Symbols & Secrets

Walking the City of London

A suprising bonus of being treated by the NHS (and other images I hope you will like) …

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On 31st October 2024

In Animals, Architecture, Quirky, Social History, Special Exhibitions

I often build up a bank of images that don’t fit any particular theme but that I rather like. I feel it’s a shame not to share them so that’s the purpose of today’s blog. Apologies if you have seen some of these already on Instagram.

My friend recently had a surgical procedure at University College Hospital and was given a room to herself in order to recover. That room was on the 14th floor and this was the view …

One of the best London panoramas I have ever seen.

The nursing care was great too.

Funnily enough I had a great view when I was resident in St Thomas’ Hospital for few days last year …

I should have charged tourists an admission fee.

I can occasionally get what I think are good pictures without wandering too far.

An interesting sunset …

The moon moving slowly past the Shard …

Tower 52 framed by newer buildings turned pink by the sunset light …

The continual colour changes fascinate me …

The eerie glow of the Barbican Conservatory in the early evening …

Incidentally, here we also get a good view of flypasts heading for Buckingham Palace. This one was for the King’s Birthday on 15th June …

Just around the corner, a red glow slices through an office block on Fore Street …

Whilst on the theme of sunsets and moons, please excuse a couple of holiday snaps from Dubrovnik …

Lovely place, highly recommended.

Some images from a recent visit to the Houses of Parliament starting with Westminster Hall and its 14th century hammerbeam roof ..

Various plaques indicate where the bodies of eminent people lay in State before their funeral …

This one prompted me to learn more about the Earl of Strafford who was subsequently beheaded on Tower Hill in 1641 …

His trial along with a list of key attendees …

Guy Fawkes was also tried here but I suppose it’s not surprising that no plaque commemorates the event considering what he had set out to do!

Guy and his fellow conspirators …

Fawkes’s signature before and after he was tortured on the rack has a gruesome fascination …

View from the House of Commons Terrace …

I recently had a very enjoyable lunch at Larry’s Restaurant at the National Portrait Gallery. It has a wacky lobster theme throughout …

Nice cocktails too.

On one of my walks I came across the rather splendid Law Society building on Chancery Lane …

I liked the ‘lions’. They are formally known in heraldry as Lions Sejant …

The sculptor, Alfred Stevens, always referred to them as his cats since, apparently, he used his neighbour’s pet animal as a model for the pose.

I do wander around outside the City occasionally and find delightful surprises such as this memorial dispensary in Cambridge Avenue, Kilburn …

Horses and donkeys were the most commonly used animals in wartime – mainly for transport and haulage, but camels, elephants, pigeons, bullocks, dogs and goats were all pressed into service. Many suffered from exposure, lack of food and disease, dying alongside their human companions …

In 1931 a competition was held for the design of a memorial for the main facade of the building. Frederick Brook Hitch of Hertford was the winner and his wonderful bronze plaque is above the main door …

Read all about the pigeon that was awarded the Croix de Guerre in my blog of January 2021.

I love the sight of dozing ducks …

The Heritage Gallery at the Guildhall Art Gallery is hosting three small exhibitions at the moment. I have already written about two of them and you can find them here: one about Robert Hooke and another about Blackfriars Bridge.

The third is about a gentleman called Charles Pearson – a name I didn’t recognise but should have.

He was a great campaigner who supported universal suffrage, electoral reform and opposed capital punishment. He also had a vision for an underground railway, describing a ‘Spacious Railway station in Farringdon Street by which means … the overcrowding of the streets by carriages and foot-passengers van be diminished’.

The exhibition contains a street plan along with a booklet setting out his case using speeches he gave on the subject …

There is also a link between Pearson and The Monument.

An inscription on the north side originally held Catholics responsible for the Great Fire: The Latin words Sed Furor Papisticus Qui Tamdiu Patravit Nondum Restingvitur translates as ‘but Popish frenzy, which wrought such horrors, is not yet quenched’. Pearson campaigned to have the words removed and you can see where they once existed at the base of the panel before being scored out …

The deletion in close up …

Another great reason to visit the Guildhall Art Gallery is that their prestigious bookshop is now stocking my book …

Over 100 pages in full colour with a fold-out map at the back. A bargain stocking filler for only £10!

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The story of Blackfriars Bridge.

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On 24th October 2024

In Architecture, Sculpture, Transport

The first Blackfriars Bridge was designed by Robert Mylne and openened in 1769. It was constructed from Portland Stone which, although attractive, was quickly weakened by damage from barges, ice and pollution …

The bridge in 1762, a painting by William Marlow …

Gradually its foundations started to become undermined and by the 1850s it was apparent that continual repair was not feasible and the bridge had to be replaced. The new bridge was designed by Joseph Cubitt (1811-1872) who also designed the adjacent railway bridge …

The foundation stone was laid by the Lord Mayor on 25 July 1865 – here’s an invitation to the event …

Under construction in 1868 …

Divers wearing what was then modern gear invented in the 1830s …

The formal opening by Queen Victoria in 1869 …

The bridge in 1896 with the station under development …

Image from (probably) 1914 …

Here are a few things to look out for as you cross the bridge today.

There are a series of columns rising out of the river …

These are the remains of the original railway bridge, which was removed in 1985 as it was deemed too weak for modern trains.

Note the pulpit-shaped tops of the bridge pillars. They reference the original monastery of the Black Friars or Dominican monks, evicted by Henry VIII during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538. I have written about the Medieval monasteries in an earlier blog which you can find here …

On the south side is the beautifully painted coat of arms of the London Chatham & Dover Railway …

Note the white horse rampant, symbol of Kent, and the county motto ‘Invicta’ meaning ‘undefeated’ or ‘unconquered’.

And now some features not everyone notices. Peer over the parapet and on either side you will see some birds on the capitals of the bridge supports, meticulously carved in Portland stone by J.B.Philip.

The birds on the west side are fresh water birds and plants to be found on the upper reaches of the river …

And on the east side, sea birds and seaweeds to be found at the mouth of the Thames …

On the north side of the bridge is one of my favourite water fountains, recently liberated from behind hoardings and nicely restored …

The pretty lady represents ‘Temperance’ and she originally stood outside the Royal Exchange. You can see an image of her in that position here.

The fountain was inaugurated by Samuel Gurney, MP, the Chairman of the Metropolitan Free Drinking Fountains Association, on 27 July 1861 and you can read more about him, and the Association, in my earlier blog Philanthropic Fountains.

In the middle of the road, Her Majesty gazes imperiously towards the City …

If you get the chance, pop in to the spanking new Blackfriars Station.

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 Station.

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 destinations 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!’

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Some local curiosities – including Quaker graves, an Indian Bean tree and classy bicycles.

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On 17th October 2024

In Architecture, Art, Memorials, Religion, Social History

One of the great joys of London is that you can walk over the same area again and again and still find something new or, alternatively, more detail about a place you knew already.

Last week I decided to start by visiting the pretty, quiet space in Banner Street known as Quaker Gardens (EC1Y 8QQ). All the other locations I write about today are about five minutes walk away from there …

There are three venerable London Plane trees providing shade …

This land, purchased in 1661 for a burial ground, was the earliest freehold property of the Quakers (also known as The Society of Friends) in London. Over a thousand victims of the Great Plague were buried here in 1665.

Here it is on John Rocque’s map of 1746 …

The Burial Acts of the 1850s forced the closure of all central London burial grounds. Having expanded considerably, by the time that the Bunhill site was closed in 1855 there were nearly 12,000 recorded burials.

I found these burial records from 1787 online …

Quaker burials are very simple and Quakers have not traditionally placed headstones on burial sites, being thought too showy or worldly. There is, however, a plain memorial to George Fox, Quakerism’s founder, who was buried here in 1691 …

There is also a stone plaque recording the history of the site and buildings …

The wording is not very clear now but I have found an earlier image …

Persecution of Quakers was common in 17th century England, one of the most serious punishments being transportation. Among the ‘martyr Friends’ buried here are included twenty-seven who died of plague awaiting transportation on the ship ominously named The Black Eagle. The war with the Dutch, along with the plague, made it difficult to find a ship’s master willing to brave the seas but in May 1665 the Sheriffs of London found someone willing to do so. The sea captain, called Fudge, boasted that he would happily transport even his nearest relations. About 40 men and women were bundled aboard his ship which was lying at Greenwich. Then Fudge was arrested for debt, with soldiers sent from the Tower to guard the human cargo as most of the crew had deserted. As well as the plague deaths, many more prisoners had perished before the ship eventually sailed.

The burial ground lay unused until 1880 when the Metropolitan Board of Works took part of the site for road widening and the compensation money paid for the building of a Memorial Hall, which included a coffee tavern and lodging rooms …

The Hall was destroyed by bombs in 1944. A small surviving fragment, known as the cottage, which had been the manager’s house, was restored to serve as a small meeting house (as it still does to this day) …

An old plaque dated 1793 …

‘This wall and Seven Houses on the grounds on the north side are the Property of the Society of Friends 1793’.

I haven’t been able to find out more about the very sadly missed Marna Shapiro …

I like the kisses.

A very appropriate place for quiet contemplation …

For a brief history of the Quakers I recommend this site – Quakers around Shoreditch. For a more detailed history, I have enjoyed reading Portrait in Grey by John Punshon (September 2006, Quaker Books). It’s where I found the story of the wonderfully named Captain Fudge and the Black Eagle.

Leave the garden by the Chequer Street entrance, turn left, and you will encounter something unusual – wooden block road paving …

Designed to be durable, but far less noisy than cobbles, experiments with wood block paving started in 1873 and initially proved successful. Eventually replaced by tar from the 1920s onwards, this section is one of few remaining in London. You can just make out some tree growth rings …

See the brilliant Living London History blog for a fascinating detailed history.

I must have walked past this typical industrial building in Banner Street dozens of times …

Last week I paused at the rather imposing entrance …

… and looked up …

A classical broken pediment, the date 1911 and the company name Chater Lea Ltd. This was a British bicycle, car and motorcycle maker and the Banner Street premises were purpose built for them in 1911. Eventually needing to expand production, they moved to Letchworth, Hertfordshire in 1928.

The company was founded by William Chater Lea in 1890 to make bicycle frames and components. It made cars between 1907 and 1922 and motorcycles from 1903 to 1935. William died in 1927 and the business was taken over by his sons John and Bernard …

You can read more about the company history here and it looks like they are currently working on a major relaunch. Here’s their website which also contains some great historical background and images.

It is nice to see that this extraordinary piece of work has found a place on Roscoe Street where everyone can see it. It needs to be viewed from a distance for maximum effect …

I watched it being created at this year’s Whitecross Street Party …

Nearby on Roscoe Street, the mysterious headless man – also created at the Party …

Tyger Tyger on Baird Street …

A Chequer Street EC1 celebration …

… and a mosaic on the same building …

Pretty door and heart combined at 65 Banner Street …

In a nearby car park …

I love the honey coloured bricks of the Peabody Estate …

In the foreground, another piece left over from the Party …

And finally, consider this tree at the west end of Chequer Street …

My scientist friend Emma reliably informs me that it’s an Indian Bean Tree, Catalpa Bignonioides …

The view from Whitecross Street …

These trees are described online as ‘principally grown for their broad headed attractive foliage, exquisite bell shaped summer flowers and in autumn they develop bean-like hanging fruit which persist through winter’.

Here’s an example of the fruit on the Chequer Street tree …

In my view, this tree is evidence of the considerable thought that went into the planning of the Peabody Estate environment as well as the buildings themselves.

Incidentally, the estate also boasts a man-eating Agavi plant …

Mr Peabody features strongly in my book Courage, Crime and Charity in the City of London which you can buy using the link on this site – only £10. Or just pop in to the Daunt Bookshop in Cheapside or Marylebone High Street.

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Robert Hooke – out of the shadows. Plus a great new perspective on London’s buildings, homes, streets and environment.

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On 10th October 2024

In Architecture, Art, Special Exhibitions

I was off to the Guildhall Gallery again last weekend looking for blog inspiration and, as usual, was not disappointed.

Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was a typical ‘Renaissance Man’ of 17th century England but is not anything like as well known as his contemporaries such as Sir Isaac Newton, Samuel Pepys and Sir Christopher Wren (a lifelong friend).

In the course of his career at the Royal Society and as Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, he carried out the earliest research with the microscope, described and named the cell, was a founder of the science of geology, and discovered the law of springs/elasticity, the achievement for which he is most remembered today. He was also a City Surveyor, organising the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666. Overshadowed by Newton and Wren, he faded into relative obscurity and now there is not even a portrait of him.

The Guildhall Gallery has gone some way to bringing him out of the shadows with a new exhibition in The Heritage Gallery, Robert Hooke and the Monument …

Hooke worked with Wren on the design of the Monument, built to commemorate the Great Fire of 1666. It remains a striking feature of the City and a major tourist attraction to this day …

It was originally intended to have a scientific function as a zenith telescope – instrumants that can be used for determining the precise measurement of star positions. Unfortunately, movement caused by the wind and nearby traffic made it unsuitable for this purpose.

Hooke’s diary (which is dated 1672-83) was a memorandum book he kept to remind him of the many places he had been and people he had met. It records his visits to sites in the City that he was working on including the Monument …

Indicated is an entry from 5th April 1676. He records going to see ‘the pillar’, i.e. the Monumant, in construction. He describes examining the balcony and the setting for the golden urn on top of it. He visited the construction work frequently and must have been very fit with a good head for heights!

The urn at the top …

Hooke was a true polymath. A diagram for a proposed design for a thermomenter is also on display …

…amongst other papers he collected …

You can also see a daguerreotype of the Monument from circa 1845 taken from Gracechurch Street, with the church of St Magnus the Martyr in the background …

Incredibly fragile, this is the oldest photograph of the City of London in the London Archives.

I’ve always been fascinated by Hooke and particularly love Micrographia. The Royal Society blog states: ‘This great book of explorations of the very small, the very far and the very elusive, needs little introduction. Written and illustrated with 38 lavish copperplate engravings, Micrographia or, some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses, with Observations and Inquiries thereupon, to spell out its full title, remains a landmark in the history of microscopy’.

The accuracy of his famous drawing of a flea is even more striking when we compare it with an image produced using the latest microscope technology …

You can read more here in the Royal Society blog.

Look at an online copy of Hooke’s beautiful book here.

Since he was a contemporary of Pepys, the famous flea is included on a paving stone in the Pepys garden in Seething Lane …

You can find a complete guide to the garden and its carvings in my blogs here and here.

If you visit the Hooke exhibition, make sure you also pop in to the upstairs gallery where a really enjoyable treat awaits …

The Giant Dolls House Project invited schools and community groups to create minature rooms in shoe boxes to show their perspectives on the City of London’s buildings, homes, streets and environment.

I was absolutely fascinated …

My favourite. I could imagine myself sitting in that chair, relaxing and reading a book from the little library …

Do visit if you can – my images don’t really do it justice.

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A very important date – and some favourite buildings and memorials.

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On 3rd October 2024

In Architecture, Memorials, Sculpture

An important date for your diary! This Saturday, 5th October, at 11:30 a.m. I will be interviewed by Robert Elms on his BBC Radio London show. We’ll be chatting about my book Courage, Crime and Charity in the City of London and I hope you will be able to join us.

On a sunny day last week I took a walk towards Holborn and picked out a few buildings and memorials that I really liked.

First up is the Wax Chandlers Hall …

Wax Chandlers’ Hall is on Gresham Street on a site that the Company has owned since 1501. It has a long and fascinating history stretching all the way back to 1371 when they applied to the City’s governing body, the Mayor and Court of Aldermen, to have officials appointed from among their number (masters) to ‘overse all the defaults in theyre saide crafte’, and see that offenders were prosecuted. Their history is really well documented on their website.

Surely the bluest door in the City with the finest unicorns …

On the next corner is the building with the rogue apostrophe and the happy smiling sun…

Surely that should be St Martin’s House?

So many fine buildings date from the late 19th and very early 20th century …

The General Post Office in St. Martin’s Le Grand was the main post office for London between 1829 and 1910, the headquarters of the General Post Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and England’s first purpose-built post office …

Poor Henry Cecil Raikes, who laid this stone, died in August the following year aged only 52. Here he is in a Vanity Fair caricature when he was Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons …

Parallel is King Edward Street where the man himself laid this stone on 16th October 1905 …

The great British Empire is duly acknowledged along with the King’s connection to an earlier Edward and the foundation of Christ’s Hospital.

It’s commemorated again nearby with this sculpture, the ragamuffins on the right being carefully coaxed towards a better life …

To me they look like they are having a fine time just as they are, perhaps letting it all hang out at a concert …

Is it my imagination or does the kid on the left look like the late Anthony Armstrong Jones …

On Newgate Street another building connected to the Post Office …

This imposing building is at 16/17 Old Bailey. The London Picture Archive tells us: The seven-storey building was designed for the Chatham and Dover Railway Company by Arthur Usher of Yetts, Sturdy and Usher of London in 1912. The building is in the Edwardian baroque style with elements of french architectural styles such as the mansard roof … …

Above the entrance is a broken pediment with statues either side depicting travel. The statue of the woman on the left holds a wheel depicting rail travel and the woman on the right leans on an anchor depicting sea travel. At the bottom of brackets on the two piers either side of the entrance are small carved lion heads …

Across the road, outside the church of St Sepulchre Newgate, is this modest little drinking fountain which has an intriguing history …

Read all about it in my blog Philanthropic Fountains.

Look up towards the roof of the church and you’ll see a late 17th Century sundial …

The dial is on the parapet above south wall of the nave and is believed to date from 1681. It is made of stone painted blue and white with noon marked by an engraved ‘X’ and dots marking the half hours. It shows Winter time from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm in 15 minute marks. I thought it was curious that the 4:00 pm mark is represented as IIII rather than IV – I have no idea why

There is demolition going on in the approach to Holborn Viaduct and I couldn’t resist taking this image of what looks like a building that has been sliced away revealing the vestiges of decoration left on each floor …

I find it reminiscent of the ruined houses on bomb sites that used to be a common feature of London right up to the early 1970s.

Holborn Viaduct dragons and a knight in armour …

As Prince Albert doffs his hat towards the City of London, a terracotta masterpiece looms in the background …

Before walking towards it I made a quick detour to St Andrew Holborn to admire the Charity Boy and Girl …

… and the extraordinary Resurrection Stone …

You can read more about it here in the excellent Flickering Lamps blog .

Pausing at the junction with Grays Inn Road, and looking back east, you will see that you are at one of the entrances to the City guarded by a dragon …

In the background is the Royal Fusiliers War Memorial, a work by Albert Toft. Unveiled by the Lord Mayor in 1922, the inscriptions read …

To the glorious memory of the 22,000 Royal Fusiliers who fell in the Great War 1914-1919 (and added later) To the Royal Fusiliers who fell in the World war 1939-1945 and those fusiliers killed in subsequent campaigns.

Toft’s soldier stands confidently as he surveys the terrain, his foot resting on a rock, his rifle bayoneted, his left hand clenched in determination. At the boundary of the City, he looks defiantly towards Westminster. The general consensus on the internet is that the model for the sculpture was a Sergeant Cox, who served throughout the First World War.

Behind him is the magnificent, red terracotta, Gothic-style building by J.W. Waterhouse, which once housed the headquarters of the Prudential Insurance Company.

As is often the case, I am indebted to the London Inheritance blogger for some of the detail about this extraordinary building . The Prudential moved into their new office in 1879, which was quite an achievement given that the company had only been founded 31 years earlier in 1848. The building exudes Victorian commercial power and was a statement building for the company that was at the time the country’s largest insurance company …

The lower part of the building uses polished granite, with red brick and red terracotta across all upper floors. If you stare at the building long enough the use of polished granite gives the impression that there has been a large flood along Holborn, which has left a tide mark on the building after washing out the red colour from the lower floors.

In the centre of the façade is a tower, with a large arch leading through into inner courtyards around which are further wings of the building …

It incorporates a sculpture of Prudence carrying one of the attributes of this Virtue, a hand mirror …

When built, the Prudential building was very advanced for its time. There was hot and cold running water, electric lighting, and to speed the delivery of paperwork across the site, a pnematic tube system was installed, where documents were put into canisters, which were then blown through the tube system to their destination. Ladies were provided with their own restaurant and library, and had a separate entrance, and were also allowed to leave 15 minutes early to “avoid consorting with men”.

The building’s brickwork is very attractive …

In the courtyard you will see the work of a sculptor who has chosen to illustrate war in a very different fashion to Toft.

The memorial carries the names of the 786 Prudential employees who lost their lives in the First World War …

The sculptor was F.V. Blundstone and the work was inaugurated on 2 March 1922. All Prudential employees had been offered ‘the opportunity of taking a personal share in the tribute by subscribing to the cost of the memorial’ (suggested donations were between one and five shillings).

The main group represents a soldier sustained in his death agony by two angels. He is lying amidst war detritus with his right arm resting on the wheel of some wrecked artillery piece. His careworn face contrasts with that of the sombre, beautiful girls with their uplifted wings. I find it incredibly moving.

I have written about angels in the City before and they are usually asexual, but these are clearly female.

At the four corners of the pedestal stand four more female figures.

One holds a field gun and represents the army …

One holds a boat representing the navy …

At the back is a figure holding a shell representing National Service …

The fourth lady holds a bi-plane representing the air force …

There are also two memorial plaques to employes who died in the Second World War. The north panel lists names A-K, the second K-Z. Each is topped with a broken pediment set around a wreath, with a figure of St George on top …

All those lost lives from just one employer.

I shall probably continue my walk westwards next week.

Remember you can follow me on Instagram …

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