YOU will no doubt recognise the King's Hall and Lido Cinema which stood opposite Great Moor Street in this photograph of Bradshawgate.

I am using the picture because of a letter I received from a Bromley Cross reader who tells me that he was a joiner by trade, and in the early part of 1940 worked as an apprentice in the basement of the King's Hall making an air raid shelter to hold about 200 people.

"It was while I was there that my boss took me outside, to the end of Great Moor Street, and we looked back across the road, at the shops between the Lido and the King's Hall. My boss pointed out that the brackets holding the guttering were about four feet, and at either end of the gutter was a carving in the shape of a dog's head. It was painted brown, with the dog's eyes in colour, and tongues red.

"Nowadays the gutters and heads are painted completely black."

Well, I decided to look for myself, and yes, the guttering over what was the shops and is now Muldoon's bar, is still there, painted black, still with the heads attached (although, as you can see from my other picture, it is questionable as to whether the heads are those of a dog or not!). The problem is, that if the guttering is not pointed out to you, you would not notice it. What a pity that the heads are painted a different colour to the guttering so that they would stand out. An interesting piece of architecture, though.