Pontings

You are standing near the former site of Pontings, a department store that defined the middle-class shopping experience on Kensington High Street for over a century. Long before it vanished in the nineteen seventies, the store was famous for a pneumatic tube payment system that zipped customer money and change back and forth across the building at high speeds. This mechanical marvel kept the busy aisles moving while shoppers browsed through everything from silks to household goods. It was a sensory staple of the store, turning every simple transaction into a high-speed industrial performance.