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It’s a strange feeling when you’re redecorating, and you strip the walls only to find the ghostly layers of wallpaper from the people who came before you. You never know when you might stumble across an interesting bit of history. That’s what happened to a group of London estate agents from Jackson-Stops & Staff this week, when they unearthed not one but two century-old Waitrose signs while doing up their Pimlico shop front.
The shop is one of the ten original Waitrose stores launched by Wallace Waite, which were all snapped up by the John Lewis Partnership in 1937. Once discovered, the signs were carefully removed from the building and handed over to the John Lewis Heritage Centre. They are thought to date back to 1908 and 1923, long before Overheard in Waitrose parodies and the not-so-essential 'essential Waitrose cappuccino mousse' arrived.
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