront and dining room, virtual restaurants can economise by occupying cheaper real estate. The reduced space lowers overall overhead and operational costs, thus yielding higher profit margins, as the price of the food provided is typically not changed. The virtual restaurant's single kitchen format allows for multiple brands to share kitchen space. Since they can’t rely on walk-in customers, ghost kitchens create strong social media presences and invest in digital advertising tactics. Virtual restaurants are not home chefs selling their wares online, nor are they distributors of prepackaged foods. They operate on the same scale as sit-down restaurants and craft unique menus. Most virtual restaurants operate out of a commissary kitchen. A commissary kitchen is a complete, commercial kitchen space that is available for rent. While you can share a commissary kitchen, most virtual restaurants rent private commissaries because they need the space at different times than other typical commissary users. For example, caterers and mobile kitchen operators need the commissary to prep meals in advance, and dark kitchens need it during traditional restaurant hours. The digital ordering and delivery sector has grown 300% faster than dine-in traffic since 2014, indicating that ghost kitchens are an extremely profitable business venture. Ghost kitchens are a particularly profitable alternative to owning a dine in restaurant in high-rent areas saturated with eateries. Virtual restaurants save money on startup costs, building upkeep, and front-of-house staff. The biggest threat to a cloud kitchen’s profitability are the steep fees imposed by third-party delivery apps, which can extract between 15% to 30% of each order. Multi brand ghost kitchens receive orders and make deliveries in the same way as single brand ghost kitchens. The difference between multi and single brand ghost kitchens is their scale. A multi brand company will use a single kitchen space to prepare multiple virtual restaurant menus, which is what would seem to be the case with the new opening in 189 Manor Road, Erith. Preparing multiple virtual dining concepts increases your total orders and broadens your customer reach. Ghost Kitchens have been criticised for unpleasant working conditions, cramped and windowless kitchen spaces, and acting as fronts for other restaurants. While consumers are wary of physical restaurants claiming to have both the best sushi and spaghetti in town, the anonymity of satellite kitchens allows you to prepare vastly different menus in the same space without raising skepticism. The major disadvantages of operating a ghost kitchen are the costs and challenges of setting up a delivery service that is financially sustainable. Creating an in-house delivery system is costly and complex, so most satellite kitchens rely on third-party delivery services. Not only do third-party deliver services take between 15 to 30 percent of each order, but they also own your customers’ data. Because customers place their orders through third-party apps, you do not own your customers; they do. If your third-party delivery app becomes too costly for you to use, you’ll lose the customer base you built through them. Additionally, third-party apps function like search engines and control which restaurants appear first when people search for food. To show up on their first search page, you must pay the third-party delivery service an advertising fee. Delivery services give top priority to the restaurants that agree to use them exclusively, putting pressure on restaurants to lock themselves into one delivery partner. The principal problem that I foresee for the LDN Dessert Co, Jerk Brothers and Smash Burger virtual kitchen based at the industrial estate at 189, Manor Road Erith are their prices. All three brands - which operate out of the same commissary kitchen unit - are charging the same prices as their outlets in central and west London do. I question whether this business model will be successful in the local area, as the level of disposable income for many local people is not nearly as high as many in more prosperous parts of the capital. What do you think? Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

According to Ofcom's Online Nation report, an annual publication looking at what UK citizens do during their hours online and how much time they spend using gadgets. According to the communications regulator, adults spent an average of four hours 20 minutes a day online in May 2024 across tablets, smartphones, and computers. The report also shows that the total UK adult reach in a month of X (formerly Twitter) continues to decline. For May 2022, Ofcom measured X's adult reach at 26.8 million. In 2023, it was 24 million. By May 2024, it had fallen to 22.1 million, a year-on-year decline of 8 percent. X suffered the most significant fall in total adult use of all social media sites, which also resulted in it sliding down the rankings to sixth, behind Reddit, which registered the largest year-on-year growth – 47 percent – taking May's figure to 22.9 million. Several changes have been made at X in recent months, but the platform has continued on a downward trajectory in Britain and Northern Ireland. Ofcom also found that Google's search engine dominance in the UK also slipped slightly over the year, with 83 percent of online adults visiting in May 2024 compared to 86 percent the year before. Microsoft's Bing fell further, down to 39 percent from 46 percent.

In a companion report, music is now a bigger business than cinema, and vinyl albums are about to overtake CDs. That is according to a new analysis by Spotify's former chief economist who has been tracking the value of the music business for a decade. Will Page has spent ten years calculating the value of music copyrights and performing rights, which are the rights that generate payments when music is pressed onto records, streamed over Spotify or played on the radio. And the value of those copyrights has increased from $25 billion in 2014 to $45.5 billion now. The movie business, by comparison, is a $33.2 billion enterprise; While music has soared movies have declined: box office revenues peaked globally in 2019 at $41.9 billion. Music revenues aren't necessarily going to artists – most of the music money goes to multiple middlemen; not all musicians who play music wrote it, and writing music is where the most valuable copyrights are – but the report details some fascinating trends. In the US alone, Page says, vinyl will bring in $1 billion for record labels in 2024. That means vinyl revenues are about to overtake CDs, not just in the US but globally. There has been a shift in how music generates money too. In 2023, revenues from live music performances overtook those for public performance licensing, which is when commercial premises such as shops or hotels pay a licence to play music to their patrons. Digital streaming, unsurprisingly, is now exceeding radio and other broadcasting; the latter used to account for over 50% compared to streaming's 5%, but streaming is the bigger money maker now. You can read the full report and analysis by clicking here. 

The end video this week is by comedian and historian Jay Foreman explaining "Why are there no bridges in East London?" With specific reference to the ill fated attempt to construct a bridge over the River Thames at Plumstead. The video is a couple of years old, and a few minor details have changed, but nevertheless it is well worth watching.  Comments and feedback to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.