Symbols & Secrets

Walking the City of London

Category: Architecture Page 10 of 12

On the Tiles again

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On 17th January 2019

In Animals, Architecture, Art Nouveau, Commerce, Sculpture


A few days ago I visited the Lamb Tavern in Leadenhall Market (EC4V 1LR) and came across these splendid tiles depicting Sir Christopher Wren. He is standing in front of The Monument (which still has scaffolding around it) holding up a drawing of how it will look when finished …

Just look at the characters gathered around him …

A lady holding a fan leans out of her carriage window to chat to the architect. A child (possibly her servant) stands nearby holding what looks like a pet King Charles spaniel. Some nearby gentlemen are also intrigued, but the chap with the red hat who looks like Errol Flynn might be more interested in the lady. Observe the elegant shoes of the man holding an eyeglass. Not really appropriate for the City’s muddy streets, so maybe he is her carriage companion. The carriage driver looks over his shoulder at the scene. The panel is by W.B. Simpson & Sons and is faintly dated 12th March 1882.

And now another wonderful new discovery for me, the exterior of the former Nordheim Model Bakery at 12-13 Widegate Street (E1 7HP), just off Middlesex Street near Liverpool Street Station. Here are the glazed faience reliefs as a group – they are a joy – showing the bread-making process in beautiful detail …

Hauling in the flour
Kneading the dough
Into the oven for baking
Triumphantly carrying the finished product

They date from 1926 and their creator was the sculptor Philip Lindsey Clark (1889-1977). Having joined up with the Artists’ Rifles in 1914, he had distinguished himself in the First World War having been awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for ‘ … conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when in command of the left flank of the Company of the Battalion’. Despite being severely wounded, he had fought on until relieved two days later. His work became more and more religious and he eventually entered a Carmelite order, retired to the West Country, and died there at the age of 88. The panels reminded the Gentle Author of the Stations of the Cross and you can read his posting about these works here.

I love this bright red high-relief terracotta frieze on the exterior of Cutlers’ Hall (1886-7) in Warwick Lane (EC3M 7BR). The ancient Cutlers’ Company’s origins go back to 1416, their business originally produced and traded in knives and swords but eventually expanding into household cutlery and domestic wares such as razors and scissors.

The work realistically depicts late Victorian cutlery production. This is not surprising since the sculptor, Benjamin Creswick (1853-1946) of Sheffield, was once a cutler himself. The frieze (containing 33 figures) was made by E. Goodall & Co of Manchester …

The detail is extraordinary

I had to smile when I noticed this plastic owl just above the terracotta on the right. He’s obviously intended to deter pigeons …

‘To-whit to-whoo!’

The Bishopsgate Institute (230 Bishopsgate EC2M 4QH) is a fascinating cultural centre in the City of London.

The website tells us that the architect for the building was decided by a design competition and Charles Harrison Townsend (1851-1928) was chosen as the winner. Townsend was an inspiring and original architect whose work was individual rather than adhering to any particular style or movement. The Grade II* listed building combines elements of the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau styles, but the influences of Townsend’s interest in Romanesque and Byzantine architecture can be seen in the broad semi-circular arched entrance, twin roof turrets and mosaic interior floors. Do go inside and visit the beautifully restored library.


The Tree of Life

And finally (for now) the flamboyant Bolton House at 14-16 Cullum Street EC3M 7JJ. Built in 1907, it has a white faience facade with green and turquoise decoration including the heraldic device of Prior Bolton, after whom the building was named. It’s another lovely example of Art Nouveau completed just before that style went out of fashion.

Incidentally, I have already written about the Prior in an earlier blog because of his connection with St Bartholomew the Great. Under the oriel window in the church there is a nice example of a rebus, in this case a representation of a person’s name using a picture. Here Prior Bolton’s name is neatly implied by a crossbow bolt piercing a tun (a type of cask). Bolton was Prior of St Bartholomew the Great between 1505 and 1532 and carried out repair and construction work across the church.

Prior Bolton’s rebus

I am indebted to the Tiles & Architectural Ceramics Society for the source of much of today’s blog. They published a special Gazetteer on the City of London and I have used it for reference. The photographs are my own. My thanks also to Richard Jones of London Walking Tours.


The City Gent – out on the Tiles

By

On 3rd January 2019

In Architecture

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a nice Christmas and an enjoyable break.

There is an abundance of tiles around the City, many of them old Victorian examples that are functional rather than attractive. There are also, however, some really impressive examples of the tile makers skill and I have chosen a number for this week’s blog.

I shall start with what I consider to be the most spectacular.

Have you ever visited Waithman Street (EC4V 6JA)? I would be surprised if you have, since it’s really just a pavement running between Black Friars Lane and Pilgrim Street. Here you will encounter the back walls of 100 New Bridge Street and 23 stunning tiled panels containing 18,000 tiles. They were created in 1992 by the artist Rupert Spira – known primarily for his pottery, these are one of his few ventures into tile work and the only one in the UK. Three dimensional, they remind me of the work by M.C. Escher and when taking pictures I got quite carried away – there is no repetition …

The start of the display.

A few examples …

So Waithman Street is well worth a visit. It is named after Robert Waithman, a 19th century MP elected Lord Mayor of London in 1823.

As I strolled towards Fleet Street I noticed this pretty tile above the shop at 8 Salisbury Court (EC4Y 8AA) …

Tucked away in Magpie Alley (EC4Y 8DP) off Bouverie Street is a wall of tiles illustrating the history of the area’s long association with printing and print news. They are quite difficult to photograph but I had a few attempts …

They are beautifully detailed …

Wynken de Worde – what a great name for the first printer to set up a site on Fleet Street …

I like the printer’s dog dozing nearby …

Pictures from the 1960s …

Number 53 Fleet Street boasts some fancy tiling …

Incidentally, the building has been converted into five apartments priced from £585,000 to £1,550,000. I think there are still a few unsold if you are interested!

On the east side of the City near Liverpool Street Station is this extraordinary building (Bishopsgate Churchyard EC2M 3TJ) which once housed a Turkish bath. The tiles were manufactured in Egypt in the Turkish style and shipped over …

Designed by Harold Elphick, it was built in 1895 by Henry and James Forder Nevill who already owned more of these establishments in London than anyone else. A bit like the Tardis, the premises are in fact much larger than they look and are spread out underground. Customers went down a winding staircase to enter a ‘cooling room’ and then choose between three ‘hot rooms’ of varying temperatures (in the hottest, the calidarium, temperature reached 270 degrees Fahrenheit). They could then move on to a plunge pool and showers.  Baths like this gradually went out of fashion and this one ceased operating in 1954. You can still chill out there, but only in the cocktail bar.

I’ve walked through the lightwell at Number 1 Poultry dozens of times but only looked up recently. I was quite surprised to see this …

The three lightwell walls are lined with blue faience cladding topped by startlingly coloured window frames.

I’ve always liked this depiction in tiles of Sir Robert Peel above 178 Bishopsgate (EC2M 4NJ) which used to contain the pub named after him …

It’s based on a painting at the National Portrait Gallery.

And finally, in the courtyard behind Exchange House in Primrose Street (EC2A 2EG), I came across this fantastic tiled waterfall …

I enjoyed my time on the tiles and will certainly be visiting and photographing other examples in the future.

 

    The Barbican Highwalk – dancers, gladiators and more

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    On 13th December 2018

    In Architecture, Quirky, Sculpture

    The Barbican Highwalk is the last significant remnant of the post War City ‘pedway’ dream – the ambitious plan to separate pedestrians from traffic using elevated ‘pavements in the sky’. The Highwalk, at first floor or Podium level, threads its way through the Estate, also embracing entrances to the Arts Centre, library and restaurants. City planners for a long time insisted that new developments had to include potential pedway access, which also explains why the main entrance to the Museum of London is at first floor level. The grand plan was gradually abandoned but exploring the Highwalk will give you a glimpse of the original vision, especially if you seek out the extension over London Wall Place.

    Today, however, I am going to concentrate on some of the items that have found a home on the walkways since their construction, starting at the Museum of London.

    Outside the Museum entrance is Union – Horse with Two Discs by Christopher Le Brun (2001) …

    In a note nearby the artist explains that to him it is important that horses and riders are ‘not seen as real (but) an entrance or key to the place that I want to enter. It’s as if “the horse” enables the journey rather than providing the final subject’.

    At the other side of the entrance is The Aldersgate Flame …

    Placed here in 1981, it commemorates the approximate location at street level of John Wesley’s conversion on 24 May 1738 and consists of facsimile extracts from his Journal. From that day onward the founder of Methodism set out on a mission covering thousands of miles and delivering over 40,000 sermons -‘The world is my parish’. The monument, which is in bronze, has recently been restored and there is an interesting article about that work and its challenges here.

    Crossing the Bastion Highwalk towards the bar and restaurant on Alban Gate you will encounter two naked writhing dancers. Quite often I have seen people pose for photographs whilst trying to mimic the figures’ movements – they have not found it easy …

    The work, called Unity, is by the Croatian Sculptor Ivan Klapez. It was commissioned by the building developers MEPC in 1992 and marked a turning point is his career.

    Follow the infamous yellow line on the pavement and you will be guided into the Barbican Centre itself where Zoe the Barbican Muse indicates the way in …

    A little further ahead on the left is the Osteria restaurant and opposite, in a space that is rather poorly lit, is this figure …

    Entitled Gladiator, it was presented by Lady Sarah Cohen in memory of her late husband Sir John Edward Cohen, the founder of Tesco. The work was created in 1973 by Canadian born Israeli sculptor Eli Elan (1928-1982).

    I have saved my favourite installation to last – Dorothy Annan’s magnificent murals on the Highwalk between the Centre and Speed House …

    Commissioned by the Ministry of Works in 1960, they originally graced the largest telephone exchange in London, the Fleet Building on Farringdon Street. The panels feature stylistic images of telecommunications equipment and are a striking example of 1960s mural art. When the demolition of the building was planned the murals were granted Listed status and moved in 2013 to their present location.

    Annan visited the Hathernware pottery in Loughborough and hand-scored her designs onto each wet clay tile. There are nine panels in all and here are three of them with their titles …

    Radio Communications and Television.

    Cable Chamber with Cables Entering from Street.

    Impressions Derived from the Patterns Produced in Cathode Ray Oscilligraphs used in testing.

    I love the creamy texture of the ceramic surfaces, their look much enhanced by carefully designed lighting …

    Part of Cables and Communication in Buildings.

    And here is the lady herself …

    The murals’ original location photographed in 2011 …

    By the way, as you retrace your steps having looked at Gladiator, take a look at the wall on your left. Here are kept the various locking mechanisms for the Centre and, when I first glimpsed them, I honestly thought they were a Modern Art installation …

    Well they could be, couldn’t they!

     

    The Bank of England, the Lothbury Ladies and more doors

    By

    On 29th November 2018

    In Architecture, City Symbols, Commerce

    I really like the exterior of the bank of England, Soane’s curtain wall speaking as it does of security and confidence.

    Before I write about the doors, however, there are the four ladies to admire. Carved by Sir Charles Wheeler between 1932 and 1937, and nicknamed the Lothbury Ladies, they are located against the ends of the upper pavilion blocks.

    The eastern pair stand in front of cornucopias and piles of money …

    According to the splendid Ornamental Passions website, from which these pictures are taken, Wheeler was slightly queasy about these images of prosperity given that this was a time of financial crisis (Britain having just been forced off the gold standard). He thought sheaves of corn might be more suitable and wrote to the architect Sir Herbert Baker suggesting this. Baker ‘clearly told him not to be silly’.

    The ladies on the western side are each hold a standing naked child between their legs, one male …

    … and one female …

    They ‘represent the hope of the future of the renewed Bank and its ideals’.

    I wrote about the main Threadneedle Street doors in an earlier blog but you will encounter more as you walk around the building. These are the Goods Yard Doors in Lothbury which contain symbols of work – in the tympanum between the two lions rampant are a hammer and anvil, a monkey wrench and a rivet.

    The roundels in the door are surrounded by rope motifs, the upper ones containing half-length nude male figures also symbolising work. The one on the left is carrying a load on his back …

    … the one on the right is bent over a vice

    The lower roundels contain curled up lions …

    People have obviously been stroking his head.

    These are the daunting, even menacing, Lothbury Court or Bullion Doors …

     

    Loops of chains hang from a ring in the lion’s mouth and the doors themselves are decorated with huge double-warded keys, the handle of each containing a caduceus. These are the only sliding doors at the bank and Herbert Baker sent a Wheeler a sketch with the rather rude comment …

    We already have too many prancing lions and a bullion door must be a more forbidding thing, simple in expression and to a big scale.

    And finally, here are the doors on Princes Street with, yes, more ‘prancing lions’ …

    I love their curly tails, and above them a smiling male sun and lady moon.

    Incidentally, the main doors are magnificent and this is a link to the blog where I write about them in more detail …

     

     

    Some of my favourite City sculptures

    By

    On 22nd November 2018

    In Architecture, Sculpture

    In a grim courtyard outside the gruesome Baynard House on Queen Victoria Street (EC4V 4BQ) is the 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)

    In my local church, St Giles-without-Cripplegate (EC2Y 8DA), there are a set of busts that I have always admired that are on loan from the Cripplegate Foundation. They were presented by J Passmore Edwards (1823-1911), the journalist and lifelong champion of the working classes. His bequests can still be seen today throughout the country and included 24 libraries and numerous schools and convalescence homes.

    Oliver Cromwell married Elizabeth Bourchier here in 1620. His bust portrays him ‘warts and all’ just as he preferred …

    John Milton, the poet and polemicist, was buried here in 1674. By 1652 he had gone completely blind, probably from glaucoma, as is obvious from this representation …

    All the Passmore-Edwards busts in the church are by George Frampton (1860-1928).

    Miraculously, the church tower survived World War II bombing. It dates from the 1394 rebuilding of the church and at the base there is some of the original stone from 1090. The unusual upper part of the tower dates from the 17th century and overall provides an interesting contrast with the soaring 20th century Barbican development …

    What could be more fun than this chap frantically hailing a taxi …

    Taxi! by the American Sculptor J Seward Johnson is cast bronze and dates from 1983. You can find it on the Embankment at the south end of John Carpenter Street (EC4Y 0JP).

    It is difficult to grasp nowadays just how much Medieval London was dominated by the Church, but its traces are still very evident today in, for example, the names of streets and surviving districts. Before the Dissolution under Henry VIII more than thirty monasteries, convents, priories and hospitals squeezed into the City’s ‘square mile’ or huddled outside against the still-surviving Roman wall.

    This statue of a friar writing in a book with a quill pen is a reminder that the house of the Augustinian Friars stood in what is now Austin Friars (EC2N 2HA) …

    Sculptor: T Metcalfe (1989).

    These two beautifully carved characters recall the presence here of the Friars of the Holy Cross, also known as the Crutched Friars, after which this street is named (EC3N 2AE) …

    Sculptor: Michael Black   Architects: Chapman Taylor Partners (1984-85).

    The materials are Swedish red granite with heads, hands and feet in off-white Bardiglio marble. They stand on steps, the friar holding the staff and bag representing the active life with his companion holding a scroll representing the contemplative life. Both staff and scroll are made of bronze.

    And finally to this great architect, his statue in a niche on the wall of the Bank of England facing Lothbury (EC2R 7HG) …

    Sir John Soane  Sculptor: William Reid Dick (1930-37).

    Sir John wears a long cloak and holds in his left hand a roll of drawings and a set square with the back of the niche discretely decorated with the motifs he habitually used in his buildings. He built his reputation on the work he did as architect of the Bank from 1788 to 1833. Much was lost in later reconstruction, but you can get an idea of what his work was like if you visit the fascinating Bank of England Museum (I have written about it here).

    The house where Sir John once lived in Lincoln’s Inn Fields is now a museum and I tell visitors to London it’s a must-see experience. Click here to view the website.

     

    A moving discovery at Tower Hill – and two more City war memorials

    By

    On 8th November 2018

    In Architecture, Memorials, Wartime

    I was walking through the Tower Hill memorial garden last Sunday when I noticed a small cross resting on one of the allegorical figures, just above the dolphin’s head …

    Here it is in close up …

    How wonderful. Arthur Myers remembered by a grandchild and two great, great grandchildren. His ship, the Empire Lakeland, was sunk by a U Boat on 11 March 1943.

    I also noticed when I was there that, with Remembrance Sunday approaching, wreaths and other little crosses are beginning to appear.

    Many are from institutions …

    … and some in respect of just one vessel …

    HMT stands for His Majesty’s Transport. The Rohna was requisitioned as a troop ship in 1940 and sunk in the Mediterranean in November 1943. Most of those killed were American troops.

    And so on to my next two memorials, the first being the National Submarine War Memorial on Victoria Embankment (EC4Y 0HJ). Although able to hide when submerged, once struck the vessels were often unable to rise to the surface and became effectively underwater coffins. In the First World War fifty four boats were lost and with them the lives of 138 officers and 1,225 men. At the inauguration in 1922 Rear Admiral Sinclair, the Chief of the Submarine Service, reminded those present that, during the Great War …

    The number of those killed in the Submarine Service was greater in proportion to its size than any other branch of His Majesty’s fighting forces … one third of the total personnel.

    In November 1959 new panels commemorating Second World war losses were unveiled by Rear Admiral B W Taylor.

    Wright and Moore, writing for the 20th Century Architecture website, describe the memorial as a complex mixture of narrative and symbolism …

    Sculptor: F B Hitch Architect: A H R Tenison Founder: E J Parlanti

    The central figures recreate the scene set inside the submarine exaggerating it into a small, claustrophobic tunnel. The crew use charts and follow dials, the captain is braced at the centre with the periscope behind his head. Around the vessel a shallow relief depicts an array of sea creatures or mermen appearing to trap and haul the submarine in fishing nets, reminding us that the submarines were as much prey to the tempestuous elements as they were to the enemy.

    On both corners are allegorical figures. Next to the list of vessels lost between 1914 and 1918, Truth holds up her mirror. Just further to the left in the picture are two of the 40 bronze wreath hooks in the form of anchors …

    On the right, next to the vessels lost in the Second World War, Justice wears a blindfold and as usual holds a sword and scales …

    I have written about Justice and other representations in the City of the cardinal virtues in an earlier blog which you can find here.

    And now to the Grand Avenue, Central Markets, Smithfield (EC1A 9PS) and 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.

    The 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.

    ‘Thou hast put all things under his feet, all Sheep and Oxen’.

    At the base 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.

    Incidentally, the market was also hit by bombs dropped from a Zeppelin in the First World War – you can still see the shrapnel marks nearby on the walls of St Bartholomew’s Hospital …

    I have written about these and other scars of war that can be found around the City in an earlier blog: Bombs and Boundaries.

     

     

     

     

     

    The Tower Hill Memorials – wars and executions

    By

    On 1st November 2018

    In Architecture, Memorials, Wartime

    Trinity Square Gardens outside Tower Hill underground station is home to a number of memorials, one of which relates to events going back centuries.

    In the south east corner and in the foreground of this picture is a circular granite sundial which has a cast iron anchor in the centre which acts as a gnomon …

    The Falklands War Memorial. Designed by Gordon Newton of War Memorial Limited (2005).

    On 2 April 1982, Argentine forces landed in and captured the Falklands Islands. A task force was dispatched in order to retake the territory and this was accomplished when the occupying forces surrendered on 14 June that year. Nine members of the Merchant Navy and eight members of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary were killed in the conflict and their names are recorded here beneath those of their ships …

    In the main photograph’s background you can see two other memorial structures. On the left are commemorated the 12,000 men of the merchant navy and fishing fleets who lost their lives in the the First World War ‘who have no grave but the sea’ …

    Sculptor: William Reid Dick   Architect: Sir Edwin Lutyens.

    Made of Portland stone, the walls are covered with bronze panels with the names of the dead arranged alphabetically under their ships with the name of the Master or Skipper first in each case if they were among the lost.

    On visiting a few years ago it was clear than many of those unfortunate mariners were still being remembered by family descendants …

    When I first looked really closely at the panels I noticed something strange in one section of the memorial, see if you do too …

    At least four of the men, Moyle A.J., O’Mealie J., Kelly T.E. and Pardew C.J. served under names other than those that were registered at their birth. I am trying to research their stories and will hopefully have something to report in my next blog. There is also a ship recorded here that was actually lost in the Second World War – something also for a future blog.

    Just to the north is the Second World War memorial to the further 24,000 men lost between 1939 and 1945 …

    Sculptor: Charles Wheeler   Architect: Edward Maufe.

    It is a sunken garden with the steps leading down to it flanked by a Mercantile Marine officer …

    … and a seaman of the Merchant Service. Behind him, in his eyrie above what was once the Port of London Authority building, Father Thames points towards the sea …

    Within the garden the walls are overlaid with bronze plaques on which the names of the men and their ships are inscribed in relief. At regular intervals, between the inscription panels, are allegorical figures representing the Seven Seas. Here is one of them, Neptune with his trident …

    And another, a mermaid combing her hair …

    One can’t write about Tower Hill without some mention of its gruesome history as a place of execution …

    This memorial is located on the approximate site of public executions. Nearby, within the walls of the Tower of London, is Tower Green, where people such as Henry VIII’s unwanted Queens were disposed of more discretely. On 19 May 1536 Anne Boleyn was beheaded there, the deed carried out by a swordsman which ensured a speedy death.

    Her old adversary Thomas Cromwell watched her decapitation, but was to end his days on the public gallows a mere four years later on 28 July 1540. The executioner being drunk, his end was a nasty, botched affair. On the same day Henry married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, but the marriage only lasted a few years until she too was executed at the Tower.

    Records are incomplete but the known execution tally for both locations is well over 100 ranging from the first (Sir Simon Burley on 5 May 1388) to the last (three Gordon rioters hanged on 11 July 1780). Two of the Jacobite ‘Rebel Lords’ beheaded for high treason have a special plaque …

    Site of the ancient scaffold where the Earl of Kilmarnock and Lord Balmerino suffered 18th August 1746.

    In this 1746 etching of their execution, the scaffold on the left is surrounded by horse and foot guards, holding back the throng of spectators, who also watch from tiers erected for the purpose. The executioner is raising the axe above his head …

    Copyright Trustees of the British Museum.

     

    War Memorials in the City

    By

    On 25th October 2018

    In Architecture, Memorials, Sculpture, Wartime

    The aftermath of the First World War saw tens of thousands of memorials erected across the country. This reflected not only the huge impact on individual communities but also the official policy of not repatriating the dead: the memorials provided the main focus of the grief felt at the loss of three quarters of a million British lives.

    As we approach the centenary of the end of the First World War, I thought it would be appropriate to take a look at some of the many City memorials that commemorate those who made the ultimate sacrifice serving King and Country. I am particularly fascinated by the different approaches taken by sculptors and the allegories they chose to use.

    Firstly, I revisited St Michael Cornhill and this sculpture by Richard Reginald Goulden. The memorial commemorates 2,130 men from three parishes  who served in the War of whom about 170 died ‘for the freedom of the world’ …

    Allegorical figures surround the base as St Michael with his flaming sword stands steadfastly above …

    On the left, the quarreling beasts typify war, but are ‘sliding slowly but surely from their previously paramount position. Life, in the shape of young children, rises with increasing confidence under the protection of the champion of right’.

    And now to Holborn and this 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. Walk through the entrance arch to the courtyard and you will see the work of a sculptor who has chosen to illustrate war in a very different fashion. The memorial carries the names of the 786 Prudential employees who lost their lives …

    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 …

    The work is tucked away in the building’s courtyard, Waterhouse Square (EC1N 2SW), and I am sure that most of the thousands of people who walk along Holborn every day have no idea it is there.

    And finally, I looked again at the War Memorial to London Troops outside the Royal Exchange …

    At the bottom of the list of battalions, two in particular caught my eye …

    I am going to do further research on the Artists Rifles and the London Cyclists and hopefully include the results in a later blog.

    As luck would have it, I visited the Imperial War Museum last week and came across a postcard of this splendid recruitment poster from 1912. It is poignant to look at this picture with its pretty village setting and then think of the industrial age war and slaughter that was soon to follow …

    I will continue writing about war memorials for the next few weeks.

     

     

     

     

     

    The Royal Exchange

    By

    On 18th October 2018

    In Architecture, City Symbols, Commerce, Memorials

    Last week I wrote about the talented Sir Thomas Gresham, the part he played in founding the Royal Exchange and how his generosity is still commemorated on the building itself.

    This week I am taking a look at other aspects of the structure starting with the magnificent Portland stone pediment which you can’t miss if you look up as you cross the road at Bank junction. As is often the case, I am indebted to Dr Philip Ward-Jackson and his book Public Sculpture of the City of London for some of the descriptions …

    The Exchange itself was designed by William Tite. The pediment sculpture is by Richard Westmacott Junior and deploys seventeen figures.

    The inscription on the base on which the figure of commerce stands is from Psalm 24.1., a text chosen by Prince Albert. He laid the foundation stone in 1842.

    Commerce holds in her left hand a ‘charter of exchange’ and in her right a rudder. There is also a ship’s prow, a beehive and a cornucopia.

    Looking to the left …

    … there are three City merchants in the civic robes of Lord Mayor, Alderman and Common Councilman. Beyond these are a Hindu and a Muslim. A young Greek carrying a vase strides towards them whilst looking over his shoulder towards the outermost group. These are an Armenian (occupied with a scroll) and a Turk (‘busy with his daily accounts’). The extreme angle is filled with an anchor and other nautical instruments.

    Looking to the right …

    … two British merchants are being shown fabric by a Persian. The next group consists of a Chinese merchant, a kneeling African and a Levantine sailor. Beyond these is a British sailor cording a bale of merchandise. The outermost figure, kneeling amongst jars, packages etc, is a supercargo, or shipboard sales manager.

    Interestingly, the Exchange was built at the time of the Chinese ‘Opium Wars’, a period which saw the collapse of the Chinese economy. In China today the period 1839 to 1939 is referred to as The Century of Humiliation (which some commentators believe still has an important influence on Chinese attitudes to the West in the 21st century).

    In the foreground stands London Troops War Memorial. Above you can see part of the Latin inscription stating that the Exchange was founded in the thirteenth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and restored in the eighth of Queen Victoria (1844) …

    The memorial architect was Sir Aston Webb, the bronzes are by Alfred Drury and the stone carver was William Frith.

    On the column is listed all the London regiments that served in the First and Second World Wars and on either side two soldiers stand at ease, one representing the Royal Fusiliers and the other the Royal Field Artillery.

    On the south side of the Exchange in Cornhill is this elegant clock …

    Britannia and Neptune hold a shield that contains an image of Gresham’s original Royal Exchange. In the distance, peeping up below, is the latest addition to the City skyline, ‘The Scalpel’ in Lime Street.

    The inside of the Exchange is now a much used open space where today’s City folk meet once more to gossip, dine, drink coffee and do deals just as Gresham originally intended almost 450 years ago …

     Image: ‘Say I do’ Islington

    When visiting the Exchange I usually use the main West door but, whilst researching this blog, I went into the East foyer and was really surprised to come across this remarkable, formidable bust of Abraham Lincoln …

    Carver: Andrew O’Connor (1928).

    The bust is carved from stone quarried in the vicinity of Lincoln’s birthplace. It was presented to the City by the Lincoln Presentation Committee and was unveiled by the Lord Mayor on 12 February 1930.

    Finally, behind the posh retail outlets that nestle near the walls of the Exchange, lie an extraordinary set of murals. This one commemorates the loss of the second Royal exchange to fire in 1838 …

    Painting by Stanhope Forbes (1899).

     

    To view them you have to climb to the mezzanine floor and look over the balcony. They date from 1892 and are by artists including Sir Frederick Leighton, Sir Frank Brangwyn and Stanhope Forbes.

    Amazingly, plans for the building in 2016 would have meant bisecting them in order to extend the retail space. Fierce criticism meant the plans were shelved but you can see what they would have meant if you look at the Spitalfields Life website from August 2016. The site also has some great pictures of all the murals – they are stunning.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Sir Thomas Gresham and The Royal Exchange

    By

    On 11th October 2018

    In Architecture, Commerce, Memorials, Philanthropy, Sculpture, Wartime

    The Royal Exchange will forever be associated with Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-1579). Here he is, portrayed as a confident young man in his mid-twenties:

    Portrait – Gresham College.

    Apprenticed for seven years in the Mercer trade, he spent much of his time on the continent, learning French and Flemish in the process. His astuteness with finance came to the attention of Thomas Cromwell who started putting royal work his way, and Gresham’s connection with royalty continued under Elizabeth I. As well as managing his family’s trading interests (primarily clothing, guns and ammunition) as a royal agent he was charged with reducing the royal debt held by Antwerp merchants. When he took over this task the debt stood at £250,000 but by 1565, applying a combination of shrewd trading and interest rate speculation, he had reduced it to only £20,000 (earning himself a knighthood). These skills increased his own wealth considerably as well, and this was further enhanced on the death of his father.

    By the late 1560s he was reputed to be the richest commoner in the country. Having no heir (his only son died in 1564), in his later years he used some of his vast wealth to produce two lasting legacies – Gresham College and the first Royal Exchange. The College was established at his house in Bishopsgate where lectures were given on a wide range of subjects including astronomy, geography, medicine and music. The College still offers lectures today at its Holborn premises. The Royal Exchange, based on the Antwerp model, was his gift to the City’s merchant negotiators who up to that time ‘had done their business in the wind and weather of the public street’.

    Queen Elizabeth formally opened the Exchange on 23 January 1571, giving the building its Royal title along with a licence to sell alcohol. The building was lost in the Great Fire of 1666 and its successor also burned down in 1838. The third building which stands today was opened in 1844 with much ceremony by Queen Victoria herself, Prince Albert having laid the foundation stone two years earlier.

    In this blog I will be looking at some of the features of the present building that perpetuate Gresham’s memory and I will deal with other aspects in a later blog.

    Let’s start with the main gates that face Bank junction …

    Best observed when closed, they incorporate an image of the great man himself. Above his head are the arms of Gresham College with the sword and mace representing the City …

    The gates were supplied by the firm of H. and M.D. Grissell whose foundry also produced the railings for Buckingham Palace and the British Museum. Henry Grissell (nicknamed ‘Iron Henry’) was famous not only for the quality of his work but also his attention to detail, evident here in the entrance to the Exchange in Threadneedle Street …

    If you look closely you will see that the ironwork incorporates Gresham’s initials:

    Along with a Mercer Maiden …

    I have written about the Maidens in more detail in an earlier blog and their use as a symbol denoting property owned by the Worshipful Company of Mercers of which Gresham was a member. They still own the land on which the Exchange stands.

    Look up at the Exchange and you will see several grasshoppers, the symbol of the Gresham family …

    Facing Threadneedle Street.

    And the weathervane on the roof, which was saved from the fire that destroyed the second Exchange in 1838 …

    The story goes that one of Thomas’s ancestors, Roger de Gresham, was abandoned as an infant in the marshlands of Norfolk and would have perished had not a passing woman been attracted to the child by a chirruping grasshopper. Heraldic spoilsports assert that it is more likely a ‘canting heraldic crest’ playing on the sound ‘grassh’ and ‘gresh’.

    There is, course, also a statue of Gresham himself on the building but it is so high up you can only view it from practically underneath …

    The ‘Ornamental Passions’ website tells us the following about the sculptor William Behnes. He was, apparently …

    … a half-English Irish-educated artist whose financial profligacy had reduced him to penury. He was declared bankrupt half way through the commission but he successfully completed it and was paid £550 (roughly £50,000 today).

    Incidentally, the Exchange was lucky to survive the wartime bombing especially when, on 11 January 1941, a direct hit on Bank Station killed 111 people. These pictures show the aftermath then and the view today …

     

    The view at Bank on a quiet Sunday.

     

    Fleet Street’s courts, lanes and alleys

    By

    On 4th October 2018

    In Architecture, Commerce, Quirky

    A quiet suburb before the Great Fire of 1666, but a key route between the City and Westminster, Fleet Street subsequently developed quickly. As a result, it has a range of associations, from the Knights Templar to the newspaper industry, along with literary folk such as Dr Johnson. What are particularly evocative of the past are its intimate courts, lanes and alleys, particularly to the north.

    I have been exploring a selection of them.

    I have chosen Wine Office Court to begin with because it is home to the Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub, Ye Olde being an accurate description in this case since the pub dates from 1667. It also lives up to expectations inside, being spread over four floors with numerous nooks and crannies.

    Looking north.

    Looking south towards Fleet Street.

    The pub cellar bars were once part of the Carmelite monastery, and look it …

    Licenses to sell wine were issued from a building there, hence the ‘Wine Office’ name. Oliver Goldsmith, the Irish novelist, playwright and poet, lived at number 6 and enjoyed a drink at ‘The Cheese’ along with Johnson, Dickens, Carlyle, Teddy Roosevelt and me.

    A fire at the pub in 1962 revealed some very naughty 18th century fireplace tiles. The are now in safe keeping at the Museum of London and are so naughty that I can only find a picture of one of them – a lady spanking a man’s bottom with a bunch of twigs. I wonder what the rest are like …

    The plaque on the pavement at the Fleet Street entrance references the periodical All the Year Round which was founded by Dickens and published between 1859 and 1895 …

    Here is the plaque for Crane Court …

    The plaque here is arguably the most significant because it commemorates the Daily Courant and its edition of 11 March 1702 made it the first daily paper in Britain. Here is the first edition – one page with news on the front and advertisements on the reverse …

     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 …

    For slightly sinister atmosphere it is hard to beat Clifford’s Inn Passage with this door at the end …

    Here is some history, courtesy of the blog Alleys and Courtyards of London …

    In 1307 Robert Clifford was granted the lease on a substantial house and a plot of land towards the northern end of the passage. At that time lawyers had not settled into any particular area of London and it was completely by chance that when Clifford died in 1343 his widow leased the house to a number of law students. Clifford’s Inn, or Clifford’s House as it was called, was the first established Inn of Chancery and from this beginning the long history of legal London started. Clifford’s Inn ceased to function as a legal establishment in 1802 and one by one the buildings were demolished.

    There are some interesting boundary marks to the left of the door …

    Also in Clifford’s Inn Passage, near the door and also at the entrance, are some rare examples of ‘deflectors’ …

    Before public toilets were readily available, men would often slip away down alleys like this to urinate (unfortunately some still do). Building owners fitted these devices so that the stream would be deflected back onto the perpetrators’ feet and act as a deterrent.

    There is another one outside the Bank of England in Lothbury …


    You’ll be relieved to hear that these are the only ones I have found.

    A pair of doors in Cornhill

    By

    On 27th September 2018

    In Architecture, Business signs, Commerce

    When I started this blog I never thought I would be dedicating an entire issue to a pair of doors, but I hope you will agree that in this case it is appropriate.

    32 Cornhill is the old headquarters of the Cornhill Insurance Company (EC3V 3BT) and I am going to write about the mahogany doors you can see on the right …

    Here is a closer view …

    Walter Gilbert (1871-1946) designed these doors in 1939. He was a designer and craftsman who developed his visual style in the Arts & Crafts movement at the end of the nineteenth century and then applied it to a wide range of architectural commissions in the twentieth century, including the gates of Buckingham Palace, sculpture for the facade of Selfridges and some distinctive war memorials. In this instance, he modelled the reliefs in clay which were then translated into wood carvings by B.P Arnold at H. H. Martyn & Co Ltd of Cheltenham.

    They tell of events that took place in the area over the centuries. Below is a picture of each panel along with a description …

    ‘St Peter’s Cornhill founded by King Lucius 179 A. D. to be an Archbishop’s see and chief church of his kingdom and so it endured the space of 400 years until the coming of Augustine the monk of Canterbury’.

    An architect holds up the church plans and a builder holds up a compass.

    ‘Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, did penance walking barefoot to St Michael’s Church from Queen Hithe, 1441’.

    The Duchess, holding a lighted taper, performs public penance having been convicted of sorcery in 1441. Rather unwisely, because it was ‘treasonable necromancy’, she had asked the astrologers Thomas Southwell and Roger Bolingbroke to cast the horoscope of the then King Henry VI. Southwell died in the Tower of London, Bolingbroke was hanged, drawn and quartered, she was sentenced to life imprisonment.

    The explanation reads: ‘Cornhill was anciently a soke of the Bishop of London who had the Seigneurial oven in which all tenants were obliged to bake their bread and pay furnage or baking dues.‘ A soke was a right of jurisdiction and the women have just paid the priest and are carrying away their freshly baked bread – they certainly don’t look very happy about the arrangement.

    ‘Cornhill is the only market allowed to be held after noon in the 14th century’. A stallholder sells apples to two ladies.

     

    ‘Birchin Lane, Cornhill, place of considerable trade for men’s apparel, 1604‘. A tailor adjusts a gentleman’s hem, an assistant holds a tape measure, the gentleman admires himself in a mirror. Suits you, sir.

    ‘Pope’s Head Tavern in existence in 1750 belonged to Merchant Taylor’s Company. The Vintners were prominent in the life of Cornhill Ward.‘ Nearby today is Pope’s Head Alley.

    ‘Garraway’s Coffee House, a place of great commercial transaction and frequented by people of quality’. Garraway’s was nearby in Change Alley and is commemorated now with this plaque incorporating Sir Thomas Gresham’s grasshopper emblem.

    Change Alley EC3V 3ND.

    ‘Thackeray and the Brontes at the publishing house of Smith Elder & Co. Cowper, the poet, Gray the poet, Guy, the bookseller and founder of Guy’s Hospital, lived in Cornhill.’

    The panel depicts Charlotte and Anne Bronte meeting with William Makepeace Thackeray at the premises of Smith Elder.

    I hope you found the doors and their stories as fascinating as I did. These pictures were taken at the weekend but the doors open inwards, so you can still see them when the building is open.

     

     

     

     

     

    City work and public sculpture 2

    By

    On 13th September 2018

    In Architecture, Gardens, Sculpture

    This week I am looking at sculptures representing work in the City in the 20th Century.

    Although I mentioned them in an earlier blog I wanted to show these figures again because they are so unusual …

    Old churchyard of St John Zachary, 25 Gresham Street EC2V 7HN.

    Wilfred Dudeney’s monument Three Printers (1954) has been here since 2009. Commissioned by the Westminster Press Group, it represents the newspaper process with a newsboy (sales), printer and editor (or proprietor), and used to stand by their offices in New Street Square. When the square was redeveloped the Goldsmiths’ Company, as the freeholders of the square, relocated the sculpture here (they had to rescue it from a demolition yard). Look closely, the printer is grasping a ‘stick’ for holding metal type, and Dudeney’s name is in ‘mirror writing’ just as it would have been when typeset the old-fashioned way.

    This sculpture reminded me of words from Auden’s The Waste Land:

     Unreal City,
    Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
    A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
    I had not thought death had undone so many.
    Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
    And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

    It is entitled Rush Hour by George Segal (1983-7) and is in Broadgate (EC2M 3WA) …

    Trudging wearily off home in the rain …

    Segal created this sculpture from live models, encasing them in wire mesh and plaster bandages, before cutting each cast open to free the model, rejoining the mould and casting bronze figures from the plaster versions. You will notice that all their eyes are closed …

    And now something a bit more cheerful …

    Philip Ward-Jackson, in his book Public Sculpture of the City of London, tells us of the Trees, Gardens and Open Spaces Committee of the Corporation which was chaired by Frederick Cleary. In his autobiography Cleary recorded that Jonzen’s figure below was intended as a tribute to the efforts of his committee but Ward-Jackson feels that ‘it might have been better described as a symbol of the ‘greening’ of the City in the post-war period’. Most appropriately, Mr Cleary has a garden named after him, and you can read about it in my earlier blog about City gardens generally.

    ‘The Gardener’ by Karin Jonzen FBS (1971) – Brewers’ Hall Gardens, London Wall EC2V 7HR.

    Apparently Jonzen, on being given the subject by the Corporation …

    … decided on a kneeling figure of a young man, who, having planted a bulb, was gently stroking over the earth.

    Easy to miss but worth seeking out is The Building Worker, a bronze statue of a building worker in a pose based on Michelangelo’s David, but in working clothes and wearing a hard hat and carrying a spirit level. He is on Tower Hill EC3 just across the road from the station outside the Tower of London …

    The sculptor was Alan Wilson (2006).

    It commemorates the ‘thousands of workers who have lost their lives at work … (and) workers who are today building and rebuilding towns and cities across the United Kingdom.’ Wreaths are laid here each year on April 28, International Workers Memorial Day, and a two minute silence is observed at noon in memory of those who have suffered fatal injuries in accidents at work.

    The Plumbers’ Hall was compulsorily purchased in 1863 to make way for the expansion of Cannon Street Railway station and this statue on the concourse is a reminder of that connection …

    The Plumber’s Apprentice by Mark Jennings (2011).

    The inscription reads ‘This statue was erected on the site of its last Livery Hall by The Worshipful Company of Plumbers to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the granting of its Charter by King James I in 1611 and to recognise the support given by the Company to the training of apprentices.’

    To round off my day I went looking for a statue I personally remember being erected on Cannon Street in 1996 – The LIFFE Trader (LIFFE standing for the London International Financial Futures Exchange). But he has been moved and tucked away behind glass at the Guildhall Yard in a corridor that the public cannot access …

    Please let him go outside, or at least turn him around.

    Here he is in his glory days at Cannon Street – a bit of a character with his loosened tie, no doubt doing a deal on his then fashionable clamshell mobile phone …

    Photograph copyright Loïc Brohard.

     

    City of London doors and doorways

    By

    On 23rd August 2018

    In Animals, Architecture

    Last week gates, this week doors and doorways.

    I shall start with few modest examples and then move on to the more spectacular.

    The facade St Martin’s House at 1 Gresham Street is a delight (EC4V 7BX) …

    Dating from 1891 it incorporates a wonderfully happy, smiling Mr Sun …

    What also makes it charming is the rogue apostrophe ….

     

    Surely it should read St Martin’s House?

    St Bartholomew house at 90-94 Fleet Street is an Arts and Crafts block built in 1900 (EC4y 1DH) and it looks like that door may well be the original …

    Regarding the putti (cherubs), the blogger Chris Partridge of Ornamental Passions writes …

    The one on the left is more or less a standard model putto with feathery wings and a bow, carrying a quiver, but the one on the right is decidedly odd with what look like butterfly wings and flowers in its hair. Is it a boy or a girl?

    Unusually, the piece is signed by both the architect and the sculptor …

    Cherubs are everywhere in the City and you can find the location of many of them in my earlier blog Charming Cherubs.

    And now to the more spectacular, the main entrance to the Bank of England on Threadnedle Street ((EC2R 8AH) …

    A closer view of the two main doors. Made of bronze, they were designed between 1928 and 1931 …

    The caduceus (winged staff) on the left is surmounted by a sailing ship from the days of the Bank’s foundation.The one on the right has the hand of Zeus grasping the lightning which symbolises electrical force. Above these are the constellations of Ursa Major and the Southern Cross, which stand for both sides of the world, and imply the world-wide extent of the Bank’s operations. The lions symbolise protection and strength.

    The door on the left has three lions in bas-relief representing the royal arms …

    The round opening also has a caduceus and a pattern of interlocking serpents forming its grille.

    This is the right hand door …

    You can see the caduceus and interlocking serpents more clearly here, and above two lions guard a mound of gold coins …

    What a hoard!

    I will be looking again at the Bank of England in a future blog (there are more doors to examine) and also the Royal Exchange across the road.

    City of London Gates

    By

    On 16th August 2018

    In Architecture

    As you all know, the Romans constructed a protective wall around their City some time in the 2nd or 3rd century and gateways were incorporated that aligned with the Roman road network. During the medieval period, these defences were further adapted and strengthened, but the City gradually extended beyond its original boundaries and we then start to see places described as ‘within’ and ‘without’. Eventually the wall and gates had become an obstruction and demolition, which started in 1760, continued right into the 19th century.

    A short way to the west of the old Lud Gate was Temple Bar. Originally there to regulate trade into the City, it was rebuilt after the Great Fire more as a ceremonial entrance. Believed to have been designed by Christopher Wren, it survived until  1878 when it’s obstruction to traffic became too big a problem and it was carefully demolished and put in storage. It was sold in 1880 to the brewer Sir Henry Meux. It is a fascinating story and I have written about him and his beautiful, eccentric wife Valerie in an earlier blog which you can access here.

    After 126 years on Sir Henry’s country estate, the Bar was finally returned to the City in 2004 and was re-erected in Paternoster Square next to st Paul’s Cathedral. I think it looks great …

    When I visited it recently I became intrigued by the wooden doors. There are two big doors that close to shut off the main entrance and two smaller doors in the pedestrian archways either side.

    Were they original or were they fitted by Sir Henry? Photos show them closed when on the estate but I could not find a picture of them closed on Fleet Street. I went looking for graffiti to see if they would give me a clue. There were some from the 20th century …

    DH from 1945.

    Someone in 1957.

    But could this possibly be 1751 …

    And maybe this is 1749 …

    Neither are very conclusive unfortunately but I am pretty sure the gates predate the Bar’s removal in 1878. I am going to do a bit more research.

    *** STOP PRESS ***

    Saturday 18 August – Just started my research and I am sure the gates date from before 1880. Here is an extract from Bradshaw’s Illustrated Handbook to London and its Environs 1862:

    ‘To show the power of the Lord Mayor, the ponderous gates of the civic barrier are shut upon all occasions of royal visits to the city. The herald then sounds a trumpet, and the Mayor and corporation within demand by their marshal to know the monarch’s pleasure , which, being communicated, the City sword is presented , the barrier flies open, and the cavalcade proceeds to its destination’.

    This got me interested in gates generally and there are some really attractive ones around the City.

    These beautifully restored examples are outside Salters’ Hall in Fore Street (EC2Y 5DE) …

    The gates are dated 1887 and were salvaged when the original hall was destroyed in the Blitz. The company’s motto sal sapit omnia (salt savours everything) has been incorporated along with birds and animals.

    The Inner Temple has an impressive gated entrance off Tudor Street …

    Through the entrance and on the left I noticed these gates leading to the Inner Temple Garden (EC4Y 9AT). They date from circa 1730 and lead to approximately three acres of gardens …

    I particularly liked this sign …

    Placed quite low down, it is clearly aimed at literate animals who must nonetheless behave themselves.

    And finally, this is the western entrance to Liverpool Street Station …

    Up the stairs and to the left you will see gates incorporating this emblem …

    The Great Eastern Railway Company operated from 1862 until 1923 when it was incorporated into the London & North Eastern Railway. You can read more about the station and its history here.

     

    City of London pub ghosts

    By

    On 2nd August 2018

    In Animals, Architecture, Business signs, Commerce

    The City has been home to thousands of pubs over the years. Some have continued to flourish for, literally, centuries whereas others have disappeared. I have been exploring to see if I can identify some remnants of those lost hostelries.

    At 12 Old Street is the building that once housed The Old Rodney’s Head …

    The building is for sale at the moment – offers in excess of £6.5 million – EC1V 9BE.

    George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron Rodney (1718-1792) was a famous Admiral best known for his victory over the French at the Battle of the Saintes in 1782 which ended the French threat to Jamaica. The building dates from 1876 and Rodney still gazes down on Old Street …

    Sadly the Hat and Feathers has not reopened after a short time operating as a restaurant …

    2 Clerkenwell Road EC1M 5PQ.

    British History Online tells us that the building dates from 1860 and the facade – ‘gay without being crude’ – is decorated with classical statues, urns and richly ornate capitals and consoles.

    I found this fascinating picture whilst researching …

    Laying tramlines outside the pub in 1906 – source UK Pub History.

    At the corner of Clerkenwell Road and St John Street is the building which once housed the Criterion Hotel (EC1V 4JS) …

    The owners of the Cannon Brewery in St John Street built the Hotel here in 1874–6 as a replacement for the Red Lion and Punchbowl at No. 118 St John Street. This old tavern itself survived as a shop, but was eventually replaced in the 1920s by the present two storey extension to the Criterion, matching the style of the 1876 building. The Criterion closed in the 1960s, becoming a watch-materials shop and then, in the late 1990s, a restaurant.

    Look at this lovely ornate brickwork …

    I don’t know the significance of the two frogs, or maybe they are toads.

    Further down St John Street at number 16 is the previous home of the Cross Keys pub with the pub’s emblem still visible at roof height (EC1M 4NT) …

    According to British History online the former Cross Keys inn was rebuilt in 1886–7 for Lovell & Christmas, provision merchants. It has been closed as a pub since the Second World War and was occupied during the 1980s as the London headquarters and library of the Communist Party of Great Britain, before being refurbished as offices in the early 1999.

    The Lost Pubs Project informs us that the Barley Mow was around as long ago as 1806 although it was rebuilt in the late 19th century. It is now a restaurant but the name lives on at the top of the building’s facade and the adjacent Barley Mow Passage (EC1A 9EJ) …

    In their 1973 book City of London Pubs the authors Richards and Curl describe the White Hart at 7 Giltspur Street as …

    The most lavish pub encountered for some time, with heavily upholstered seats and settees, low coffee-type tables, a Black Watch tartan carpet , soft music and subdued lighting.

    Makes one want to visit, doesn’t it, but unfortunately it is now office accommodation …

    The building dates from 1907 – EC1A 9DE 

    But the stag’s head remains over the entrance, rather spookily scrutinising visitors …

    Incidentally, in 2014 the Darkest London blogger tracked down all the pubs in Richards and Curl’s book to see what had happened to them since it was published and you will find more information here.

    This building at 28-30 Tudor Street bears further investigation  (EC4Y 0BH) …

    It was once The White Swan pub, known locally as The Mucky Duck. Swan motifs remain either side of the entrance …

    The building dates from 1881 …

    And the facade includes the coat of arms of the Clothworkers Guild – perhaps because they owned the freehold …

    The excellent London Remembers website has the following to say about the building that was once the Sir Robert Peel pub at 178 Bishopsgate (EC2M 4NJ) …

    This building has been through interesting times. It looks like it started off in the Georgian period and had a major refacing round about 1930 when the windows were replaced and the tiled front added. And then the ground floor front suffered the standard anonymising sometime 1960-1990, but they left the lovely tiles for us to enjoy.

    The building is Art Deco in style – shame about the uPVC windows.

    Nowadays always busy, even at weekends, it is amusing to note that a visitor in the early 17th century described the area as ‘airy and fashionable … but a little too much in the country’.

    The ceramic panel depicting Robert Peel looks like it was based on his picture in the National Portrait Gallery.

    As is often the case when researching, one story leads to another.

    This building at 38 Charterhouse Street used to house the Charterhouse Bar which has now closed. However, I came across some more background about the premises which I found fascinating.

    I really like the way it is squeezed into the triangular corner plot (EC1M 6JH) …

    And the decoration – the City of London shield with its bearded supporter …

    … and this pretty lady …

    What I discovered was that it was once the ‘new additional showrooms’ for scalemakers Herbert & Son and their 250th anniversary commemoration contains this invitation from 1937 …

    Their Lion Trademark was granted in 1888 and can still be seen above their old showrooms at 7 and 8 West Smithfield which date from 1889. It seems to typify the pride the organisation felt at the height of the British Empire …

    Directly opposite Smithfield Market – what better location for a firm of scalemekers. And they’re still going strong based in Suffolk.

     

    A walk around the Barbican

    By

    On 26th July 2018

    In Animals, Architecture, Sculpture

    Last week I had the pleasure of joining the photographer Anthony Palmer as he conducted a walk around the Barbican. For those of you who have never visited the estate, or who have only come to attend a performance, I hope my pictures will encourage you to come for the first time, or linger longer and explore.

    First of all, I want to show you some views that may not look like they are from the Barbican at all.

    First up is Frobisher Crescent …

    Frobisher Crescent shutters as seen from the Sculpture Court.

    One of the lakes contain what are affectionately known as the ‘igloos’ …

    View looking down from the Andrewes Highwalk.

    Beech Gardens (on the highwalk over the Beech Street ‘tunnel’) were designed by Nigel Dunnett and on his website there is a terrific description of how he achieved the transformation of the area.

    Here is a picture I took looking towards Bryer Court …

    A water feature gives the opportunity to photograph some reflections …

    Nearby in Ben Jonson Place, two small dolphins stand on their tails and twist in opposite directions …

    The sculpture is by John Ravera and dates from 1990.

    The estate contains two gardens for the use of residents only. This is the Thomas More Garden as seen from the Thomas More highwalk …

    The second biggest conservatory in London after Kew is one of the Barbican’s best kept secrets. It is usually open on Sundays, but is sometimes shut for private events, so if you are thinking of visiting it is best to consult the website first. Here are a few of the pictures I took last week …

    A long time conservatory resident …

    This is just a tiny part of the cactus garden …

    Gilbert Bridge gives you a good view of one of the lakes and the terrace, which is open to the public …

    The water lilies are doing well this year …

    Standing on the Wallside highwalk you can see how the 17th century tower of St Giles-without-Cripplegate contrasts with two of the three Barbican residential blocks. Shakespeare Tower is on the left and Cromwell Tower on the right and they were until recently the highest residential towers in Europe …

    To the left of the church you can see a line of very old barrel tombs. They formed part of the St Giles cemetery before its destruction in the Second World war. I have written before about this churchyard, and others, in an earlier blog which can be found here.

    I took this picture of the magnolia tree earlier this year when it was in flower …

    The Barbican also encloses parts of the old Roman/Medieval wall, occasionally used as a perch by a visiting Heron …

    Alongside the Wallside highwalk.

    People visit from all over the world to explore the iconic Barbican architecture by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon.

    In this picture Shakespeare tower looms over Frobisher crescent …

    As you walk through the estate interesting shapes and shadows emerge …

    This view along Seddon Highwalk made me think of the slits used by medieval archers …

    A little further on, an elegant column at the base of Lauderdale Tower illustrates the Barbican’s distinctive tooled-concrete finish. It was incredibly labour intensive. After the concrete had dried for at least 21 days, workers used handheld pick-hammers or wider bush-hammers to tool the surface and expose the coarse granite aggregate …

    The column is next to the entrance to the ThaoV hair salon. The previous salon was called Scissors Palace which I though was a splendid name and was sorry to see it disappear.

    New highwalks have just opened with their support structure itself looking like a piece of sculpture …

    The entrance to the St Alphage Highwalk.

    Around 4,000 people live on the Barbican estate and every now and then you get a glimpse of their decor. These little green creatures live in one of the houses on the estate and always make me smile when I see them peeping out the window …

    I hope you have enjoyed this short tour and that it will inspire you to visit and explore. Ending the day with a cocktail at the Martini Bar is highly recommended.

     

    City Churches – more unusual discoveries

    By

    On 19th July 2018

    In Architecture, Memorials, Quirky, Sculpture, Symbols

    Last week I thought it was time to take another stroll around the City churches to see what I would discover. After researching last week’s blog, I was particularly interested in artifacts that had been moved from one church to another and why.

    I was very lucky in the first church I visited, St Martin within Ludgate, on Ludgate Hill (EC4M 7DE) inside which I found both a fascinating chandelier and a very unusual font. There is a large entrance lobby (designed to reduce traffic noise inside the church) and you then enter one of Sir Christopher Wren’s least altered interiors (1677-1686) with fine dark woodwork which largely escaped the Blitz.

    Look up and you will see this beautiful chandelier or candelabrum …

    It’s still lit by candles.

    As one commentator has noticed, it looks more like something you would find in a country house or a ballroom. The candles were not lit when I visited but I am sure that when they are, on a dark morning or evening, one must get a real feel for what it was like to worship here in earlier centuries. It came to the church via St Vincent’s Cathedral in the West Indies, probably in 1777: a reminder of the links between the City’s trading economy and the British Empire overseas.

    And now to the very unusual font …

    The bowl is white marble and the wooden supporting plinth is painted to look like stone. It dates from 1673, predating the church, and was previously located in a ‘tabernacle’ used by the congregation during the rebuilding.

    It contains a Greek palindrome copied from the Cathedral of St Sophia in Constantinople:

    Niyon anomhma mh monan oyin

    (Cleanse my sin and not my face only)

    No church blog of mine would be complete if it didn’t contain a reference one of my favourite churches, St Vedast Foster Lane (EC2V 6HH) …

    The interior looking east.

    Here there are a few features that have come from other churches.

    The font and its cover both date from the late 17th century. The font itself was designed by Christopher Wren and the cover is by the most celebrated woodcarver of the 17th century, Grinling Gibbons. Both were rescued from St Anne & St Agnes in Gresham Street after the Blitz.

    The reredos behind the altar came from the ‘lost’ church of St Christopher le Stocks …

    The original St Christopher le Stocks was destroyed in the Great Fire, rebuilt by Wren in 1671 and situated in Threadneedle Street. During the 18th century, the Bank of England gradually bought up adjoining properties, extending its site into the parish. In 1781 it came to an agreement with the rector of St Christopher’s, and its patron, the Bishop of London, allowing it to demolish the church itself. This was not only motivated by a desire to build on the land, but also by a fear that rioters might use the church as a platform to attack the bank, a concern sparked by the Gordon Riots of 1780.

    The richly carved pulpit came from All Hallows Bread Street, demolished in 1878 under the Union of Benefices Act 1860 which I also mentioned in last week’s blog …

    For my last visit of the day I thought I would take a look at St Anne & St Agnes (mentioned above) and see what I could find there (Gresham Street EC2V 7BX).

    The Royal Arms of Charles II on the west wall is one of the best examples in England …

    In 1649 the vicar was beheaded for protesting against the execution of King Charles I.

    The central dome is supported by four handsome Corinthian columns two of which contain heraldic representations, one being this unicorn …

    High up on the south wall are busts of Sir James Drax (died 1662) and his son John (died 1682). They come from the ‘lost’ church of St John Zachary which was destroyed in the Great Fire and not rebuilt …

    The Drax family were pioneers of the sugar industry (and slavery) in Barbados and apparently Drax Hall Plantation in St George, Barbados is the oldest surviving Jacobean mansion in the western hemisphere.

    St John Zachary may be no more but there is now very attractive and quiet garden where the church used to stand …

    You can read more about it here.

     

     

     

     

    City of London Ships (and a few boats)

    By

    On 12th July 2018

    In Architecture, Commerce, Water

    Last year London was voted ‘the world’s leading financial maritime city’. The City, the judges said, ‘is home to world leading institutions such as Lloyd’s for insurance, and English law is the most widely applied in shipping disputes.’ The maritime connection does, of course, go back centuries and I have found some of the ways it has been represented for this week’s blog.

    What better place to start than the Lloyd’s Register building at 71 Fenchurch Street EC3M 4BS.

    It became apparent as the 17th century progressed that a central register of ships was needed to record their size, condition and other qualities. As Lloyd’s of London flourished this information would be valuable not only for underwriters but also merchants. Original regularly published ‘ship lists’ eventually became Lloyd’s Register of Ships in 1760 and, when a ship owners list merged with it, Lloyd’s Register of Shipping was formed in 1834 (and still exists today). The building, by acclaimed architect Thomas Colcutt (1840-1924), was completed in December 1901 and has been described as an ‘impressive classical stone palazzo in the 16th Century Italian manner’.

    The building boasts not one but two ship weathervanes.

    Galleon under sail.

    Around the building elegant ladies protectively support various vessels …

     

    The interior was also designed to impress. I love this picture of the General Committee meeting in what was then their brand new building …

    The great and the good of Lloyd’s Register.

    The Union of Benefices Act 1860 was considered a necessary piece of legislation to reduce the number of parishes in the City of London as the residential population declined. Between 1872 and 1926 twenty churches (some by Sir Christopher Wren) were demolished and the land sold for construction projects.

    Artifacts from some of these churches were moved elsewhere and the pretty galleon weathervane from St Michael Queenhithe (demolished in 1875) can now be seen on St Nicholas Cole Abbey …

    114 Queen Victoria Street EC4V 4BJ .

    This picture, along with many others, appears in Hornak’s book After the Fire and more details are available here on the Spitalfield’s Life blog.

    This square rigged ship once sailed above St Mildred’s Poultry (demolished in 1872) and can now be seen atop St Olave’s Old Jewry, now inhabited by a firm of lawyers …

    St Olave’s Court EC2V 8EX. Photo again by Hornak.

    The Corporation of Trinity House was founded in 1514 and is now responsible for navigational aids (such as lighthouses), deep sea pilotage and a seafarers charity. The building was seriously damaged in the war but was beautifully restored in the 1950s and in the process acquired this elegant weathervane …

    Trinity House, Trinity Square EC3N 4DH.

    What about these jolly ships bouncing around in choppy seas on the front of The Ship pub in Hart Street (EC3R 7NB) …

    The facade includes a rather grumpy looking blue dolphin …

    And now a few boats. If you want to know the difference between a ship and a boat I suggest you access Professor Google since there seem to be a number of definitions.

    This Bawley fishing boat  is situated across the road from the old Billingsgate fish market (EC3R 6DX) and commemorates Gordon V. Young, a well-known Billingsgate trader …

    A plaque gives more information …

    The Company of Watermen and Lightermen was formed in 1555 – watermen carry passengers whilst lightermen carry goods and cargo. Tucked away down St Mary at Hill (EC3R 8EF) is their hall, the only original Georgian Livery Hall in the City. Their coat of arms portrays a skiff (a light rowing boat), crossed oars and two cushions for the comfort of passengers. And more dolphins …

    I have written about this ship before. If you go to Holland House in Bury Street (EC3A 5AW), just opposite the Gherkin, just walk around to the south east corner of the building, step back and admire this brave vessel plunging through the waves towards you, the funnel smoking impressively …

    It’s a granite structure by the Dutch artist J. Mendes da Costa.

    When Lloyd’s Register outgrew their old building at 71 Fenchurch Street a stunning new extension was build alongside and this sculpture, called Argosy, is in the front courtyard. The website tells us that ‘the water action of the sculpture adopts the Coanda principle where water clings to overhanging surfaces, moving downwards over the reflective surfaces in rollwave patterns. The shape is suggestive of a ship’s hull and has been conceived to be seen and enjoyed from both below and above from the nearby building’. It is very different from Mendes da Costa’s work, isn’t it?

    Sculpture by William Pye (2009).

    Incidentally, the courtyard it is in used to be the churchyard of St Catherine Coleman which was the last church to be demolished under the Union of Benefices Act (in 1926) – the old church railings are still there.

    Finally, let’s not forget the brave souls who protected the City and the country in time of war and the monuments to their memory.

    On Tower Hill there are two memorials. The first, the Mercantile Marine War Memorial, was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and was for the the First World War …

    The Lutyens Memorial, opposite Trinity House, EC3N 4DH.

    Alongside is the second, the Merchant Seamen’s Memorial. It was designed by Sir Edward Maufe and was for the Second World War. This is a feature from it …

    In both wars more than 50,700 Commonwealth merchant seamen lost their lives  and on Tower Hill are commemorated the more than 35,800 casualties who have no known grave.

    The National Submariners’ War Memorial is on Victoria Embankment (EC4Y 0HJ) and the bas relief shows the claustrophobic interior of a submarine. On the left hand side is a list of 50 submarines lost during the First World War, and on the right a list of 82 submarines lost during the Second World War. A photograph really does not do it justice …

    The monument was designed by the architect A H R Tenison and the bronze sculpture is by F B Hitch.

    And as we all know, a real ship now stands guard over the City. The most significant surviving Second World War Royal Navy warship, HMS Belfast played a key role in the Arctic Convoys, the Battle of North Cape and D-Day …

    You get a great view of her from the north bank.

     

     

    St Paul’s Cathedral from the outside – 18th century graffiti and posh pineapples.

    By

    On 5th July 2018

    In Architecture, Quirky, Religion, Wartime

    I decided to start my walk around the cathedral at the Great West Door, a very popular background for many tourist photographs. Maybe some are recalling the sequence in the film Mary Poppins (‘Feed the birds, tuppence a bag!’) or perhaps Princess Diana, emerging wearing her stunning wedding dress with its 25 foot train. Both can be viewed on YouTube.

    The Great West Door – only opened on very special occasions.

    I have, however, yet to see anyone look more closely at the surrounding stonework. If they did, they would encounter a fascinating collection of 18th century graffiti. They are very hard to see and extremely difficult to photograph so these are my best efforts.

    Names in cursive script overlap one another …

    Some are clearly dated …

    And it wasn’t just men leaving their mark …

    Elizabeth Ives was here (1760).

    ‘JH’ must have taken some time over this …

    And what about this bird with a bald human head?

    Maybe a pompous, plump supervisor who upset one of his apprentices?

    There are many, many inscriptions and they become more visible as your eyes get used to the light.

    If you now turn around and walk down the steps you can examine these fossils, embedded in the stone for over 5oo million years …

    You can read more about them in my blog Jurassic City.

    The first pineapple arrived in Europe courtesy of Christopher Columbus in 1493.  The strange fruit he brought back from Guadaloupe looked like a pine cone but the edible interior had the texture of an apple. Pineapples begin to rot as soon as they are picked, so supplies from overseas were rare, and they proved very difficult to cultivate. The forces of supply and demand drove up the 17th century price to the present day equivalent of £5,000 each – but you could rent one for your dinner party table centrepiece if you wanted to show off. They became associated with wealth, royalty and generous hospitality which, presumably, is why they were chosen as the decorative finials on the St Paul’s western towers. Their shape is aesthetically pleasing too.

    The gilded copper pineapples were modelled by Francis Bird (1677-1731), cast by Jean Tijou and completed in July 1708. Tijou was a French Huguenot ironworker about whom little else is known.

    You can see them most clearly from outside the tourist information centre across the road. They were cleaned and restored in 2003 and are covered with two layers of gold leaf (as are the numbers and hands of the clock face).

    Standing there you can also see the south porch of the cathedral and the centrepiece of the pediment, a phoenix rising from its own ashes above the word ‘RESURGAM’, a fitting symbol of the Cathedral and harking back to an earlier episode in its construction.

    The carving is by Caius Gabriel Cibber (1630-1700).

    When marking out foundations, Sir Christopher Wren asked a labourer to bring a stone to mark a particular spot. The man came back with a fragment of a broken tombstone on which was carved one word – RESURGAM – I shall rise again – and the architect never forgot this omen.

    St Paul’s has an abundance of cherubs …

    You can read more about the City’s cherubs in my earlier blog Charming Cherubs.

    On the north side is the Dean’s door …

    The carver was stonemason and architect Christopher Kempster (1627-1715).

    Kempster’s work on the cherub’s heads and foliage was considered so good Wren awarded him an extra £20 for ‘the extraordinary diligence and care used in the said carving and his good performance of the same’. When Kempster died at the age of 88 his son carved a cherub’s head for his memorial.

    Much restoration has had to be carried out on St Paul’s in view of both its age and the damage done by London’s polluted air. In the yard beside the cathedral you can see an example close up …

    A very eroded statue of St Andrew from the pediment of the south portico.

    The churchyard also contains a statue of St Paul …

    Over 30,000 Londoners died in the World War II air raids and they are commemorated by this understated monument outside the north transept.

    The inscriptions read …

    ‘In War, Resolution: In Defeat, Defiance: In Victory, Magnanimity: In Peace: Goodwill’

    And around the sides

    REMEMBER BEFORE GOD, THE PEOPLE OF LONDON 1939-1945

    The cathedral itself did not escape World War II bombing unscathed but several bomb hits (and numerous incendiary attacks) miraculously failed to seriously damage the dome. Virtually every other structure in the near vicinity was destroyed or had to be demolished.

    One is reminded how close St Paul’s came to destruction by these shrapnel scars still visible on the north wall …

    The cathedral’s north wall.

    In 1668, when Christopher Wren was commissioned to submit proposals for a new cathedral, he was only in his thirties. From then, until when the government declared the work finished on Christmas day 1711, he not only maintained his vision but also held together an incredibly varied body of people to a common purpose.

    He is thought of as a scientific genius and a great architect, but he was also a great man, with an understanding of other men and an ability to get more out of them than they knew they had in them.

    Dr Ann Saunders – historian and author

     

    Sir Christopher Wren as portrayed in stained glass at the church of St Lawrence Jewry …

    He is buried in a quiet corner of the cathedral crypt under a plain stone and an inscription which includes the words ‘Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice‘, usually translated as

    Reader, if you seek his memorial – look around you

     

     

     

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