Meet the Door Detectives

Cath Harries and Melanie Backe-Hansen got together as door detectives four years ago. After walking miles and miles through the streets, and spending hours in libraries, they are almost ready to present you with their deeply researched book, Doors of London.

We took this picture of our two door detectives when they came over to see the colour proofs of Doors of London. This was the first time they had seen their book at full size and near to printed quality. A hand-bound sample of the paper and boards had just arrived from the printers, so they were able to get the feel of it, too. With a proof of the cover pasted over, it looked pretty much like a finished book, though that won’t be in the shops until October.

Doors in close-up

As we turned the pages of the colour proofs, we raised a few glasses of Crémant de Loire to celebrate the end of four years of picture selection, design, map drawing, writing and editing. We marvelled at the level of detail now visible in the pictures. On a carved wooden door in the City, for example, we could see every panel depicting the history of the area, including events such Charlotte and Anne Brontë meeting Thackeray at their publishers’, Smith Elder.

Saloon vs public bar

Cath and Mel reminisced about the separate bars and entrances that used to be provided in pubs, with commentary from Chris Schüler, the Editor, and Simon Rigge, the Publisher. The saloon bar would have carpet, the public bar lino. Publicans charged different prices in each and didn’t want people moving from one to the other, so the bars had separate entrances on the street. You need a house historian like Mel to fill in this sort of social background.

Now at the printers

Seeing the Doors of London in rich colour for the first time was a happy moment for all of us on the editorial team. The book is at the printers and will soon be loaded on to a ship to the UK, ready for publication in October. In the meantime, if you want to know what our indefatigable door detectives have uncovered, you can see a preview here.