If you get the chance, do visit the Guildhall Art Gallery to see The Big City exhibition. It’s superb, and admission is ‘pay what you can’. The challenge of finding the mice was keeping kids (and adults) very amused during my visit! More about that later.
Here’s my personal selection, starting with City Streets.
Cheapside 10:10 am, 10 February 1970 by Ken Howard (1932-2022)
This picture of Fleet Street in the 1930s is by an unknown artist and has a fascinating back story …
If you look at the characters in the foreground you’ll see that the picture is unfinished. Why is this? The label puts forward a suggestion …
The pedestrian crossing outside Barbican Tube station …
Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Service 22 June 1897 by Andrew Carrick Gow (1848-1920)
Suffering from severe arthritis and unable to climb the St Paul’s Cathedral steps, the Queen remained in her coach, so the short service of thanksgiving was held outside the building. Some amazing old film footage has survived and you can view it here and here.
This is a more intimate picture of City pageantry and its participants (with some splendid beards on display) …
His most celebrated commission was the official picture of the Coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. One day, as he was painting the huge canvas, his cat brought a dead fieldmouse into his studio. As a distraction from the task in hand, Cuneo painted a portrait of it. Subsequently, a mouse became his ‘signature’ and can be found in every one of his paintings.
There are actually two mice in the first picture above and one in the second.
They are so tiny you won’t be able to find them using this blog and will have to visit the Gallery. They are very difficult to identify, especially the second one, so to help you I took the following pictures …
Good luck!
At the far end of the gallery, in a space specially designed for it, you will find at the action-packed painting by John Singleton Copley: Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar1782 …
The painting is best viewed from the balcony above
A Spanish attack on Gibraltar was foiled when the Spanish battering ships, also known as floating batteries, were attacked by the British using shot heated up to red hot temperatures (sailors nicknamed them ‘hot potatoes’). Fire spread among the Spanish vessels and, as the battle turned in Britain’s favour, an officer called Roger Curtis set out with gunboats on a brave rescue mission which saved almost 350 people.
Look at the painstaking detail in the faces of the officers and Governor General Augustus Eliot, who is portrayed riding to the edge of the battlements to direct the rescue …
The officers were dispersed after the Gibraltar action and poor Copley had to travel all over Europe to track them down and paint them – a task that took him seven years at considerable expense. He recouped some of his cash in 1791 by exhibiting the picture in a tent in Green Park and charging people a shilling to see it.
Incidentally, just outside the entrance is the lovely little Veterans’ Garden created by the Worshipful Company of Gardeners to support the Lord Mayor’s Big Curry Lunch which takes place today (Thursday 30th March). Read all about it here …
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A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of getting off the train at what must be one of the most strangely named stations in London …
Apparently the name derives from it being the former dumping ground for mud dredged from the Millwall Docks, which had to be regularly dredged to prevent silting up.
Very close by was the place where my safari started …
I suppose calling my visit a safari is a slight exaggeration but hopefully it sparked your interest to look at the blog.
Having browsed the Internet, this was the image I was hoping to replicate …
Sheep grazing with Canary Wharf in the background – what a great shot.
Unfortunately, on the day I visited the weather was awful and the sheep unobliging …
‘Just what do you think you’re staring at?’
The donkeys looked pretty fed up too …
‘Put that camera away – I’m not looking my best!’
Even the llamas didn’t want to know …
The goats, on the other hand, were delighted to see me …
I have a suspicion that not everyone obeys the ‘Do not feed the animals’ rule.
And I must say, this Ack-ack gun was an unexpected discovery …
These guns were a crucial part of London’s defence system during the War. Scroll down to the end of the blog to see a map of the damage bombs did around St Paul’s Cathedral.
Walking nearby along the river there are some great views and, of course, an interesting bollard or two …
So I’ll try to return when the weather is nicer.
Here are some more random images that I have recorded on my walks.
Outside St Giles the Magnolia trees are blossoming …
Daffs are popping up everywhere. They cheer me up even when the weather is rubbish …
And they’re not alone …
I came cross some Barbican acrobatics …
Barbican water feaures …
Water feature plus residents …
I went to a meeting in Finsbury Circus recently and they had a rather nice roof terrace so I snapped this city skyline view …
I’m not a great fan of that new monster building on Bishopsgate, but it does generate interesting reflections at certain times of day. In the foreground is St Giles Church and on the left Tower 42 …
And finally, an apartment hosting a giant pink banana being cuddled by a furry white poodle. I so wish I knew their background story!
PS Don’t forget, the excellent Magnificent Maps exhibition at the Metropolitan Archive finishes on 29th March, so no time to lose if you want to visit.
This is a screen shot of one of the displays showing the bomb damage around St Paul’s Cathedral …
Here is the key – just look at the devastation and wonder how the Cathedral survived …
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Why is this splendid Art Deco building on Tooley Street called St Olaf House?
Why is it called St Olaf House? The answer is beautifully engraved on the wall …
The man himself …
The main entrance …
St Olaf House was built between 1928 and 1932 for the Hay’s Wharf Company and now houses the London Bridge Private Hospital’s consulting and administration rooms. You can read more about the building here.
Walking east you come acoss Hay’s Galleria …
In a fountain at the centre is a 60 ft moving bronze sculpture of a ship, called The Navigators, by sculptor David Kemp, unveiled in 1987 to commemorate the Galleria’s shipping heritage …
Further east on the south side of the road is The Shipwrights Arms, built in 1884 and now a Grade 2 listed building. I love the beautiful lady figurehead above the main door …
Back on the north side it’s easy to miss this commemorarive plaque …
It reads as follows : To the memory of James Braidwood, superintendent of the London Fire Brigade, who was killed near this spot in the execution of his duty at the great fire on 22nd June 1861. A just man and one that feared god, of good report among all the nation.
I shall be writing more about the heroic James Braidwood and the Great Tooley Street Fire next week.
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Having a camera on my phone is a great asset but also leads to me taking pics of all kinds of random subjects that don’t have a particular theme. The time then comes when I don’t have a blog theme in mind so I cop out by publishing examples of this miscellaneous collection.
This is one of those times and I hope you enjoy this occasionally quirky selection.
I’ll start with the street animals.
Cricklewood Station boasts a friendly multi-coloured cow …
A cow painted in the red and green colours of the Portugal national football team stands outside a souvenir shop in the Algarve …
Same street – different cow …
Leadenhall market porker …
Every year the Worshipful Company of Paviours bring an inflatable animal (known as a St Anthony’s pig) to the Lord Mayor’s Show …
In medieval times the London meat market at Smithfield released pigs that were unfit for slaughter into the streets to fend for themselves. They were identified by a bell around their neck and some prospered sufficiently to get fat enough to eat. Every now and then the paviours (who maintained the roads) rounded them up and delivered them to feed the poor and needy in the care of St Anthony’s Hospital.
Now, from pigs to swans.
The Vintners and Dyers Companies share in the ownership of mute swans with the monarch and it is their job to catch and ring them in a ceremony known as ‘swan upping’ done each June. This man, the Swan Marker, is in charge of the Vintners’ Swan Uppers for the event, but also wears the uniform of Barge Master, dating back to the time when the Company owned a ceremonial barge on the Thames. Here he is with a feathered companion outside the church of St James Garlickhythe …
The Barge Master badge …
Clever advertising in Portugal …
Gifts to take home from Portugal …
Gifts to take home from London …
A sunny day at the Regent’s Canal, St Pancras …
I grabbed this image since the sky and clouds were so attractive. St Stephen Walbrook (1672) was Christopher Wren’s prototype for the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. It was the first classical dome to be built in England at the time …
Whoever decided to place this pool here in Cannon Street was a genius …
Lots of creative ideas for your pastry …
Batman and Robin street art snog …
You may be surprised to know that in the early 1950s comics they seemed to share a bed …
When observations were made about this the publishers were quick to make a statement, and I quote it here :
‘It’s necessary to point out that, no — they’re not sharing a bed, as many mistakenly think. You can distinctly make out a gap in the backboard, meaning that, though they are sleeping unusually close together for an adult guardian and his teen ward, they’re not in bed together‘.
So that’s cleared that up!
Nothing odd about a bit of nude sunlamp toning either, by the way …
Speculation as to the pair’s sexuality is discussed in The Slate article entitled, rather unfortunately, A Brief History of Dick.
I was invited for lunch at the Institute of Chartered Accountants and so got to see some of their splendid stained glass …
Another highlight of my year was seeing Tower Bridge raised. I have lived in London all my life and can’t recall witnessing this before in person rather than on TV …
And finally, another big ‘thank you’ to our wonderful City of London gardeners who work so hard all year to keep the place looking fresh and green …
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More animals this week with, of course, a nod to Her Majesty’s special weekend. More of this chap and his friends later …
Researching this blog has led me to some fascinating facts. I didn’t, for example, know that a cockerel is a young male bird which, after it’s a year old, is called a rooster. Generously, I provide important information like this to my blog subscribers free of charge.
The rooster had profound religious significance. In the Bible, Jesus foretold that Peter, one of his most devoted disciples, would betray him. “…Verily I say unto thee, that this night, before cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.” (Matthew 26:34). And so the rooster became an emblem of Peter’s betrayal. Sometime between 590 and 604 A.D., Pope Gregory I declared that the rooster, emblem of St. Peter, was the most suitable symbol for Christianity. In the 9th century, Pope Nicholas made the rooster official and declared that that all churches must display the rooster on their steeples or domes. I’ve found three in the City.
All Hallows-by-the-Tower …
St Andrew Undershaft …
And St Dunstan-in-the East …
The weathervane above the Rookery Hotel in Smithfield references the nearby meat market …
The building is at the junction of Cowcross Street and Peter’s Lane. Wander down the Lane and you’ll see that the brick walls of the tower have been embellished with bulls’ and cows’ heads modelled and cast in glass reinforced resin by Mark Merer and Lucy Glendenning. The bovine theme was used as a decorative motif because for centuries Cowcross street was part of a route used by drovers to bring cows to be slaughtered at Smithfield …
Another bull at the Smithfield Tavern on Charterhouse Street (EC1M 6HW) …
A herd moves along the north side of the street opposite the meat market …
Two rams are following up the rear. There a quite few of them around the City.
At the end of New Street off Bishopsgate (EC2M 4TP) you will find this one over the gateway leading to Cock Hill …
It’s by an unknown sculptor, dates from the 186os and used to stand over the entrance to Cooper’s wool warehouse.
The Worshipful Company of Clothworkers have a ram in their coat of arms, Here one presides over the entrance to Dunster Court, Mincing Lane (EC3R 7AH) …
I have always been curious about these ram’s heads on the corner of St Swithen’s Lane and Cannon Street …
I consulted a great source of City knowledge, The City’s Lanes and Alleys by Desmond Fitzpatrick. He writes that …
For well into the second half of the last century, the building was a branch of a bank dealing with services to the wool trade, a business connection pleasantly expressed … by the rams’ heads crowned with green-painted leaves, as if Bacchus and Pan had met!
There are sheep in the City too.
In Paternoster Square is a 1975 bronze sculpture by Elisabeth Frink which I particularly like – a ‘naked’ shepherd with a crook in his left hand walks behind a small flock of five sheep …
Dame Elisabeth was, anecdotally, very fond of putting large testicles on her sculptures of both men and animals. In fact, her Catalogue Raisonné informs us that she ‘drew testicles on man and beast better than anyone’ and saw them with ‘a fresh, matter-of-fact delight’. It was reported in 1975, however, that the nude figure had been emasculated ‘to avoid any embarrassment in an ecclesiastical setting’. The sculpture is called Paternoster.
Outside Spitalfields Market, is the wonderfully entitled I Goat. In the background is Hawksmoor’s Christ Church …
It was hand sculpted by Kenny Hunter and won the Spitalfields Sculpture Prize in 2010.
The sculptor commented …
Goats are associated with non-conformity and being independently-minded. That is also true of London, its people and never more so than in Spitalfields.
And now to those Corgis.
I just had to visit the magnificent Elizabeth Line shortly after it opened. Looking down the escalators at Farringdon I noticed a flash of pink on the left …
Fortunately I didn’t have to run backwards to get a close up shot since you’ll find these little creatures looking out at you on numerous walkways and platforms …
Inside the carriages you can admire the specially designed moquette …
‘Moquette’ is a woven pile fabric. With an almost velvet-like texture, it’s comfortable but still extremely durable, making it ideal for seats on public transport. Transport for London’s moquette designs tend to consist of a repeat geometric pattern, making it easy to match fabrics when upholstering seats, as well as helping to reduce wastage and keep costs down. You can read more about the background to the design here.
If you really like it you can buy a matching scarf and socks! Or maybe a nice bench – a snip at £450. If you’re working from home perhaps you could sit on it and pretend you’re commuting.
I took the train to Whitechapel and had a quick look at some of the portraits by Chantal Joffe. She has lived in east London for many years and her 2m-tall portraits are made from laser-cut aluminium. They’re inspired by her Sunday wanderings among the cosmopolitan crowds thronging the streets and markets around the station—a neighbourhood that has been home to many of London’s migrant communities for centuries. Here are a few examples of her work …
Definitely worth a visit.
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I love my City Animals collection and I have gathered so many images now I can start to put them into little categories and that’s what I’ve done today.
For example, in the ‘faithful friends’ category would be the following.
Dr Johnson’s cat Hodge …
Here in Gough Square he sits proudly on top of his master’s famous dictionary having just enjoyed a tasty oyster snack. Johnson was immensely fond of him (‘A very fine cat indeed!’) and personally bought oysters for him rather than ask the servants to. He was (probably justifiably) concerned that the staff would resent this and take their annoyance out on poor Hodge.
He looks towards the house where they both lived at the time and where the dictionary was written …
Philip Thomas Byard Clayton (1885-1972), popularly known as ‘Tubby’ Clayton, served as a priest during the First World War, and opened and maintained a place of rest near Ypres, an Everyman’s Club, much frequented by officers and men alike. This became the TocH movement which continues to this day but has, sadly, struggled in recent years.
Tubby became Vicar of All Hallows by the Tower in 1922 and remained there for forty years, until his retirement in 1962. His effigy in the church is one of the last works by Cecil Thomas, the ‘soldier sculptor’, and Tubby’s dog Chippy sits on a tasselled cushion at his feet …
Clayton owned a succession of Scottish Terriers, one of them a gift from the Queen Mother. All of them were called Chippy.
King Charles II was very fond of his spaniels. Here one runs alongside his horse as they parade down Cheapside …
The terracotta frieze was saved from a Victorian building that previously occupied the site. It’s now displayed on the north side of 1 Poultry.
Whilst on Poultry look up and you’ll see a reference to the old poultry market that once stood here, a boy struggling to hold a goose …
The goose was a suggestion by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. The building is now a private club and restaurant, called The Ned in Sir Edwin’s honour.
My collection contains many water creatures.
At the incredibly moving memorial to the men of the Merchant Navy lost at sea during the two World Wars a boy rides a dolphin surrounded by fishes and sea horses …
These two dolphins on The Ship pub in Hart street look rather miserable despite being Grade II listed like the building itself …
Mr Grumpy …
There are some nicely carved fishes in Cheapside, part of a Zodiac motif …
Not surprisingly, there are lots of fishy folk along the Thames Walk, both on and near what was once Billingsgate Market …
I’m told that could be a Herring Sky in the background – very appropriate …
This one looks like he’s poking his tongue out at us …
In this week’s blog I have just put together some of the random pictures I have been taking over the last few weeks that will hopefully create a cheerful mood.
Who wouldn’t smile on seeing this Baker Street doggie …
This time of year is, for me, a great opportunity to grab images from nature.
A corporate window box in Wood Street …
On the Barbican Estate …
An afternoon nap …
In Fortune Street Park …
A pretty piece of art …With a sad back story …
Blossom time at Aldgate …
Opposite St Paul’s Underground Station …
The Festival Gardens at St Paul’s Cathedral …
On London Wall …
Visitors to the office whilst I was writing my blog. Mrs Duck …
And her handsome partner …
‘Goodbye – I have better things to do than pose for you!’
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You’ll also find at the station a fine example of a 1930s roundel …
There’s another heritage example just outside Temple Station. It’s a London Passenger Transport Board Underground map from 1932 (to avoid potential confusion the attached notice points out that there is ‘An up-to-date Journey Planner located inside the station’!) …
Here is the part of the 1932 Map covering the stations I visit in this blog. ‘Post Office’ became ‘St Paul’s’ five years later …
Whilst you wait there for your train, look up and you will see the tops of the ornate columns that once supported the canopy covering the tracks and platforms …
When Temple Station was first opened locomotive drivers were forbidden to sound their whistles at the station lest they disturb the barristers working (or dozing) in the Inns of Court nearby.
Also on the platform are some images of historical interest. This, for example, is Blackfriars Station in 1876 …
And today (image courtesy of Network Rail) …
Nowadays, if you want to travel by rail to Continental Europe, you head for St Pancras International and Eurostar. Once upon a time though, your gateway to the Continent was Blackfriars.
The station was badly damaged during the Second World War but the wall displaying a selection of the locations you could catch a train to survived and you can see it today in the ticket hall. It was part of the original façade of the 1886 station (originally known as St Paul’s) and features the names of 54 destinations – each painstakingly carved into separate sandstone blocks and illuminated with gold leaf …
You can read more about the wall and the interesting area around the station in my Terminus Tales blog.
I noticed this instruction at the top of the escalator …
I believe that, on his first visit to London, Paddington Bear interpreted this as meaning you couldn’t use the escalator unless you were carrying a dog.
Onward now to the refurbished Farringdon Station. On climbing the stairs from the platform you can admire the original 19th century roof supports …
Just before exiting through the barriers I spotted some nice stained glass windows which date from 1923 …
Farringdon Station moved to its current location on 23 December 1865 when the Metropolitan Railway opened an extension to Moorgate. It was renamed Farringdon & High Holborn on 26 January 1922 when the new building by the architect Charles Walter Clark facing Cowcross Street was opened, and its present name was adopted on 21 April 1936 …
From mid-1914, the Metropolitan Railway introduced its own version of the Underground roundel. This originally appeared as a blue station name plate across a red diamond and the diamond is still there, above the entrance …
It has also been reproduced on Moorgate Station as a nod to the railway’s past history …
Trivia quiz question. Only two station names contain all the vowels …
This is one of them – what is the other? The answer is at the end of this week’s blog – no peeping!
And finally to Barbican. The station was originally known as Aldersgate Street when it opened in 1865, changing its name to Aldersgate in 1910, Aldersgate & Barbican in 1923 and finally settling for Barbican in 1968.
Just inside the barriers is a nice photo montage illustrating some of the station’s history …
The station platforms used to be covered by a glazed arch but after suffering serious bomb damage during the Second World War, it was eventually removed in 1955 …
Those were the days, with carriages pulled by steam locomotives …
You can still see the support brackets for the now demolished roof …
Do pause in the entrance hall and pay your respects to the memory of Pebbles the Blackfriars Station cat.
For many years Pebbles was a favourite of staff and passengers, often sleeping soundly on top of the exit barriers despite the rush hour pandemonium going on around him. This is a picture from the wonderfully named purr’n’furr website, a great source for moggie-related stories …
Clearly he was greatly missed when he died, as the plaque faithfully records, on 26th May 1997.
This was doubly sad because he was due to be given a Lifetime Achievement Award. This was sponsored by Spillers Pet Foods and named after Arthur, a cat they used in their advertising who ate with his paws. The Certificate that came with the award is also displayed (the co-winner, the aptly named Barbie, was Pebbles’ companion) …
Incidentally, here is Arthur in action …
The TV ads ran between 1966 and 1975 with a succession of Arthurs playing the role. At one time a terrible rumour circulated that the advertising agency had taken the original cat to the vet and had all his teeth removed in order to encourage his rather eccentric eating behaviour. This story was subsequently demonstrated to be untrue. Obviously there is a detailed entry about Arthur on the purr’n’furrwebsite and there’s lots more about him if you just Google Arthur the cat that ate with his paws. There is some great footage of the ads themselves with hilarious voice-overs by eminent actors such as Peter Bull, Leo McKern and Joss Ackland.
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All today’s pictures were taken on Whitecross Street or very near it in adjacent roads.
I’m sorry to say that I hadn’t heard of the singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston before and so I am very grateful to this piece of street art by Steve Chapman for bringing him to my attention …
You can listen to Johnston actually singing this song here. If the link doesn’t work you can Google it – it’s lovely.
Here’s the rest of Chapman’s painting …
A quote by José Argüelles, (1939 – 2011), an American New-age author and artist …
This magnificent Camellia is obviously very happy here in the car park …
Jimmy also painted this sweet little heart …
Tyger Tyger by mural artists Paul Skelding and Tim Sanders is usually largely hidden by the fig tree in front. You can read more about it (and other tigers) here in the Londonist blog …
On Peabody Buildings …
Nearby …
See if you can find this little chap …
During creation at the Whitecross Street Party in September last year …
One of my favourites – the tattooed angel and her weird companion …
I like the pigeon …
It was a dull day but these works really cheered me up as did these cheerful little daffodils popping up on London Wall. Thank you City of London Gardeners!
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As regular readers will know, every now and then I like to publish some images that I have taken that don’t fit easily into any particular theme and this week’s blog is an example. They include wanderings outside the City and even London itself but I hope you will still enjoy them.
Walking down Errol Street in Islington (EC1Y 8LU – opposite Waitrose) I looked up and, for the first time, noticed this very touching memorial …
This wonderful map entitled The Streets They Left Behind is interactive. Just click on the poppies to read more about the men who never returned.
Just across the road in Whitecross Street are the premises of A Holt & Sons Ltd …
Because so many trades have moved out of the City and its adjacent boroughs, I had always assumed that the building contained flats and that the signage had been retained as a quaint ‘feature’ to attract tenants. How wrong I was!
The business (which specialises in cotton textiles) was founded by Abraham Holtz who started his enterprise on a stall nearby and who then bought these premises in 1864. It has been in the family ever since (the ‘z’ was dropped from the name at the time of the First World War). Have a look at their website for the full fascinating story.
The building is adjacent to the tiny, covered alley called Shrewsbury Court …
Despite my best efforts, I haven’t been able to establish the origin of its name. You can read more about its history here in the splendid Ian Visits blog.
A few yards inside the alley is one of my favourite London doors. The story I have conjured up in my mind is that, some time in the early 1970s, the people living there found that visitors knocked on the door rather than ringing the bell. When asked why, callers usually said that they didn’t know there was a bell. As a consequence, the residents (who obviously had artistic talents) got out their paint brushes and added this helpful sign to indicate where the push button bell was. Brilliant!
If learning a bit more about City doors takes your fancy have a look at my blog entitled That rings a Bell.
The other day at the Museum of London I was admiring this painting of London as seen from Southwark in around 1630. It’s one of the few painted records of the City before it was destroyed in the Great Fire …
My eye was drawn to London Bridge where a wide selection of traitors’ heads offered a grisly welcome to newcomers approaching from the south …
I liked this view of the outside of the Charterhouse with the very old gates, a gas lamp and an iconic red London pillar box …
The Kentish ragstone wall is fantastic …
I wrote recently about the great Italian experience that is Eataly on Bishopsgate. Here’s some of the scrumptious produce on sale …
There are a few doorways around the City that have always intrigued me since the wood seems to be incredibly old and repurposed from another function. The first is on Foster Lane and the next two Carter Lane …
I have noticed a recent trend in City opticians to have really wacky displays that don’t seem to bear much resemblance at all to their product. This one’s in Aldersgate and is obviously referencing the nearby Barbican estate …
Generally speaking, I don’t approve of graffiti, but this made me laugh …
When visiting Highgate Cemetery a few weeks ago I encountered these two ladies on Highgate Hill. The first (‘Big girls need big diamonds’) is obviously Elizabeth Taylor …
If you are visiting nearby and are interested in finding them they are on the outside wall of the oddly named Brendan the Navigator pub (N19 5NQ).
In the Egyptian Avenue in Highgate Cemetery you will come across the vault containing the remains of Mabel Veronica Batten. In front of the entrance there are always fresh flowers placed in a marble container inscribed with the name of her lover, Radclyffe Hall, who is also laid to rest there …
Hall, born Marguerite Radclyffe Hall but known to her loved ones as John, was a lesbian who dressed in men’s clothes in a society and era when same-sex love was considered not only immoral but legally punishable. Her book, The Well of Loneliness, dealing with a love between two women, was published in 1928. Here she is circa 1910 …
Picture: National Portrait Gallery, photographer unknown.
Her novel became the target of a campaign by James Douglas, editor of the Sunday Express, who wrote, ‘I would rather give a healthy boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel.’ A judge eventually ordered the book destroyed, with the defendants to pay court costs.
A lady entrepreneur sets out her wares on Kilburn High Road …
Nearby stalls …
And finally, some images from a really enjoyable trip to Ipswich.
Ipswich Museum is a delight containing an extraordinary range of exhibits, all displayed in an authentic Victorian environment.
Ever wondered what a boa constrictor’s skeleton looks like? Wonder no more …
Ever fancied a close encounter with a woolly mammoth? This is the place to come …
In a sad sign of the times, ten years ago someone broke in and sawed off and stole Rosie the Rhino’s horn!
Everyone knows the story of Dick Whittington and his cat. Poor young Dick has given up on his hopes of making a fortune in London and is heading back home. As he climbs Highgate Hill, faithful cat at his side, he hears the bells of St Mary-le-Bow Cheapside ring out the words ‘Turn again Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London!’. There are several representations of Whittington and his companion in the City.
The first is a stunning window by the artist and glass maker John David Hayward in St Michael Paternoster Royal on College Hill (EC4R 2RL) where Dick Whittington was buried in 1423. It depicts him on Highgate Hill …
He’s just heard the church bells and glances back …
It has been commented that he rather resembles a flat-capped Hoxton Hipster – maybe there is an iPad in that bag.
I love the expression on the cat’s face. Perhaps he has seen a mouse.
I only recently discovered this sculpture in the ambulatory to The Guildhall Art Gallery (EC2V 5AE). He looks very thoughtful, doesn’t he. Times have been hard (note his torn leggings) and a rather unpleasant creature is peeping out from his pile of clothes – ‘Shall I return to the City and try my luck one more time?’ The milestone indicates it’s three miles away …
The sculptor Lawrence Tindall has written : ‘My figure, in Portland stone, is carved in a style illustrative of children’s literature. It shows Dick and his cat at the point of turning again on hearing Bow Bells and — look behind him: there is a rat! My idea with this and the other figures was to lighten the atmosphere at the entrance of this impressive building and provide something for visiting children’.
The cat …
And a rat! …
Although the story is a total myth, it burned itself into folklore so deeply that the point on Highgate Hill where he supposedly heard the bells is also commemorated (and I knew exactly where it was). Take the Underground train to Archway, walk up Highgate Hill, and a hundred yards or so further on, you will encounter this charming little memorial …
Carved on the side of the stone facing the road are the dates of Whittington’s Mayoralties, the three Kings he served under and the year he was Sheriff …
It also records that the stone was restored by W Hillier in 1935.
You can read a comprehensive history of the stone and the cat here on the London Remembers website. I recall the cat (made from Irish limestone) being added in 1964 since I walked up the hill almost every day on my way to school. The cat also lives on in the signage of the nearby Whittington Hospital …
And the pub opposite the stone …
Knowing that I was going to be visiting Highgate I couldn’t resist the temptation to book a self-guided tour of the famous Cemetery.
To get there I walked further up the hill and turned left into Waterlow Park. I paused briefly to pay my respects to the wonderful philanthropist Henry Waterlow in the park that he donated to people who were ‘gardenless’ …
He’s prepared for inclement weather with hat, overcoat and neatly-furled umbrella.
The entrance to the Cemetery is opposite the west entrance to Waterlow Park and is in two sections separated by a road. Paid entry to the West part gets you free entry to the East and includes an excellent printed guide – what a fascinating experience it was. Regular readers will know that I am intrigued by the way animals are represented in sculptures and memorials and here are three from my visit.
Firstly a very loyal doggie, a huge black mastiff called ‘Lion’ …
Thomas ‘Tom’ Sayers (1826-65) was an English bare-knuckle prize fighter. There were no formal weight divisions at the time, and although Sayers was only five feet eight inches tall and never weighed much more than 150 pounds, he frequently fought much bigger men. In a career which lasted from 1849 until 1860, he lost only one of sixteen bouts. He was recognized as heavyweight champion of England in 1857, when he defeated William Perry (the ‘Tipton Slasher’).
‘Tom and his battles’, from The Police Gazette …
On 17th April 1860 there took place what was claimed to be the first ‘international’ title fight. At 6ft 2in and 195lb John Carmel Heenan, the American contender, towered above Sayers’s 5ft 8in and 149lb as the first round started at 7.29 am. Each severely battered and bloodied, yet unbowed, they would finish, level pegging, tit for tat, their business unsettled as a draw and with all bets off, fully two hours 27 mins and 42 rounds later. The bout was halted when the Aldershot police, brandishing magistrates’ warrants, stormed the ring. This picture of the encounter was painted by a retired boxer called Jem Ward …
Tom in his prime circa 1860 …
Seriously ill from consumption (tuberculosis) aggravated by diabetes he died aged only 39 at No. 257 Camden High Street on 8 November 1865 in the presence of his father and two children. His funeral a week later attracted some 100,000 people. According to the Spectator magazine, the crowd that accompanied the coffin stretched for more than two miles in length and the bier was drawn by four sable-plumed horses. Lion, the mourner in chief, sat alone in a pony cart …
Tom’s Highgate Cemetery tomb.
A real lion called Nero rests, sleeping, on top of the tomb of George Wombwell (1777-1850) …
George became a household name as owner of three large travelling animal shows. His menagerie included an elephant, giraffes, a gorilla, a hyena, a kangaroo, leopards, six lions, llamas, monkeys, ocelots, ostriches, panthers, a rhino (billed as ‘the real unicorn of scripture’), three tigers, wildcats and zebras …
Sadly, because many of the animals were from hotter climes, lots of them died in the British climate. Sometimes Wombwell could profitably sell the body to a taxidermist or a medical school; other times he chose to exhibit the dead animal as a curiosity.
This poor horse on a pedestal looks old, tired and worn out …
Once upon a time this was taken to be the tomb of John ‘Jack’ Atcheler who claimed to be ‘Horse Slaughterer to Queen Victoria’, and is described as such in the guide. More research has revealed, however, that he is buried elsewhere although there is a John Atcheler beneath the monument. He is the famous man’s son, who died in 1853 aged twenty-two. The grave also holds Jack’s second wife, Sarah, and his son-in-law. The now faded inscription may contain a clue as to why there is a horse on the monument: ‘She’s gone; whose nerve could rein the swiftest steed’. Jack almost certainly paid for the grave and monument and no doubt intended that he would be buried there as well. You can read about Jack in this fascinating article from the Highgate Cemetery Newsletter.
If you visit the East Cemetery other famous people resting there include …
Malcolm McLaren – Better a spectacular failure than a benign success …
The ‘Great Train Robber’ Bruce Reynolds. The inscription reads ‘C’est la vie’, the words that Reynolds uttered when he was finally arrested in 1968 in Torquay by Tommy Butler, the dogged detective who pursued him to the end …
A very moving sculpture marking the tomb of Philip Gould, one of the architects and strategists of New Labour …
There is also some humour – the book spine reads The final chapter …
The painter and print-maker Patrick Caulfield (1936-2005) was a contemporary of David Hockney. Regarded as part of the Pop Art movement, and a Turner Prize nominee in 1987, Caulfield designed the memorial which now sits on his grave. Brutally frank! …
And finally, of course …
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One hundred and eleven years ago, in 1910, a wonderful chap called Percy C. Rushen published this meticulously researched piece of work …
He was extremely angry, stating in the Introduction to his work that the disappearance of external memorials …
Unfortunately, the ‘sordid tampering’ and action by ‘sacriligists’ that Percy detested was insignificant compared to the destruction meted out to the City’s churches and churchyards during the Second World War. I thought it would be interesting to take his painstaking list of memorials and see how many have survived to this day.
I started at the church of St Anne and St Agnes on Gresham Street (EC2V 7BX). In 1910 Rushen recorded eleven headstones and the first one I came across was this one …
It’s the one in the book with an inscription as follows: ‘Family Grave of EDWARD HENRY and MARY SANDERSON of the Bull and Mouth. Their children: EDWARD died 30 June 1835 aged 10 weeks, SAMUEL EMERY died 18 April 1846 aged 3 years, ANNE HUNT died – November 1851 aged 11’. This started me off on a quest to find out more about the Bull and Mouth where Edward and Mary had lived. An extraordinary relic of the inn survives to this day, which I will share with you later in this blog.
The excellent Know your Londonsuggests that the original name was ‘Boulogne Mouth’, a reference to the mouth or entrance to the famous harbour at Boulogne, on the north coast of France. The name was a tribute to Henry VIII who captured the harbour in 1544*. The name ‘Boulogne Mouth’ was gradually corrupted to ‘Bull and Mouth’. The last inn by this name stood in St Martins le Grand, although there was once a Bull and Mouth Street as can be seen on Ogilby & Morgan’s 1676 map …
The coaching inn was a vital part of Europe’s inland transport infrastructure until the development of the railways, providing a resting point or ‘layover’ for people and horses. The inn served the needs of travellers, for food, drink, and rest. The attached stables, staffed by hostlers, cared for the horses, including changing a tired team for a fresh one. Coaching inns were used by private travellers in their coaches, the public riding stagecoaches between one town and another, and (in England at least) the mail coach. The Bull and Mouth had stabling for 700, yes 700, horses, most of it underground, and the yard could accommodate 30 coaches.
I have found a few pictures of the Bull & Mouth. This is one of the yard, probably painted around 1820 by H. Shepherd (1793-1864) …
And this is the frontage as painted by John Maggs (1819-1896) …
As you can see, the inn had a huge sign illustrating its name and, astonishingly, this was preserved after the building’s destruction and can now be found in the rotunda garden outside the Museum of London EC2Y 5HN) …
At the top is a bust of Edward VI and below that the arms of Christ’s Hospital which owned the land on which the inn stood.
Literally a bull and a mouth …
The inscription beneath reads: ‘Milo the Cretonian an ox slew with his fist and ate it up at one meal. Ye gods what a glorious twist’. It’s probably in reference to Milo of Croton, an ancient Greek wrestler and strongman sometimes depicted as carrying a bull on his shoulders.
The inn was extensively remodelled and rebuilt in 1830 and became the Queen’s Hotel, the old sign being reattached to the new building. The hotel itself was demolished in 1888 to make way for the new General Post Office which now displays this plaque …
One of my favourite blogs is Look up London by Katie Wignall. She writes ‘there’s a curious painted ghost sign under Smithfield’s rotunda car park (EC1A 9DY) …’
Katie goes on to say : ‘As tempting as it would be to imagine this was somehow part of the inn’s underground stables, sadly, I think that’s a bit far-fetched. It’s about half a mile from where the inn used to stand and (though it is covered) the paintwork looks pretty new to have been there since the 19th century.
Given how popular Smithfield is as a film location, it seems more likely that it’s simply a leftover film set that’s remained behind to puzzle us curious Londoners’.
Incidentally, there was another Bull and Mouth Inn on Aldersgate Street which also had a wonderful sign. Here it is …
Picture credit : Bishopsgate Institute.For more old street signs see this edition of Spitalfields Life.
I hope you enjoyed this tale of London’s past. I shall be tracking down more of Mr Rushen’s memorials in future weeks and hope to find some more fascinating stories.
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* I have to point out that not all commentators agree with the ‘Boulogne Mouth’ story, arguing that there were numerous strange combinations of words for inns (for example the Cat and Fiddle on Lombard Street). And some theories have been repeatedly shown to be untrue (for example claims that Elephant & Castle was a corruption of the Infanta de Castilla). It has been argued that the name of our inn really refers to the aforementioned wrestler ‘Milo the Croatian’ reputedly eating an entire ox at one meal after he slew it ‘with his fist’. But why name a number of English inns after a Croatian? I have no idea!
I couldn’t resist going back to visit the fascinating carvings in the Seething Lane Garden that I wrote about last week. They all relate to the life of Samuel Pepys and have revealed a few things that I did not know.
I was puzzled by this carving of a monkey who is sitting on some books and appears to have taken a bite out of a rolled up document …
Then I found the following entry in Pepys’s diary for Friday 18th January 1661 …
I took horse and guide for London; and through some rain, and a great wind in my face, I got to London at eleven o’clock. At home found all well, but the monkey loose, which did anger me, and so I did strike her till she was almost dead …
I’m not sure whether it was his pet or his wife’s, but it certainly paid a heavy price for its misbehaviour.
He also got upset with his wife’s pet dog. On 16th February 1660 he wrote …
So to bed, where my wife and I had some high words upon my telling her that I would fling the dog which her brother gave her out at the window if he pissed in the house any more.
On 11th January 1660 he visited the Tower of London menagerie and ‘went in to see Crowly, who was now grown a very great lion and very tame’. And here he is …
Amazingly, Pepys once owned a pet lion himself.
As the Navy’s principal administrator he wielded considerable influence and was frequently sent gifts in order to curry favour. Kate Loveman, in her book Samuel Pepys and His Books: Reading, Newsgathering, and Sociability, 1660-1703 writes : ‘In Algiers the consul Samuel Martin found providing suitable presents taxing … He sent Pepys naval intelligence and (in despair) …
A Tame Lion, which is the only rarity that offers from this place …
Pepys kept the creature in his home at Derby House and sent the following gracious message to Martin, assuring him that the animal was …
… as tame as you sent him and as good company.
In 1679 tragedy struck when Pepys was arrested, dismissed from service and sent to the Tower of London on charges of ‘Piracy, Popery and Treachery’. The first two were outlandish and easily disproved but much more damaging and dangerous was the rumour that he had sold state secrets to the French (a crime which carried the terrifying penalty of being hanged, drawn and quartered).
Using his own resources and considerable network, he tracked down the story to a lying scoundrel called John Scott. Pepys was subsequently freed but was left homeless, jobless and in a perilous situation financially. In her book Samuel Pepys, The Unequalled Self, Claire Tomalin made the poignant observation that whilst in the Tower ‘he could console himself only with the sound of the familiar bells of All Hallows and St Olave’s’.
Here is the carving of Pepys in the Tower …
You can read the full story of his first imprisonment in The Plot against Pepys by Ben and James Long.
He was to return to office in 1686 with the full support of the new king, James II, and set up a special ‘Navy Commission’ to clear the navy’s accounts and restore the force to its 1679 levels. This was completed six months ahead of schedule and was probably his last, and arguably greatest, achievement.
Back in 1649 Pepys had skipped school and witnessed the execution of King Charles the First outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall. Here is the poor King’s head being held aloft by his executioner …
The death warrant of King Charles I, 29 January 1649 (detail). Parliamentary Archives. HL/PO/JO/10/1/297A.
Eleven years later, on 13th October 1660, he witnessed the execution of Major-General Thomas Harrison, one of the regicide signatories to the warrant. The punishment was hanging drawing and quartering. Pepys’s droll diary entry made me smile …
I went out to Charing Cross, to see Major-General Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition.
Pepys loved theatrical performances and represented in the garden is an early version of Punch and Judy …
On 9th May 1662 he wrote …
Thence with Mr Salisbury, who I met there, into Covent Garden to an alehouse, to see a picture that hangs there, which is offered for 20s., and I offered fourteen – but it is worth much more money – but did not buy it, I having no mind to break my oath. Thence to see an Italian puppet play that is within the rayles there, which is very pretty, the best that ever I saw, and great resort of gallants. So to the Temple and by water home …
On 4th September 1663 he visited the notorious Bartholomew Fair in Smithfield and toured the attractions with his wife. He wrote, ‘above all there was at last represented the sea, with Neptune, Venus, mermaids, and Ayrid on a dolphin‘. The mermaid is also here in the park …
The first page of the diary in the shorthand code he had devised for it …
Blessed be God, at the end of last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain but upon taking of cold. I live in Axe Yard, having my wife and servant Jane, and no more family than us three. My wife, after the absence of her terms for seven weeks, gave me hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year she hath them again.
Samuel had been a student at Magdalene College, Cambridge and bequeathed the College his vast library of over 3,000 tomes (including the six volumes of his diary). The library, which bears his name, is represented here (the Wyvern is the College crest) …
Photo credit : Spitalfields Life.
The Gentle Author, who publishes Spitalfields Life, has written an eloquent description of his visit to the library which you can read here.
I was visiting Bunhill Fields burial ground last week with a view to writing about it again for a New Year blog. Whilst focusing my camera on an interesting tombstone I was photobombed by this cheeky fellow …
Although anthropomorphism is frowned upon by some, I do tend to indulge every now and then and felt the pigeon was definitely sending me a message along the lines of ‘why are you writing about boring bits of stone when you could be writing about me?’ So I took the hint and this week’s blog is the result.
Obviously I started with some serious research. Have you, for example, ever wondered what pigeons do all day? Wonder no more – here is a breakdown of their typical activity over 24 hours …
From my own observations it is obvious that the pigeon population has become aware of the Covid risk and birds are now practising social distancing as a matter of course …
With total isolation for the particularly vulnerable …
Sadly, however, they tend to lose all self-control when presented with food (just like some humans do when presented with alcohol and the opportunity to party) …
A kind lady has just distributed a handful of bread!
It has been difficult to establish the average pigeon’s IQ. As an expert in this field has written …
‘Pigeons have a very high brain to body mass ratio. The academic literature on pigeon intelligence is fairly non-existent. This is partly due to the difficulty in administering traditional IQ tests to pigeons: they have a notoriously short attention span and furthermore find it difficult to hold a pen’.
An MRI scan reveals a very large brain relative to body size …
City of London pigeons, again according to my observations, spend a lot of time walking rather than flying and there would appear to be two reasons for this. Firstly, our fondness for eating ‘on the go’ due to our busy lifestyles which results either in accidental food distribution or occasional bursts of generosity where we share our snacks with our feathered companions. I have also witnessed acts of intimidation where rougher elements of the pigeon community hang around in an intimidating fashion in parks and outside supermarkets giving humans the ‘feed me or else’ glare …
The second reason, I believe, is the presence of a number of pairs of peregrine falcons that nest on Tate Modern and on the towers of the Barbican. A pigeon represents a tasty meal …
Photograph David Tipling/Getty Images.
Pigeons are monogamous and mate for life and their mating ritual is quite cute. A single male will nod his head at the female which takes his fancy and spread his tail feathers to communicate his interest. The birds look directly at each other, and if the hen likes what she sees, she will nod back. The male will then prune his feathers, leaving the next move to the female. If interested the hen will hold out her head and move closer to the male and fan her tail feathers.
Things get spicy when the male offers his beak and indulges in a pigeon kiss (rubbing their beaks together) …
The hen will feed the male from her beak and together they will coo. Once she demonstrates she is ready, four seconds later its all over …
After mating the first egg will be laid within 10 days, with a second arrival following a couple of days later.
When it comes to food they don’t seem to be that fussy. I have observed them eating …
Bread
Chips
Biscuits
Cooked rice
Crisps
Pizza
I think it rather sad they get called flying rats. They often seem to me to be positively fastidious, especially when there are pools of water around that they love to splash about in, like this one I spotted making sure to wash under his wings …
And lots of mutual grooming takes place too – occasionally leading to energetic bouts of hanky-panky.
A quick question for you. Who wrote the following to friends who were coming to visit him …
‘I hope Lady Lyell & yourself will remember whenever you want a little rest & have time how very glad we should be to see you here. I will show you my pigeons! Which is the greatest treat, in my opinion, which can be offered to human beings’.
It was the man whose writings brought about one of the most fundamental and controversial changes in the way we viewed the world – Charles Darwin …
Although he never wrote On the Origin of Pigeons he clearly became very fond of them after he started studying and breeding them for scientific purposes in 1856. He wrote to another friend about a trip to London ‘where I am going to bring a lot more pigeons back with me on Saturday, for it is a noble and majestic pursuit, and beats moths and butterflies, whatever you may say to the contrary’. Although his study of pigeons informed OnThe Origin of Species, Darwin’s real ‘pigeon book,’ The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, did not come out until 1868. Its long and beautifully illustrated section on pigeons is still readable and relevant to both naturalists and pigeon fanciers today …
Here’s one of his illustrations …
And let’s not forget pigeon bravery in two World Wars. Here’s a picture of a carrier pigeon being released from a port-hole in the side of a tank near Albert in the Somme on 9th August 1918. The Tank Corps often used carrier pigeons to relay information during an advance …
One of the bravest military birds was Cher Ami, who now poses stuffed in the Smithsonian Institution …
On 13th October 1918, despite being seriously wounded, she successfully delivered the following message which effectively saved the lives of almost 200 men …
‘We are along the road parallel to 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heavens sake stop it’.
Military vets made Cher Ami a prosthetic limb and sent her home to well earned retirement. For her part in saving the 77th Division, she was awarded the Croix de Guerre, one of France’s highest military honours for her gallantry in the field. General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, said ‘There isn’t anything the United States can do too much for this bird.’
Capt John Carney, Cher Ami’s trainer, holds the feathered hero.
Pigeons continued in service during the Second World War. In the early 1940s, the American Signal Pigeon Corps consisted of 3,150 soldiers and 54,000 birds. Some 90 per cent of the messages got through. And these avian secret agents saved countless lives, too – of 54 Dickin Medals (the animals’ Victoria Cross) awarded in World War II, 32 went to pigeons.
One of its most famous recipients in World war II was a pigeon called Commando – read more about him here.
So next time you are tempted to frighten a pigeon or shoo it away remember this – they may be a distant relative of a war hero or descended from one of Charles Darwin’s feathered pals. And maybe look a bit more closely at them too – their colouring can be very attractive …
‘Who’s a pretty boy then?‘
I hope you enjoyed this little pigeon journey. For help with this blog I am indebted to the informative and occasionally hilarious London Pigeonswebsite which provided some of the data.
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I started my walk in Lime Street and just by Lloyd’s is the impressive Asia House. It was built in 1912-13 and designed by George Val Myer when he was only 30. His best known work is the BBC’s Broadcasting House on Portland Place …
What makes it particularly interesting are the human figures. They were carved by John Broad of Doulton Ceramics and are entitled Japanese Man and Woman. He holds a model ship and a scroll …
She holds a fan and a paintbrush. Although she isn’t described anywhere as a Geisha I have just made that assumption because she looks so elegantly traditional and is obviously demonstrating artistic talents …
Beneath the pediment another lady sits enthroned, legs nonchalantly crossed, against a stylised sunburst motif …
Her headgear is very elaborate and she has dragons to her right and left.
The building was originally the premises of Mitsui & Co Ltd, a Tokyo firm described in the 1913 Post Office Directory as ‘steamship owners and general commission merchants, export and import’. The current tenant is the Scor Reinsurance Company.
The new skyscraper on Bishopsgate looms over the Victorian market …
During my walk I came across three examples of the current Sculpture in the City initiative.
Inside the market is The Source by Patrick Tuttofuoco which ‘depicts the artist’s hands as he mimes some words conveyed using a sign language’ …
Opposite Lloyd’s is a sign indicating that you have arrived in Arcadia (Utopia) rather than just the main entrance to the Willis Towers Watson building …
The artist, Leo Fitzmaurice, ‘has substituted the factual information, usually found on these signs, for something more poetic, allowing viewers to enjoy this material, along with the space around it in a new and more open-ended way’.
Nearby in Cullum Street (EC3M 7JJ) is Series Industrial Windows 1 by Marisa Ferreira …
The information notice tells us that ‘the artwork invokes Pierre Nora’s notion of ‘lieux de mémoire’ to reflect the urban landscape as fragment, memory and vision and to question how industrial ruins solicit affective, imaginative and sensual engagements with the past’.
Also in Cullum Street is the unusual Art Nouveau Bolton House. I haven’t been able to find out a lot more about it apart from the architect (A. Selby) and that it’s reportedly named after Prior Bolton who had close connections with St Bartholomew the Great (which I have written about here).
It’s blue and white faience with strong Moorish influences …
The building was completed in 1907, a few years before Art Nouveau went out of fashion.
In the market again, I always smile when I come across Old Tom’s Bar …
Old Tom was a gander from Ostend in Belgium who is said to have arrived in the Capital having followed a female member of his flock who took his fancy! Despite the swift dispatch of the other 34,000 members of his party, somehow Tom miraculously managed to survive the dinner table and became a regular fixture at the market and the surrounding inns, who kept scraps aside for him.
So beloved was Old Tom that he even made it into the Times Newspaper! Below is his obituary, published on 16 April 1835:
In memory of Old Tom the Gander. Obit 19th March, 1835, aetat, 37 years, 9 months, and 6 days.
‘This famous gander, while in stubble, Fed freely, without care or trouble: Grew fat with corn and sitting still, And scarce could cross the barn-door sill: And seldom waddled forth to cool His belly in the neighbouring pool. Transplanted to another scene, He stalk’d in state o’er Calais-green, With full five hundred geese behind, To his superior care consign’d, Whom readily he would engage To lead in march ten miles a-stage. Thus a decoy he lived and died, The chief of geese, the poulterer’s pride.’
Unfortunately, I can find no reliable contemporary picture of him. Despite claims to the contrary, he is not represented, along with a little boy, above the old Midland Bank Building on Poultry. The goose there was a suggestion by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens to commemorate its original market function.
On my way to the Cheesegrater I spotted this reflection of the Gherkin in the glass walls of The Scalpel along with two of the crosses on St Andrew Undershaft’s pinnacles …
Outside the Cheesegrater, this Godlike figure entitled Navigation holds a passenger ship in his left hand and is flanked by a binnacle and a ship’s wheel. Originally owned by the P&O Banking Corporation, he once looked down from the facade of their building at the junction of Leadenhall Street and St Mary Axe. I smiled because he seems to be glancing rather suspiciously at the replica maypole that has been installed next to him …
It references the maypole that once stood nearby outside St Andrew Undershaft (so called because the maypole alongside it was taller than the church). The pole was set up opposite the church every year until Mayday 1517 when the tradition was suspended after the City apprentices (always a volatile bunch) rioted against foreigners. Public gatherings on Mayday were therefore to be discouraged and the pole was hung up nearby in the appropriately named Shaft Alley. In 1549 the vicar of St Catharine Cree denounced the maypole as a pagan symbol and got his listeners so agitated they pulled the pole from its moorings, cut it up and burned it.
Here is a picture of the church around 1910. You can see the Navigation statue on the building on the left …
The area has been brightened up recently with the ventilation exits covered in bold designs …
On a lighthearted note, I am collecting pictures of weird and creepy clothes models. There are these in Lime Street …
To add to these in Eastcheap …
And finally, an old Japanese proverb pasted on to the window of a temporarily closed restaurant …
I hope you have enjoyed today’s blog.
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Queen Victoria Street was created in 1871 as an extension to the then new Victoria Embankment and led directly to the Mansion House. The new street was incredibly expensive to build since, obviously, the properties standing in its path had to be purchased before demolition. The cost, over £2,000,000, equates to more than two billion pounds in equivalent value today.
On this extract from the 1847 Reynolds’s Splendid New Map of London a red line has been drawn to show how Queen Victoria Street sliced its way across the City …
This picture gives an idea of the extent of the demolition …
I wanted to try to stand as closely as possible where this picture was taken and, pausing in the street, I looked up and this is what I saw (EC4V 4BQ) …
I climbed some steps and in a grim courtyard outside the gruesome Baynard House is a quite extraordinary sculpture, The Seven Ages of Man by Richard Kindersley (1980) …
At first the infant – mewing and puking in the nurse’s arms …then the whining schoolboy creeping like a snail unwillingly to school … then the lover … then a soldier full of strange oaths …
… and then the justice full of wise saws … then the sixth age …the big manly voice turning again toward childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound … then second childishness and mere oblivion, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
(Jacques in Shakespeare’s As You Like It Act II Scene vii)
Here is the view from the terrace taken from approximately the same spot as the demolition picture above …
This image and several of the illustrations in today’s blog have been taken from the excellent blog A London Inheritancewhich I wholeheartedly recommend.
By the way, the terrace leads to Blackfriars Station and it’s worth popping in to see this example of the station’s past importance.
The station was badly damaged during the Second World War but the wall displaying a selection of the locations you could catch a train to survived and you can see it today in the ticket hall. It was part of the original façade of the 1886 station (originally known as St Paul’s) and features the names of 54 destinations – each painstakingly carved into separate sandstone blocks …
The letters are gilded in 24 carat gold leaf …
Where shall we buy a ticket to today? Crystal Palace or Marseilles? Westgate-on-Sea or St Petersburg? Tough choices!
Moving westward on the north side of Queen Victoria Street you will find the College of Arms (EC4V 4BT). Founded in 1484, this is where you go to get your family coat of arms designed and granted. As well as this function, the College maintains registers of arms, pedigrees, genealogies, Royal Licences, changes of name, and flags. The officers who run the College have some splendid titles such as Clarenceaux King of Arms, Rouge Dragon Persuivant and various Heralds and Heralds Extraordinary.
The original street plan included the complete demolition of their building but the Heralds objected strongly. As a result Queen Victoria Street merely sliced off the south east and south west wings, requiring remodelling of the two stumps. You can see how the colour of the new brickwork differs from the original in this picture …
This print from 1768 shows the building before the 1871 alterations …
Also on the north side is the 1933 Faraday Building, once one of the major hubs for international and national telephone circuits and operator services (EC4V 4BT) …
Look just above the line of the second set of windows and, in the position associated with a key stone, there are a series of carvings, one above each window, that tell the story of what was state of the art telecommunications at the time the building was constructed.
A bang up to date telephone …
Cables that carried the telephone signal …
An electromagnetic relay …
A Horse Shoe Magnet …
The imposing entrance doors are sadly defaced with signage …
There are two nice places to sit down and rest.
The first I would recommend is the Cleary Garden (EC4V 2AR) …
It is named after Fred Cleary who, during the 1970s, was instrumental in encouraging the planting of trees and the creation of new gardens throughout the square mile. During the blitz, the house which once stood here was destroyed exposing the cellars. A shoemaker called Joe Brandis decided that he would create a garden from the rubble, collecting mud from the river banks and transporting soil from his own garden in Walthamstow to the site. His success was such that on 29th July 1949 Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother visited his handiwork.
My second recommendation, if you seek some refreshment in extraordinary surroundings, is the Black Friar pub (EC4V 4EG) …
The interior is so amazing that I am going to write about it in more detail in a later blog dedicated to pubs. In the meantime, here are a few pictures to give you some idea of what to expect …
You can watch an interesting video about the pub and its history here.
And finally, it’s cute pigeon time. I saw this one dozing off whilst using a spotlight to dry his feathers and warm his bottom. He’s also managing to do this whilst balanced on one leg …
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Sometimes it’s just nice to set out without a specific theme or objective in mind and see what turns up.
Last week I was very lucky almost straight away because I came across these two members of the City of London mounted police perfectly posed outside the Royal Exchange …
The riders and horses are based in Wood Street police station where there is a custom made stable block. The station was built in 1965, when mounted police were a much more common sight, but the officers and horses will be moving out at the end of December and the building converted to accommodation. The ladies told me that they would be temporarily based with the Metropolitan Police in the West End but will still be returning regularly to patrol the City. You can read more about the horses’ training etc. here.
Watching out over a very quiet City …
Now that Autumn is here I try to capture the changing foliage and light whenever I can. Here’s St Giles Cripplegate as seen from the podium …
And here’s a view looking north west from Aldgate …
I paid a visit to the lovely little Goldsmith’s Garden on Gresham Street which used to be the churchyard of St John Zachary (destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666) …
It was fun to encounter this pigeon taking a leisurely shower …
He also meticulously washed under his wings – clearly a bird keen on personal freshness …
A little further along the road at St Anne and St Agnes red bricks meet Autumn leaves …
The Barbican often provides some interesting shadows, colours and reflections …
St Paul’s Cathedral with the Firefighter’s Memorial in the foreground …
I am not a great fan of some of the new City architecture but the colours on these buildings in Old Bailey are rather jolly …
The tower of St Alban in Wood Street, all that remained of Wren’s original church after the Blitz …
Next to St Paul’s is the only surviving part of the Church of St Augustine, also badly damaged in the War and partially rebuilt in 1966 …
Here St Botolph Without Aldgate is framed by trees and some Art in the City …
A closer view …
There is also some really good news in these difficult times. The gardens at Finsbury Circus have been handed back to the City now that the Crossrail work there is finished and the Mayor has launched a competition as to how they might be redesigned. You can find details here. As you can see from my picture, it really is a blank canvas …
Some of the offices on the Circus have worked hard on their flower displays …
These merge nicely with the floral decorated stonework …
Finally, a few quirky items.
Caught in mid-air – Parkour at the Barbican …
… and how on earth did these quad bikes end up in a skip on Beech Street?
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Yes, I have again been taking advantage of the wonderful fact that the Museum of London has reopened and is free to enter with a timed ticket.
I was thrilled to see a new exhibit connected to my hero Samuel Pepys – naval administrator, Member of Parliament and, of course, famous diarist. The item is a silver dinner plate made in 1681/82 and engraved with his coat of arms. Scratched by knives and forks, it is one of only three that now survive of the full dinner service …
By the time he commissioned this he was already a wealthy man and took great pleasure in entertaining at home. I like this boast from his diary dated 8th April 1667 and his remark about Mrs Clarke made me laugh out loud …
We had with my wife and I twelve at table and very good and pleasant company, and a most neat and excellent, but dear dinner; but, Lord, to see with what envy they looked upon all my fine plate was pleasant, for I made the best show I could, to let them understand me and my condition, to take down the pride of Mrs Clarke, who thinks herself very great.
Being a man of intense curiosity, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, Pepys would almost certainly have heard of this discovery made during the rebuilding of St Martin’s Church on Ludgate Hill in 1669 …
It’s the third century tombstone of a Roman centurion wearing a tunic, a military belt and a long cloak draped over his left shoulder.
Amazingly, the inscription is still legible …
To the spirits of the departed and to Vivius Marcianus of the 2nd Legion Augusta, Januaria Martina his most devoted wife set up this memorial.
I think modern illustrations like this are mainly for the benefit of children, but I love them …
Incidentally, and still on a Roman theme, nearby is a fine mosaic floor dating from AD 300 and discovered in Bucklersbury in 1869 …
Pepys witnessed and wrote about the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the Museum has a rare depiction of the City before the fire. It dates from around 1630, three years before he was born …
Nearby is a dramatic oil painting of the conflagration at its height …
The view is taken from the west with the Cathedral, fiercely ablaze, dominating the scene. John Evelyn described what happened when the fire reached St Paul’s …
The stones of St Paul’s flew like grenades, the lead melting down the streets in a stream, and the very pavements of them glowing with fiery redness.
The cathedral was thought to be safe and the nearby printers and booksellers stored their entire stock in the crypt. Unfortunately the fire caught hold of wooden scaffolding put up for repairs and the cathedral and all its contents were consumed.
Since his home was at risk, Pepys hired a cart ‘to carry away all my money, and plate, and best things’ and buried his valuable Parmesan cheese in the garden.
Such was the intensity of the blaze that these two iron padlocks and key melted together in a lump. The owner of the premises, an 80-year-old watchmaker, chose to hide in his cellar rather than flee (presumably to protect his stock from looters). These items were found beside his body …
Referring to a giant who was supposed to have lived in the building, this figure, known as Gerald the Giant, stood in a niche on the front elevation of Gerard’s Hall in Basing Lane and dates from around 1670 …
I like his daintily decorated shoes …
There is also some lovely stained glass dating from 1660 – 1700 …
Dragging myself away from the 17th century, there were two paintings I really enjoyed studying. The first is entitled Eastward Ho! and was painted by Henry Nelson O’Neil in 1857. It became his most popular work …
Soldiers are shown boarding a ship at Gravesend, leaving to fight in the ‘Indian Mutiny’ – the first Indian war of independence. In a poignant scene they are saying farewell to their loved ones and it is a very emotionally charged picture. For the men we can only see in their faces optimism and patriotism whilst in the faces of the women we see fear and a sense of foreboding.
The Times newspaper commented …
Hope and aspiration are busy among these departing soldiers, and if mothers and wives, and sisters and sweethearts, go down the side sorrowing, it is a sorrow in which there is no despair, and no stain of sin and frailty…
A year later he painted Home Again …
The soldiers are seen coming down the gangway of their troop ship. The main character appears to be the bearded soldier in khaki uniform with his Kilmarnock ‘pork-pie’ cap under a white cotton Havelock, which was worn to afford the wearer’s neck protection from the blazing and merciless Indian sun.
When the paintings were exhibited together in London thousands of Victorians queued to see them.
The Times had this to say about Home Again …
The crowd round the picture delight to spell out the many stories it includes – its joyous reunitings, its agonies of bereavement; the latter kept judiciously down …
And, of course, I mustn’t forget the Aurock. Its colossal skull confronts you soon after you enter …
A beast that’s been extinct for nearly 400 years, this particular skull dates from the Neolithic period (4,000 -2,200 BC) and was discovered in Ilford, East London, where herds of this creature once roamed.
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Every time I walk along Fleet Street I find something to write about.
This week I decided to take another look at the courts and alleys starting with the curiously named Poppin’s Court (a good name for the restaurant). The wallsign gives tourists a visual clue as to what’s on offer, yummy!) ..
According to The London Encyclopaedia, the abbots of Cirencester, whose crest included a popinjay or parrot, had a town house here in the early 14th century called Le Popyngaye and the name stuck. If this is correct, the apostrophe in the current name is not really appropriate, giving the impression that someone called Poppin used to live there. Or possibly that the court is named after the restaurant. There used to be a stone relief of a parrot over the court’s entrance but this has disappeared.
I was curious to know what a coat of arms with a parrot on it looked like and I found one, on the crest of Sutton United Football Club of all places …
Further west is Peterborough Court, with its ‘IN’ entrance …
… and ‘OUT’ exit …
The Court is named after the Bishop of Peterborough who owned the land in the 14th century. Described as ‘An Art Deco Temple to Journalism’, the Portland Stone building dates from 1928 and was the home of the Daily Telegraph. The newspaper moved out in 1987 and eventually Goldman Sachs International leased the building at a cost of £18 million a year. The lease runs out in 2021 and I think they have already vacated the building since it looks a bit sad and neglected. There was talk last year of it becoming another WeWork site but who knows in the current economic climate. The lovely Art Deco clock usually makes me smile …
Cheshire Court is modest, but its fame comes from its neighbour, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese – a pub which has been recorded on this location since at least 1538, although it’s original name was probably the Horn Tavern …
Wine Office Court is so named because licences for selling wine were issued at premises here. That’s the entrance to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on the right …
The view looking towards Fleet Street …
I can’t find out much about Hind Court, it’s possibly named after a tavern …
Many of the courts have a plaque at the entrance. This one shows a facsimile of the front page of the first edition of Daily Express dated Tuesday 24th April 1900 …
The note in the box reads …
The first edition of the Daily Express was published in Fleet Street. It was one of the first papers in Britain to carry gossip, sports, women’s features and a crossword.
Bolt Court is probably named after another vanished inn, the Bolt-in-Tun, and Dr Johnson lived here at number 8 from 1776 to when he died in 1784. The house was lost in a fire in 1819 …
At the entrance is a facsimile of the front page of The Sun newspaper dated 15th September 1984 …
Bolt Court leads to Gough Square where another house that was occupied by Dr Johnson has survived. There is also a sweet sculpture of his cat Hodge looking towards his old home …
I’ve written more about the Square and Hodge in this blog entitled City Animals 2.
St Dunstan’s Court references the nearby church, St Dunstan-in-the-West …
At its entrance computerisation in the printing industry is illustrated, a bit bizarrely I think, by the Pac-Man game …
The Royal Society met in Crane Court from 1710 until they moved to Somerset House in 1780 …
The plaque shows a facsimile of the front page of the Daily Courant dated Wednesday March 11, 1702 …
It was Britain’s first daily newspaper.
On 14 April 1785 it ran a story about a man murdered after a visit to the barber. Some claim that this was the inspiration behind Victorian penny dreadful Sweeney Todd (allegedly a resident of 183 Fleet St) and the spawning of lots of movies …
It’s worth taking a walk through Crane Court and seeing how it opens up into an area full of character where development has been careful and restrained …
Mitre Court was named after the Mitre Tavern …
The Mitre was Dr. Johnson’s favourite supper-house and James Boswell, his biographer, referred to dining there …
We had a good supper, and port-wine, of which he (Johnson) sometimes drank a bottle.
Like nearby Bouverie Street, the name Pleydell Court comes from the Pleydell-Bouveries, Earls of Radnor, who were landlords in this area …
Now to Hare Place and its interesting history.
The Whitefriars, or Carmelites, once owned land stretching from here to the river. When the monastery was dissolved in November 1538 the land was sold to individuals who subdivided their plots and built tenements on them. However, this precinct had long possessed the privileges of Sanctuary, which were confirmed by a charter of James I in 1608. From about this time the area was known by the cant name Alsatia (after the disputed continental territory of Alsace), and its entrance was in Hare Place, then known as Ram Alley …
It became the ‘asylum of characterless debtors, cheats and gamblers here protected from arrest’. One Edwardian historian spoke of …
Its reeking dens, its bawds and its occupants’ disgusting habits. Every house was a resort of ill-fame, and therein harboured women, and still worse, men, lost to every instinct of humanity.
The privilege of Sanctuary was finally abolished in 1687.
And, finally, I walked through these elaborate gates to Serjeants’ Inn. …
Prudens Simplicitas (Prudent Simplicity) was the motto of the Amicable Society which was based here from 1838 and was the world’s first mutual life insurance company. The unusual choice of creatures may refer to a biblical quotation in which Jesus exhorted followers to be ‘wise as serpents, gentle as doves’. Lost during building works, the gates were rediscovered in a scrapyard in 1937 and returned to their original position here in 1970.
What awaited me inside the gates was quite unexpected …
There is nothing to give a clue as to what this happy elephant represents but I am wondering if he is linked to the green bear that has recently appeared outside Citypoint …
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Last week’s blog was largely concerned with the rather gruesome events that took place in this historic area so I’m aiming to be a bit more lighthearted this week.
Looking up as you walk can be very rewarding. Just opposite Smithfield Central Market on Charterhouse Street I spotted this frieze at the top of one of the buildings …
Here is a close up of the panel on the left …
And here’s the one on the right …
Aren’t they wonderful! I’m pretty sure that’s a bull in the foreground.
And, whilst in livestock mode, if you look just around the corner in Peter’s Lane you will encounter this sight (EC1M 6DS) …
Now look up …
Here’s the bull at the very top …
Surprisingly, they only date from the mid-1990s and are made of glass reinforced resin. The bovine theme was used as a decorative motif because for centuries the appropriately named Cowcross Street was part of a route used by drovers to bring cows to be slaughtered. The tower forms part of The Rookery Hotel and also dates from the mid-1990s, although it looks much older due to the use of salvaged bricks.
I reckon this is a top class piece of sympathetic redevelopment by the architects Gus Alexander. Read all about how they approached the work here.
I’ll say a little about Smithfield’s history.
It appears on some old maps as Smooth Field …
In the Braun and Hogenberg map of 1560/72 it’s Smythe Fyeld …
In the Agas Map of 1633 it’s Schmyt Fyeld …
By the twelfth century, there was a fair held there on every Friday for the buying and selling of horses, and a growing market for oxen, cows and – by-and-by – sheep as well. An annual fair was held every August around St Bartholomew’s Day and was the most prominent and infamous London fair for centuries; and one of the most important in the country. Over the centuries it became a teeming, riotous, outpouring of popular culture, feared and despised like no other regular event by those in power… ‘a dangerous sink for all the vices of London’. This image gives a flavour of it …
In the foreground, a man digs deep into his pocket. It looks like he’s just about to place a bet on a ‘find the pea’ game – a notorious confidence trick being operated here by a distinctly dodgy looking character. In the background musicians play and people dance.
Here’s another view that captures the sheer exuberance of the event …
Bartholomew Fair by Augustus Pugin & Thomas Rowlandson, courtesy Bishopsgate Institute.
In this 1721 image the behaviour looks more sedate …
In 1815 Wordsworth visited the Fair and saw …
Albinos, Red Indians, ventriloquists, waxworks and a learned pig which blindfolded could tell the time to the minutes and pick out any specified card in a pack.
Alongside the entertainment of the Fair there was an undercurrent of trouble, violence and crime. In 1698 a visiting Frenchman, Monsieur Monsieur Sorbière, wrote …
I was at Bartholomew Fair… Knavery is here in perfection, dextrous cutpurses and pickpockets … I met a man that would have took off my hat, but I secured it, and was going to draw my sword, crying, ‘Begar! You rogue! Morbleu!’ &c., when on a sudden I had a hundred people about me crying, ‘Here, monsieur, see Jephthah’s Rash Vow.’ ‘Here, monsieur, see the Tall Dutchwoman’ …
After more than 700 years the Fair was finally banned in 1855 for being …
A great public nuisance, with its scenes of riot and obstruction in the very heart of the city.
As far as livestock trading was concerned it had always been a place of open air slaughter. The historian Gillian Tindall writes: ‘Moo-ing, snorting and baa-ing herds were still driven on the hoof by men and dogs through busy streets towards Smithfield, sometimes from hundred of miles away. Similarly, geese and ducks were hustled along in great flocks, their delicate feet encased in cloth for protection. They were all going to their deaths, though they did not know it – till the stench of blood and the sounds of other animals inspired noisy fear in them’.
In Great Expectations, set in the 1820s, young Pip comes across the market and refers to it as ‘the shameful place, being all asmear with filth and fat and blood and foam [which] seemed to stick to me.
Eventually slaughtering was moved elsewhere and the open air market closed in 1855 …
Smithfield Market’s last day.
The present meat market on Charterhouse Street was established by an 1860 Act of Parliament and was designed by Sir Horace Jones who also designed Billingsgate and Leadenhall Markets. Work on Smithfield, inspired by Italian architecture, began in 1866 and was completed in November 1868. I think this picture was taken not long after construction …
The buildings were a reflection of the modernity of Victorian city. Like many market buildings of the second half the nineteenth century, they owed a debt to Sir Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace in their creative use of glass, timber and iron …
One aspect of the London Central Markets, as the Smithfield buildings were known, was particularly revolutionary, though largely hidden. All the buildings were constructed over railway goods yards. For the first time ever, meat was delivered by underground railway direct to a large wholesale market in the centre of a city. In this picture, an underground train whizzes past where the old tracks used to be …
The spectacular colour scheme today replicates what it was when the market opened …
The church of St Bartholomew the Great is always worth a visit but today I’ll just mention the Gatehouse entrance. These pictures show the site before and after the first world war …
The Zeppelin bomb that fell nearby in 1916 partly demolished later buildings revealing the Tudor origins underneath and exposing more of the 13th century stonework from the original nave. By 1932 it was fully restored.
Looking out towards Smithfield you can see the 13th century arch topped by a Tudor building …
Finally, in the Great Avenue (EC1A 9PS), there is this monument commemorating men, women and children who perished both overseas and nearby …
The original memorial (above the red granite plinth) is by G Hawkings & Son and was unveiled on 22 July 1921. 212 names are listed.
Between Fame and Victory holding laurel wreaths, the cartouche at the top reads …
1914-1918 Remember with thanksgiving the true and faithful men who in these years of war went forth from this place for God and the right. The names of those who returned not again are here inscribed to be honoured evermore.
At 11:30 in the morning on 8th March 1945 the market was extremely busy, with long queues formed to buy from a consignment of rabbits that had just been delivered. Many in the queue were women and children. With an explosion that was heard all over London, a V2 rocket landed in a direct hit which also cast victims into railway tunnels beneath – 110 people died and many more were seriously injured. This picture shows some of the terrible aftermath …
The monument was refurbished in 2004/5 and unveiled on 15 June 2005 by the Princess Royal and Lord Mayor Savory. The red granite plinth had been added and refers to lives lost in ‘conflict since the Great War’. On it mention is made of the women and children although the V2 event is not specifically referred to.
This is the coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Butchers who helped to fund the refurbishment, along with the Corporation of London and the Smithfield Market Tenants’ Association.
The crest translates as : ‘Thou hast put all things under his feet, all Sheep and Oxen’.
Plans have been made for the market to be moved, along with Billingsgate and New Spitalfields markets, to Barking Reach power station, an abandoned industrial site at Dagenham Dock earmarked for redevelopment. The Museum of London will relocate to part of the old market site.
If you want to read more about Smithfield and its history, here is a link to some of my sources:
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