As regular readers of my blog will know, Wren is one of my great heroes and I am delighted to report that he is being celebrated by a number of events in this tercentenary of his death in 1723.
You can read more about these here and about the man himself here.
My friends at the Guildhall Art Galley have put on an exhibition entitled Wren at Work and I visited it on Sunday.
There you’ll find numerous facsimiles of drawings and plans, such as this one by Wren’s brilliant and trusted assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor …
Here are some of the other images I took …
The labels are very informative (even if you have to get down on your knees to read some of them!).
The artist / cartographer Adam Dant has created a specially commissioned map which describes aspects of Christopher Wren’s life and times and this is also on display …
The exhibition is in the Crypt so, if you want to see it, you must pay to enter the Cathedral. Before visiting it, I paid my respects to the great man at his tomb – a plain monument in a quiet corner …
‘Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.’
Nearby …
A better image from the Cathedral website …
Here are some of my shots of the exhibition itself …
Wren is hauled up in a basket to inspect progress …
In a glass case you can see his ceremonial staff inscribed with his title ‘Surveyor to the Fabric’ (circa 1710) …
Along with his penknife and its case …
There is also a stonemason’s cap discovered during structural work in the 1920s …
A pair of dividers for measuring distance between two points on a plan or a map. Inscribed ‘Sir Christopher Wren, February 1697’ …
And alongside …
Faith Coghill, Wren’s first wife …
And a letter to her written by him …
Copy of a bust by Edward Pierce made about 1673 …
On my way home from the Guildhall Gallery I paused at St Lawrence Jewry to admire the lovely stained glass window that celebrates the great man himself along with Grinling Gibbons and Edward Strong …
You can read more about it and other stained glass masterpieces here.
Since this is a new Wrenaissance (!) why not treat yourself to a Walking Tour of his churches. More information can be found here on the City Guides Website.
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Whenever I’m stuck for something to write about the Guildhall Gallery often comes to my rescue.
I visited the little Heritage Gallery on Monday and what I found was very interesting. Rather than rewrite all the information on the plaques I hope you won’t mind if I simply reproduce them below.
Look at these fine fellows …
The Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of the City of London, Nicholas Lyons, and the Sheriffs, Alderman Alastair King and Andrew Marsden for the period 2022-2023.
The Mayoralty Charter …
In 1215 King John was faced with a major rebellion …
An etching of the Magna Carta seal which I found on the Internet …
Also on view is the Cartae Antiquae …
Dating from the 1400s, this beautifully illustrated book records charters and statutes covering laws enacted from the reign of Edward III (1327 onwards) to the accession of Henry VII in 1485. City officials used this book as an essential reference tool as they scrutinised statute and safeguarded the rights of the medieval City. There is a portrait of each king on the first page of the statutes for his reign; the page open shows the portrait of Richard III, one of the best known medieval monarchs.
In a nearby display case are prints of Coronations in the 19th century.
George IV on 19 July 1821 …
William IV on 8 September 1831 …
And finally Queen Victoria on 28 June 1838 …
As you leave the exhibition space and head for the exit, take a moment to inspect the David Wynne sculpture of Prince Charles as he then was …
He just doesn’t look happy, does he? Maybe he wasn’t too keen on the rather spiky modern version of a coronet that he is wearing here at his 1969 Investiture as Prince of Wales. It was designed by a committee chaired by his auntie Princess Margaret’s husband, Antony Armstrong-Jones (later Lord Snowdon). The globe and cross at the top was originally intended to be solid gold but the committee concluded that this would be far too heavy. The solution was to use a gold plated ping-pong ball – which is why I always smile at this portrayal of the Prince (and possibly why he doesn’t appear to have ever worn the item again).
In other news, the Barbican duckling population seems to have thrived this year. I haven’t seen the heron lately – could that be the reason?
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The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, known the world over as the ‘Old Bailey’, has opened its doors to the public for guided tours this summer and I visited last Saturday. You can book your own visit here and I highly recommend it.
The tour was conducted by two City of London Guides and an Officer of the Court and they gave us a comprehensive history of the building and its location from its time as a prison dating from the 1100s to the present day.
The site was originally the location of the notorious Newgate gaol – a terrible place of disease, death and despair. Here it is circa 1810 … …
The artist Gustave Doré captured its ghastly atmosphere in this portrayal of the exercise yard in 1872 …
On view in the tour are some gruesome artifacts from that time …
In 1783 the site of London’s gallows was moved from Tyburn to Newgate. Public executions outside the prison – by this time, London’s main prison – continued to draw large crowds. This painting by Thomas Rowlandson shows a public execution at Newgate in the late 18th century …
In the centre of the picture three people have been hanged. The area is crammed full of people who have turned up to watch. They even hang out of the windows, and are on the roof of, the building on the left. On the far right a street seller takes advantage of the crowds and is selling his wares from a basket. In the very centre foreground a woman sits on a man’s shoulders in order to get a better look. The last public hanging there was in 1868 and the last one behind its firmly closed doors in 1902.
There were courtrooms attached to the prison but as trials lengthened and the number of those seeking to watch increased in the late nineteenth century the courthouse building became increasingly inadequate. In 1877 a fire forced the City of London to act and proposals were drawn up for a new building. Owing to the dilapidation of Newgate Prison next door, which by the 1860s no longer held long-term prisoners, it was decided to demolish everything on the site to make room for a larger building.
After many delays, the new building, designed in the neo-Baroque style by E. W. Mountford, was finally opened by King Edward VII in 1907. It was lavishly fitted out and adorned with symbolic reminders to the public of its virtuous purpose. On top of the 67 foot high dome a 12 foot gold leaf statue was placed of a ‘lady of justice’ holding a sword in one hand and the scales of justice in the other; she is not, as is conventional with such figures, blindfolded …
Over the main entrance to the building figures were placed representing Fortitude, the Recording Angel and Truth, along with the carved inscription, ‘defend the children of the poor and punish the wrongdoer’ …
The entrance in 1910 …
You enter for the tour via the extension to the building built in 1972 and are then escorted to the old building by the guides.
The first thing you notice is the grandeur of the architecture. This is the circulating area on the ground floor …
Some of my images didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked so the following three are from an excellent blog published by Bryan Jones.
The main staircase …
The dome …
And the stained glass window …
My image from a different angle …
The building was significantly damaged by wartime bombing and subsequently restored …
These lovely murals were one of the results of the restoration work.
In the one above, reference is made to Edmund Hillary and the conquest of Everest. Here he is in the background …
And, guess what, the artist Gerald Moira has included himself as well. He’s the bald headed chap at the back holding his palette …
King John sets his seal to Magna Carta …
And my favourite …
And Gerald is here again, disguised as an old lady clutching a cup of tea!
Elizabeth Fry the prison reformer is commemorated with this statue …
She was a major driving force behind new legislation to improve the treatment of prisoners, especially female inmates, and as such has been called the ‘Angel of Prisons’. She was instrumental in the 1823 Gaols Act which mandated sex-segregation of prisons and female warders for female inmates to protect them from sexual exploitation.
Also commemorated is one of the most important trial outcomes in Britain’s judicial history …
In what came to be known as Bushell’s Case, a landmark ruling ensured the future autonomy of English juries. It also had consequences for jurisprudence in North America, where Penn (incidentally a Quaker like Fry) inspired by the trial, incorporated Magna Carta into the laws of his new colony.
The highlight of the tour was, of course, a visit to the famous Court Number 1 followed by a trip to the cells …
It may be a courtroom but it is pure theatre, and remarkably small and intimate. Unfortunately, photographs are not allowed, but I found this image of the court in 1911. The general layout hasn’t change that much …
Whilst standing in the dock (on the right of the picture), which we were allowed to do, I found it difficult not to think of the disparate people it has temporarily housed over the decades – for example, Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr, Dennis Nilsen, Peter Sutcliffe, the Kray Twins, William Joyce and Dr Crippen. Also poor Timothy Evans, wrongly convicted of murder, hanged in 1950, but eventually pardoned. And tragic Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in the UK in 1956 …
Nowadays, given the evidence available of the abusive relationship she was in, she would probably have only been accused of manslaughter at most.
Defendants access the dock via hidden steps that emerge out of the bowels of the building and descend the same steps at breaks in proceedings or if found guilty – ‘take him down!’ the Judge declares, in all the best movies when sentence has been delivered.
Our guides related some interesting stories regarding famous trials and then we were ‘taken down’ ourselves to the warren of cells below where again pictures were forbidden. We were warned not to press the red buttons on the wall which are used if there is an ‘affray’. It automatically closes and locks all the cell doors and seals off the area – and keys are not kept nearby!
As you walk down the steps oak pannelling gives way to white lavatorial tiles and then white painted walls – there is no doubt you are now in custody even though you are still a ‘defendant’ and not a ‘prisoner’. Not surprisingly, it is a very disturbing experience, even for a temporary visitor. We then went on to visit a more modern court in the 1970s extension – there are 19 courts in all.
If you decide to take the tour I strongly recommend you buy this book beforehand and just have a browse even if you don’t have the chance to read it all …
Moving, thrilling and occasionally very funny, it was one of my most enjoyable reads over the last year.
Also underground on the site is the route taken by condemned prisoners on their way to the gallows …
Known as ‘Dead Man’s Walk’ I did smile when we were told that it was not open to the public due to ‘Health and Safety issues’!
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I thought you might like to know that plans are afoot to substantially redevelop Liverpool Street Station. You can read more about them here and here.
Liverpool Street is the UK’s third busiest station after Victoria and Waterloo. This will no doubt come as no surprise to those of you who battle your way through here every day in the rush hours. However, maybe I can persuade you to spend a little time exploring the station and its surroundings since it does have some really fascinating aspects to it.
Next to the station eastern entrance is a Wetherspoons in a building called Hamilton Hall. It is named after Lord Claud Hamilton, chairman of the Great Eastern Railway Company (1893–1923), and is the former ballroom of the old Great Eastern Hotel. Pop in for a drink and cast your eyes upwards …
The bar area.
Yes, the original ballroom decorations are still there, and you can get an even closer look if you go upstairs …
At least one source states that the design was copied directly from the Palais Soubise in Paris in 1901. Opulent is the word that springs to mind.
Named after the British Prime Minister Lord Liverpool, Liverpool Street was the Great Eastern Railway’s London Terminus with the first suburban trains departing in 1874.The Great Eastern, and its successor the London & North Eastern Railway, concentrated on developing and increasing its suburban steam services, a business model that continued until steam was withdrawn in the 1960s. Under its modernisation plan, British Railways electrified all suburban services running form Liverpool Street station, and all steam had been replaced by diesel locomotives by the end of 1962.
The days of steam.
Someone once described it as a ‘Dark Cathedral’.
A plan to demolish the station, and its neighbour Broad Street, was first put forward in 1975 but fierce opposition meant a compromise had to be reached. Eventually, only Broad Street was demolished (in 1986) and Liverpool Street developed more sympathetically.
Nicely preserved are traces of a time when astonishing care was taken with what people would see on starting and finishing their journey.
What about these lovely reliefs sculpted in brick against the back wall of the Great Eastern Hotel …
A steam train …
One of the Great Eastern Railway’s own ships …
And a fireman, or stoker …
The western entrance towers hold a clock and the old railway emblems …
Just outside the entrance is the Kindertransport commemorative statue …
Photograph: Robin Coupland. Statue by Frank Meisler (2006).
In 1938 and 1939, nearly ten thousand unaccompanied Jewish children were transported to Britain to escape persecution in their hometowns in Germany, Czechoslovakia and Austria. These children arrived at Liverpool Street station to be taken in by British families and foster homes. Often they were the only members of their families to survive the Holocaust.
The station contains a number of other poignant memorials. The inscription above the largest one reads:
To the glory of God and in grateful memory of the Great Eastern Railway staff who in response to the call of their King and Country, sacrificed their lives during the Great War.
There are over 1,100 names.
There are two plaques below the main memorial …
Wilson was assassinated outside his house in Eaton Place at about 2:20 pm. Still in full uniform, he was shot six times, two bullets in the chest proving fatal. Some newspapers provided a reconstruction …
A French newspaper version showed him with sword drawn but actually he had no time to defend himself …
Sir Henry’s House today …
The two perpetrators, Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan, shot two police officers and a chauffeur as they attempted to escape but were surrounded by a hostile crowd and arrested after a struggle …
Interestingly both were former British army officers and O’Sullivan had lost a leg at Ypres, his subsequent disability hindering their escape. After a trial lasting just three hours they were convicted of murder and hanged at Wandsworth gaol on 10 August that year – justice was certainly delivered swiftly in those days. No organisation claimed responsibility for Wilson’s murder. I try in this blog to be as accurate as possible with regard to history and there are numerous opinions as to the background to this event. If you are interested, the online information available is fascinating.
Nearby is this plaque …
The Master of the Great Eastern Railway ship SS Brussels, Fryatt was court martialled for attempting to ram an attacking German submarine and being a franc-tireur (a civilian engaged in hostile military action). Having been found guilty, he was executed almost immediately by firing squad, after a show trial lasting barely two hours, during which he was afforded no proper defence. As happened following the execution of Edith Cavell in 1915, the event caused international outrage, and led to Fryatt’s body being repatriated after the war and given a ceremonial funeral. If you have the chance, read about him online – the story is absolutely fascinating.
This memorial was unveiled in 1920 by the Lord Mayor …
I have been unable to find out anything about The London Society of East Anglians.
The station was built on the site of the old Bethlehem asylum for the mentally ill commonly known as Bedlam. So when trains are totally disrupted and people say ‘it’s Bedlam here’ – once upon a time it really was.
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