Drivers' refuge

There used to be quite a lot of these huts dotted across central London, dedicated to the provision of refreshment for tired taxi drivers. All the same, the same green hut with the same pointed roof. Run, I used to believe, by taxi drivers' wives.

From having been an institution in their day, I also believe they were reduced to selling tea and sandwiches to all comers. And now more or less at vanishing point.

So I was pleased to come across this one in the Cromwell Road the other day, more or less opposite the main entrance to the V&A, still functioning, as I saw someone go in.

Not so pleased that this snap lifted from Google's Street View was better than anything that I could manage with my telephone, with only one of my dozen shots being in focus, and even then the hut was a bit lost in a busy street scene.

PS: thinking that there must be a bit of history about them somewhere, I looked in our London Encyclopaedia from Messrs. Weinreb & Hibbert, which failed to provide any information at all about either taxis or Hackney Carriages, never mind their huts. While Bing turned up reference 1 (amongst a lot of other entirely relevant stuff) on the search term 'green taxi driver huts london'. Internet, search engines and Wikipedia beats the print encyclopaedia hands down. Maybe time for decent burial.

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabmen%27s_Shelter_Fund.