Maids of Honour tarts, described as ‘Richmond’s greatest contribution to the culinary arts’ and thought to originate from Henry VIII’s Royal kitchens at Hampton Court, first went into commercial production by Thomas Burdekin in 1750 in a small shop in Hill Street, Richmond. Production soon expanded into the adjacent shop now at 3 Hill Street and ran under successive owners, notably generations of Thomas Billett’s family, from 1830 until being taken over in the 1920s and closing eventually in 1957. Shown here with the late-twentieth century shop fronts of RAYMOND and JEAN MACHINE to its ground floor, the Regency-era building is named the Maids of Honour Tea Shop in its Grade II listing of 1950; listing number: 1193836. Maids of Honour tarts continue to be made to the original secret recipe and served today by the Newens family; descended from a former apprentice at the Hill Street shop, at their tea rooms in Kew Road. Just visible to the left of view at 5 Hill Street is the frontage of the early-eighteenth century house then serving as the entrance to the former Gaumont Cinema. A sign on its wall advertises Mel Brook’s 1974 satirical western comedy ‘Blazing Saddles’. The house was Grade II listed in 1979; listing number: 1065435, but the cinema closed in 1980, the auditorium being demolished and rebuilt as the Richmond Filmhouse, now the Curzon cinema, with its entrance on Water Lane. The house now serves as a private dental practice, and The Vault bar now occupies the cellar. The former White Hart pub building just visible to the right is shown as BOLD menswear shop and is believed to have succeeded at least one earlier White Hart building, its name dating back to the 1720s. It is listed locally as a Building of Townscape Merit and now serves as a charity shop, retaining its blanked but ornately surrounded name panels to both storeys above its corner entrance.