Uncovering layers of Oxford Street

The overhaul of Tottenham Court Road station to make way for the Crossrail project is seeing the urban fabric stripped back. The dilapidated Victorian corner blocks are being pulled down; expect a glass and steel replacement.

Most of the area is covered with scaffold and protective sheets, like a theatre curtain disguising a change of scene.

Dionysus chip shop has gone: no fish and chips this side of Holborn now.

And down on Oxford Street, Waterstones has been closed. The shop sign has been pulled down, revealing the long-forgotten Dillons bookshop chain. The mind is cast back to a time before the coffee shop and gourmet sandwich takeover, to the 80s high street, of Our Price, Wimpy, Woolworths and C&A.

Standing faded and unnoticed on London's most famous shopping street, it looks older than any church: the prehistoric world of retail before the internet; the high street before Americanisation.