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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After the Great Fire of London of 1666 St Margaret’s was rebuilt by Christopher Wren between 1683 and 1692. As some churches around St Margaret’s were demolished under the 1860 Union of Benefices Act, St Margaret’s benefited from acquiring some of the interior furnishings of these buildings. The church now houses an outstanding collection of seventeenth century fittings, many by the sculptor and wood carver Grinling Gibbons. It is one of the few Wren churches that sustained only minor damage during the Second World War.
In 1698–9 the top stage of the tower with large belfry openings and all of the spire were added and this work was probably designed by Robert Hooke. Hooke was Surveyor to the City of London and chief assistant to Christopher Wren, in which capacity he helped Wren rebuild London after the Great Fire.
The church and tower (EC2R 7HH).
The baptismal font, believed to be by Grinling Gibbons (1648–1721), came from St Olave, Old Jewry, after that church was partially demolished in 1887. The font is a carved bowl with cherub heads at each corner and the sides are decorated with Adam and Eve, the dove returning to the ark, the baptism of Jesus and the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch by Philip.
Of the subsequent additions to the church the most splendid is the choir screen, one of only two in a Wren church, erected originally in the Church of All Hallows the Great, Thames St. in 1683-84 …
The screen, along with the tester above the pulpit, was moved to St Margaret’s in 1894 when the Church of All Hallows the Great was demolished, to allow widening of Thames Street and building of the City of London Brewery on the site.
The tester above the pulpit.
The Stuart royal arms are part of the screen which was originally donated by the German merchant Theodore Jacobson in c.1685. The eagle is supposed to refer to Herr Jacobson’s nationality …
The lovely stained glass windows celebrate St Margaret’s links with a number of City Livery Companies and Institutions. The windows were donated by either the Livery Companies or their Masters.
The Worshipful Company of Glovers of London – True hearts and warm hands …
The Worshipful Company of Tin Plate Workers alias Wire Workers’ motto is Amore Sitis Uniti, Latin for Be United in Love (rather sweet!) …
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. The phrase Recte Numerare means to reckon or number rightly in Latin …
The Worshipful Company of Tylers and Bricklayers : In God is all our trust,let us never be confounded. …
The Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers. The motto Sine Nobis Scientia Languet – Knowledge cannot flourish without us – reflects the fundamental role the craft has played in the achievement of science over the past centuries …
The Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers. The Company’s present Coat of Arms was granted in 1709 and incorporates the former arms of the Armourers granted in 1556 with a new coat for the Brasiers. The two mottos are Make All Sure for the Armourers, and We are one for the joint Company. ‘Put on the whole armour of God’ …
There’s much more to see at St Margaret’s so I shall return.
Incidentally, if you are passing near the Royal Exchange check out Paparazzi Dogs …
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I was astonished to find that it has been well over four years since I wrote in detail about Bunhill so earlier this week, when the sun was in exactly the right place, I decided to take some pictures and write about it again.
I thought I’d show you the pictures first and then re-publish details of the area’s fascinating history. Around 120,000 people are believed to have been buried here and about 2,500 monuments survive.
The gentleman whose face is looking out from the obelisk is the Calvinistic Methodist minister, poet and Bible commentator James Hughes …
It’s a bit spooky sideways on …
Sadly many of the memorials have deteriorated over the years due to wear and tear and pollution …
But some inscriptions survive. I was very taken with this marker for the grave of Reverend Joseph Cartwright who died on 5th November 1800 at the age of 72 …
It seems to me that he composed the poem engraved on the stone himself (sadly the last few lines are obliterated). Here it is …
What if death may sleep provide
Should I be of death afraid.
What if beams of opening day
Shine around my breathless clay.
Tender friends a while may mourn
Me from their embraces torn.
Dearer better friends I have
In the realm beneath the grave.
I have written before about some of the more famous memorials but here are a few of them again.
There is the extraordinary tomb of Dame Mary Page …
It appears that Mary Page suffered from what is now known as Meigs’ Syndrome and her body had to be ‘tap’d’ to relieve the pressure. She had to undergo this treatment for over five years and was so justifiably proud of her bravery and endurance she left instructions in her will that her tombstone should tell her story. And it does …
Further on is John Bunyan’s tomb of 1689. It is not quite what it seems since the effigy of the great man and the bas-reliefs (inspired by Pilgrim’s Progress) were only added in 1862 when the tomb was restored. A preacher who spent over a decade in jail for his beliefs, he holds the bible in his left hand. He started the Christian allegory Pilgrim’s Progress whilst imprisoned and it became one of the most published works in the English language.
Bunhill is a nice place for a quiet spot of lunch …
William Blake’s final resting place was once lost but the present day Blake Society finally traced where it was. In August 2018 a beautiful stone was placed there exactly 191 years after his death …
Here’s some Bunhill history for those of you who might be interested.
The history of the land is fascinating. Owned by the Dean & Chapter of St Paul’s Cathedral between 1514 and 1867, it was continuously leased to the City Corporation who themselves sub-leased it to others. The name Bunhill seems to have been a corruption of the word Bonehill. Theories range from people being interred there during Saxon times to the suggestion that various types of refuse, including animal bones from Smithfield, were disposed of there. However, an extraordinary event in 1549 made the name literally true.
Since the 13th century corpses had been buried in St Paul’s churchyard just long enough for the flesh to rot away, after which the bones were placed in a nearby Charnel House ‘to await the resurrection of the dead’. After the Reformation this was seen as an unacceptable Popish practice, the Charnel House was demolished, and 1,000, yes 1,000, cartloads of bones were dumped at Bunhill. A City Golgotha, it is said the the resulting hill was high enough to accommodate three windmills.
In 1665 it was designated a possible ‘plague pit’ but there is no evidence that it was used as such. At the same time, however, a crisis arose concerning St Paul’s, the ‘noisome stench arising from the great number of dead’ buried there. Many other parishes had the same problem and the Mayor and Aldermen were forced to act quickly as a terrible smell of putrefaction was permeating the City. After negotiations with the existing tenants, the ‘new burial place in Bunhill Fields’ was created and had been walled in by the 19th October that year with gates being added in 1666.
The Act of Uniformity of 1663 had established the Church of England as the national church and at the same time established a distinct category of Christian believers who wished to remain outside the national church. These became known as the nonconformists or dissenters and Bunhill became for many of them the burial ground of choice due to its location outside the City boundary and its independence from any Established place of worship.
The last burial took place in January 1854 and the area was designated as a public park with some memorials being removed and some restored or relocated. Heavy bombing during the war resulted in major landscaping work and the northern part was cleared of memorials and laid out much as it is now with grassy areas and benches.
Across City Road you can see the house where the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, once lived. I hope to write about it soon …
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Last Saturday I was once again drawn to the Seething Lane Garden. It was a sunny afternoon and I thought I’d revisit the wonderful carved paving stones that I have reported on before. The garden is much more open than it used to be …
These are the carvings I like best out of the 30 that are laid there..
A scene from a Punch & Judy show …
Trigger warning! They’ve dropped the baby …
A monkey sitting on a pile of books chewing a rolled up document …
A meticulous representation of a flea …
A plague doctor in 17th century PPE. He wouldn’t have known that the rat crouching cheekily at his feet was a carrier of the pestilence …
After his decapitation, the head of poor King Charles I is held up by the executioner …
A very happy lion …
A galleon under full sail …
All the carvings refer to incidents in the life of Samuel Pepys – some of which are recorded in his famous diary. In the examples above, he wrote of visiting a Punch & Judy show, of his pet monkey getting loose and misbehaving, his purchase of Robert Hooke’s Micrographia (which contained the flea drawing) and his visit to the zoo to see an old lion called Crowly.
As a schoolboy he witnessed the execution of the King and in 1665 he stayed in London throughout the time of the plague (represented by the doctor). The galleon is the Royal Charles that brought Charles II back to England at the Restoration (and Pepys was on board). Trinitas refers to Trinity House where Pepys was a Master on two occasions.
He was in London during the Great Fire of 1666 and took a boat out on the River Thames to witness the destruction …
Note the piece of furniture floating past.
At the age of 25 he survived an operation to remove a bladder stone ‘the size of a tennis ball’ and this too is represented in the garden …
Pepys is commemorated with a splendid bust by Karin Jonzen (1914-1998), commissioned and erected by The Samuel Pepys Club in 1983 …
The plinth design was part of the recent project and the music carved on it is the tune of Beauty Retire, a song that Pepys wrote. So if you read music you can hear Pepys as well as see his bust …
Pepys was evidently extremely proud of Beauty Retire, for he holds a copy of the song in his most famous portrait by John Hayls, now in the National Portrait Gallery. A copy of the portrait hangs in the Pepys Library …
The paving designs were created by a team of students and alumni of City & Guilds London Art School working under the direction of Alan Lamb of Swan Farm Studios Ltd. Here are some pictures of the sculptors at work.
Tom Ball working on the flea …
Mike Watson working on Pepys’s monogram …
And finally, Alan Lamb working on a theorbo lute, one of many instruments Pepys could play …
Do visit the garden if you have the chance. Another of its interesting features is that it is irrigated by rainwater harvested from the roof of the hotel next door!
I have written two blogs about Pepys in London and also two about this garden. You can find them here:
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