Poster art, vintage advertising and other drawrings

Where did the name Linn come from?

Probably nicked it

Advert from the 1938 Glasgow Empire Exhibition guidebook.

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Great poster

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Interesting, 9 years before India’s independence. I didn’t realise we had Indian restaurants here that early.

I knew we had a couple of Indian restaurants that were old but I thought it was more early 50’s - I was surprised by that myself.

The original snake-headed gate posts to the basement premises.

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Excerpt from ‘The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Simple’ by Hannah Glasse

The first purely Indian restaurant was the Hindoostanee Coffee House which opened in 1810 at 34 George Street near Portman Square, Mayfair. The owner of the restaurant, Sake Dean Mahomed was a fascinating character. Born in 1759 in present-day Patna, then part of the Bengal Presidency, Mahomed served in the army of the East India Company as a trainee surgeon. He later travelled to Britain with ‘his best friend’ Captain Godfrey Evan Baker and even married an Irishwoman. With his coffee house, Mohamed tried to provide both authentic ambience and Indian cuisine “at the highest perfection”. Guests could sit in custom-made bamboo-cane chairs surrounded by paintings of Indian scenes and enjoy dishes “allowed by the greatest epicures to be unequalled to any curries ever made in England”. There was also a separate smoking room for hookahs.

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Interestingly the then owner of The Taj Mahal, Mr B. De Bidhu, came from Nawakhallin Bengal.

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Drakemire Drive, the location of the original factory mentioned in the advert above, runs adjacent to Linn Park in Glasgow.

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The Taj Mahal such a unique name.

It was a fairly unique name for an Indian restaurant in the UK in 1938. I’ll bet few here knew much about the Taj Mahal despite it still being part of the Empire then.

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Well it was the first of many methinks.

Curries already being made in England at that time?!

Britain first landed in India in 1608 and started trading.
Plenty of time for a relationship to develop

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Then we gave them tea :slightly_smiling_face:.

And then the East India Company started growing Opium in Bengal. - That went well.

The opium wars was all about tea I believe so maybe it was all part and parcel of that. We found tribes drinking a form of tea in India when trying to grow the stuff taken from China.

Edit:. Maybe not all about it but I think the played a part.

Most film predictions don’t come true - do they?

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I think I’ll be safe.
(Well at least until someone needs a toothpick).