Ahead of National Pie Day (January 23rd), we’re pleased that Manze’s eel, pie and mash shop in Deptford, London has been Grade II listed, following support from C20 Society. Opened in 1914, no. 204 on Deptford High Street was part of a chain of 14 eel, pie and mash shops operated by the Manze family across London. It is a now rare survivor of a once common shop type in London, selling traditional jellied and hot eels, pie and mash with ‘liquor’ at affordable prices largely to the city’s working classes. The Deptford branch is set to close in 2025, when the owner George Mascall retires.

Retaining its complete green-painted timber shopfront with gold-lettering on black glass sign reading ‘Manze’s’, the shop is very well preserved externally. Its interiors also survive remarkably well, with its terrazzo floor, white tiled walls with green chevron details inset mirrors, timber benches and marble-topped tables. The kitchen has been refitted but this is a secondary room of less significance than the main dining space.

The Manze chain of eel, pie and mash shops was established in the early 1900s by Michaele Manze, a native
of Ravello in southern Italy whose parents had settled in Bermondsey in 1878. There are three Manze pie shops in London that are already on the national list: the family’s first shop on Tower Bridge Road in Southwark of 1895, the shop on Chapel Market in Islington of c.1905 and that on the High Street in Walthamstow (1929). The Deptford High Street shop (1914) is a fine addition to the group, sharing their historic and architectural interest. Viewed together, the shops illustrate a specific ‘type’—identifiable by their common features—but also show the range there was in terms of the character and decoration of these shops in the early 20th century.