A recent thread about the Howard Hotel reminded me about this shop.

About 50 years ago when I was just a kid I remember going down Howard St and seeing a shop window full of dead human skin, not just little bits but several inches big. I thought it was a shop which specialised in skin removal (corns etc) but then I thought again and wondered if it was my fertile imagination playing tricks on me as I couldn't imagine anything so gruesome.I thought about it for several days and then realised that if the shop existed it would be listed in my 1954 Kelly's Directory.

Guess what - at number 80, there's a listing for Ernest Harrop foot salve manufacturer.

Anybody else remember this or would you just like to forget it same as me?

I remember the shop on Howard St. At the time I was just a kid but never thought about it till I read your message.
Not a very preety sight

Remember it well.As a kid I was utterly fascinated by the hideous collection of yellowing shells of skin.Some were really big -almost tortoise size.My morbid curiosity was always interrupted by my parents tugging me towards the railway station.
God knows what became of all the samples when the shop closed.

The shop that had all the corns, callouses and bunions in the window was Harraps Salve Shop.
The pieces of skin that was displayed were sent by satisfied customers from all over the world.
Looking back it resembled a pork scratching factory!!!:hihi: :hihi:

vaguley remember it.wasnt there a cutlery shop further up with a giant knife hanging outside as an advert ? think this is in the museum now.also accsoss the road i think there was the scottish shop......

Hi,
Yes, Harrop's salve shop did exist. It was my grandfather's shop. He started it just after the first World War. Originally he had a shop near the top of Howard St. then moved lower down. The ointment he sold was for the removal of corns, hard skin, verucca's, warts and other such things. He sent it all over the world.

I remember the shop very well. I worked at J.I.Fearns on the bottom corner of Howard St when I first left school. I passed it nearly every day and sometimes would have a look in the window. It usually inspired me to go and get a ham breadcake at Perkins bakers a bit further up the street.

Well, I don't remember "yellowing shells of skin" - :gag: - in the shop window but I do remember Harrop's little shop in Howard Street - it was on the right-hand side going down. I once went in the shop with my dad for a supply of "Harrop's Corn Cure" which came in a little round cardboard box with a wraparound red label. The man in the shop told my dad that he was having trouble with the Pharmaceutical Society about his product, though I don't remember the details.The 1925 Kelly's Directory mentions "Ernest Harrop, manufacturer of foot salve" at 58 Howard Street, so I guess this was the original location before the move down the hill to No 80.