Everyone loves the thrill of stumbling upon an ancient phone number on a London shopfront. The ultimate prize is an 01 number because they're at least 32 years old. In May 1990 came the split into 071 and 081, the former used for exchanges in the Central area (plus Docklands) and the latter for the rest of the capital. These lasted just five years until PhONEday when an extra 1 was inserted as the second digit of all UK dialling codes. This gifted London the inelegant 0171 and 0181 codes, which were then swapped for 0207 and 0208 during the Big Number Change five years later. Since then London's dialling code has officially been 020, and pedants love nothing more that tutting at an incorrectly spaced number as if the world ended or something.
I didn't spot an 01 while I was out at the weekend but I did spot this 0181 on a florist in Muswell Hill. It's above The Flower Seller, a peculiar wedge-shaped building at the sharp end of a retail terrace with the prestigious address of 1 Fortis Green Road. Its telephone number is still clearly given as 0181 365 2473, a sequence of digits that would only have connected you to the shop between 16th April 1995 and 21st April 2000. That means the shopfront hasn't been updated for at least 22 years, possibly 27, either because the owner couldn't afford the expense or because they assumed people would still be able to deduce the correct number anyway.
Muswell Hill is exactly the kind of place where you might expect an outdated telephone number to linger, being chockful of independent shops, many of which have been around for some time. But although I walked the full extent of its multiple shopping parades, The Flower Seller provided the sole example of a certifiably 20th century dialling code. I did spot two other examples of probable outliers, one at the New Happy Swan Chinese restaurant (883 2810) and the other at the Children's Bookshop (444 5500), both of which have long been unringable. I expected the Broadway Hair Stylist (883 5283) to be a third, but they recently gave their totally retro frontage a revamp and are now the Broadway Grooming Room (est 1959).
Most London shops have updated their signage at some point this century, so 020 (or 0207/0208) are now considerably more prevalent. But more prevalent still, indeed probably the majority, are shopfronts with absolutely no telephone number whatsoever. Even Dunns on Muswell Hill Broadway who've been baking bread for over 200 years now display their web address in pride of place above the awning because that's considerably more useful. Nobody rings up a shop any more, or at least not as a result of seeing a telephone number on the front, which is why they don't get updated, only ever removed. The thrill of stumbling upon an ancient phone number is an ever diminishing occurrence.
